Why do so many DEDs have the same name in a given county?

BarraOG

I've noticed that for the 1901/1911 censuses that there are:

Two Ballyduff and two Ballyegan DEDs in Kerry.
Two Claudy DED's in Derry.
Two Ballinalack in W. Meath.
There are two DEDs in Kilkenny called Muckalee. One outside the city and one in the south of the county. Isn't that weird?
Two Gorteen DED's in Offaly.
Two Clogher DEDs in Mayo.
Two Clooneys and two Kilmurry DEDs in Clare.
Two Clonea in Waterford.
Two Ballykeel in Down.
Donegal has two DEDs called Gleneely and two called Aughrim.
Two Enagh in Monaghan.
Two Whitechurch in Wexford.
and I'm sure there are more as I gave up checking...

So, if we look at this page in the census:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Galway/Cloonkeen/
The townlands cover three different DEDs, which I find very confusing...

Now I understand that there is an intermediary district between county and ded which explains things - is it called barony? But is it just a coincidence that so many deds have the same name?

pinkypinky

Townland - a varying number of acres
Parish (civil) - a varyingly sized group of townlands
Barony - varyingly sized group of parishes

DEDs are a separate division used only for the census and polling.
I wonder is it to do with the size of a location - divided up some it was easier to canvas for the census enumerators?

Victor

pinkypinky wrote: »

DEDs are a separate division used only for the census and polling.
I wonder is it to do with the size of a location - divided up some it was easier to canvas for the census enumerators?

Enumerators use enumeration areas. DEDs / EDs only come into play when publishing the results of the census.

If I'm correct, DEDs were designed to balance population and area (and possibly rateable value) and were the building blocks of the defunct urban and rural district councils.

Earnest

Victor wrote: »

Enumerators use enumeration areas. DEDs / EDs only come into play when publishing the results of the census.

If I'm correct, DEDs were designed to balance population and area (and possibly rateable value) and were the building blocks of the defunct urban and rural district councils.

As I understand it, total rateable value was the criterion. And they were drawn up for the Poor Law Unions and subsequently used for rural district councils. In rural areas they are still, I believe, the same. In urban areas there have been changes.

Since they were designed for Poor Law Unions (Superintendent Registrars' Districts have the same boundaries) there was no reason why DEDs in separate PLUs should not have the same name.

BarraOG

Isn’t it funny though that there is only one townland in all of Ireland with the name Muckalee, yet two deds have this name in Co. Kilkenny.

BarraOG

Likewise only one townland called Ballinalack yet there are two deds with this name in Westmeath.

BarryD2

You might as well ask why so many townlands or villages etc have the same names. Names like Gorteen and Clooney etc are two a penny

BarraOG

I wonder if there are any deds with the same name in the same county which also contain a townland with the same name... that would make a bit of a cod of the census website as you wouldn’t be able to tell which of the two townlands a given person came from...

For example if the two gorteen deds in Galway both contained a Clooney townland.

BarraOG

According to townlands.ie each of the two Ballyegan deds in Kerry contain Ballyegan townlands. I wonder if this was the case in 1901 and if so what does this page represent: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Kerry/Ballyegan/Ballyegan/

Vetch

BarraOG wrote: »

Isn’t it funny though that there is only one townland in all of Ireland with the name Muckalee, yet two deds have this name in Co. Kilkenny.

There are two civil parishes with this name in Kilkenny.

Vetch

BarraOG wrote: »

Likewise only one townland called Ballinalack yet there are two deds with this name in Westmeath.

Is one of these two Bellanalack? http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014/si/68/made/en/print

Townland of the same name as well.

The names of the DEDs may occur somewhere in local names, maybe not always the townland.

BarraOG

Ballinalack and Ballanalack are the official names it would seem but they are combined into the same page in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Westmeath/Ballinalack/

with townlands called: Ballinalack, Ballinalock and Bellanalack. So there isn't actually two Ballinalack in Westmeath.

tabbey

Electoral Divisions (ED) were created with the poor law unions for election of guardians and levying of rates according the expense of each division.

With the creation of Rural Districts and Urban Districts under the 1898 Local Government Act, electoral divisions were renamed District Electoral Divisions (DED). Hence this is the title in the censuses of 1901 and 1911.

If we had the censuses of 1891, 81, 71 etc, you would see the areas listed as EDs.

They have nothing to do with baronies, which incidentally were abolished under the Act of 1898.