House occupancy before 1850s

Portlaoise Pictures

How do I go about finding out who lived in a particular address in provincial Ireland before the time Of Griffith's Valuation? Thanks very much.

kildarejohn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058239823/house-occupancy-before-1850s

Probably not possible in most cases. Depends on a few factors, e.g. is it a big or small house, in a town/village or in the country, was it a business or just a residence? If you post some info then we might have some ideas.

Peregrinus

You're talking about a time before post office directories, before censuses, everything. For most homes, no record was kept anywhere of who occupied them. Locals knew who occupied them at the time; no-one else needed to know.

For a home large enough to be taxed - and that's a small minority of homes in Ireland at the time - the grand jury would have tax records which would disclose occupation. But they were pretty much all destroyed in the Public Record Office fire of 1922.

Portlaoise Pictures

Thanks to both of ye. The house was a large country house owned by the De Vesci family of Abbeyleix and, in 1850, leased by John Trench Pigott a member of a large landowning family in Laois. Would there be any point in visiting the Registry of Deeds in Dublin. Thanks for any help

Hermy

You can view images of the Registry of Deeds online at Family Search.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/185720?availability=Family%20History%20Library

pinkypinky

You could look at Lewis's Topographical Dictionary - it should mention big houses like that and dates from 1837.

Once you have a name for that date, you could try the Tithe Applotments to see if they were there then (1820s/30s).

kildarejohn

A house belonging to Trench Esq is shown near Ballynakill, east of Abby leix on Taylor & Skinner's 1777 map, see Taylor and Skinner - Road Maps of Ireland 1777 (swilson.info)