tithes county clare

[matthewmacnamara]

Would any person know how tithes were calculated in Clare or in parts of it?
Was it on all land occupied, or only on cultivated land?
In other words does the acreage noted in the case of a person in the
Tithe Applotment Books constitute the entire acreage occupied by him/her in that townland
or only some of it?

[Lucille]

That's a really interesting query. John Grenham (Tracing Your Irish Ancestors) says

"... the tax was not payable on all land; the exemptions produced spectacular inequalities. In parts of Munster tithes were payable on potato patches but not on grassland, with the result that the poorest had to pay most... they omit anyone not in occupation of land ... certain categories of land, varying from area to area, are simply passed over in silence."

However in introducing the topic of the Tithes he says "it was necessary to carry out a valuation of the entire country, civil parish by civil parish."

So all land was surveyed and valued, but was it recorded in the Tithe books if it was exempted? Which was your question!

Lucille

[matthewmacnamara]

Your reply much appreciated Lucille.

Griffith's Valuation gives an acreage for each townland.
This can be compared to the aggregate of the acres tithed in the same townland
twenty or more years earlier.
I am doing such comparisons at the moment.
Prima facie, in the case of some townlands in Meelick there appears to be an
acreage discrepancy.
An operational problem here is that the Tithe Applotment books that I have seen for the Meelick
and Coonagh areas do not always list by townland.

[smcarberry]

Yes, this is a good question. There is an expert with a published article (see screenshot, also showing his Griffiths Valuation publications). The aim of the tithe system of the 1820s were landholders, so the concept should have extended to all land subject to deeds and leases. Note also that the surveys were not well done, as noted by the author Baker (the other screenshot).

Maybe you will find more on this and post again. Most of the guidebooks take the approach that if you find someone in the Applotment records, lucky you. I believe that there is no aggregation of each individual's total tithe assessment, parish by parish (not in the books published as the Tithe Applotment records, although there may have been some other Parliamentary reports developed for that purpose).

Sharon Carberry

Reilly's books on Tithe Applotment.jpg (39.39 KiB) Viewed 20252 times

Baker on Tihe Applotment usefulness.jpg (34.37 KiB) Viewed 20252 times

[matthewmacnamara]

Many thanks SMCarberry.

The Tithe Applotment Book for the Civil Parish of Saint Nicholas [that includes part of
the North Liberties of Limerick] assesses land as one of five classes:
First class, second class etc

How this categorization was arrived at I do not know.

[Sduddy]

I think the acres in Tithes were Irish acres, whereas the acres in Griffiths are statute acres. One Irish acre is equal to about 1.62 acres (according to Wikipedia).

Sheila

[matthewmacnamara]

Many thanks Sheila.

This very significant fact had escaped me.
I intend to continue my investigation.

[Lucille]

This topic is really intriguing me!

I don't know the provenance of this site http://www.genealogy.com/ifa/co_cd262.html but it seems very coherent. Read particularly the section on 'Assessing the Tithe'.

If the assessors were members of the select vestry or their ilk they were not going to go out and measure the land accurately. They would have been using existing maps, many of which were inaccurate and known to be so - that was one of the reasons for the extensive mapping done by Richard Griffith prior to his Valuation. This could account for the discrepancies you have found in the acreage.

Lucille

[mcreed]

Some snippets from the web:

"Only productive land was subject to tithe, and the [tithe applotment] books usually distinguish between this tithable land and untithable land such as roads or mountains... Only rural areas are systematically covered, although inhabitants of towns who held plots of cultivable land are included. The equivalent tax in urban areas, Minister’s Money, has left few records."
http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarc ... utmore.jsp

"Because the tithe was payable only by those who worked on gricultural land, you may not find your ancestors included. Those labourers who worked on agricultural land owned by the Church were exempt."
http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/ ... books.html

[matthewmacnamara]

The Tithe Applotment Book for the Civil Parish of Killeely that covers most of
Meelick and Coonagh, straddling Clare and Limerick. notes that the acres counted
are measured as English acres.

[Lucille]

I was in the National Archives in Dublin this morning so I decided to put your original question to the Archivist on duty. She didn't know so consulted a colleague - who equally hadn't a clue (didn't quite put it like that!). What I did get from them is that the legislation underpinning the Applotment is the 1823 Tithes Composition Act.

This is available at http://eppi.dippam.ac.uk/documents/9611, all 33 pages of it! There are also a further three amended versions, all on the eppi site.

Good luck

Lucille