Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (14 page)

coadjutor
. A deputy or assistant Catholic bishop with particular responsibility for temporal matters.

cob wall
. A wall constructed of clay and straw. Also known as a mud wall or daub.

cocket
. 1: The certificate sealed and delivered by customs officers to merchants certifying that goods had been duly entered and duty paid 2: Customs duty 3: The custom house 4: The custom of every
last
of hides.

coibhche
. (Ir.) A brideprice paid to the family of the bride, a practice which died out in the sixteenth century and was replaced by the payment of a dowry by the bride's family to the husband.

coercion acts
. Although coercion acts were employed in earlier centuries, the term usually refers to the emergency powers employed by government in the nineteenth century to restrict agitation and maintain law and order. These included restrictions on movement and the possession of arms, the suspension of
habeas corpus
, the proclamation of disturbed districts, the imposition of curfews, the extraction of levies to compensate for outrages and the additional cost of policing and the suppression of assemblies and publications. Coercion acts were usually accompanied by procedural changes in the courts. The Suppression of Disturbances Act (1833) provided for trial by military courts and for three years from 1882 a panel of three judges sat to hear specific cases of disorder. Coercion acts, later known as ‘Prevention of Crime Acts', operated concurrently with the ordinary law and remained in place into the early years of the twentieth century. (Leadham,
Coercive
.)

coffin ship
. Coffin ships were usually converted cargo vessels employed on the emigrant routes to north America during the Great Famine. Lax regulations coupled with poor shipboard conditions led to considerable mortality during the Atlantic crossing, notoriously so on ships leaving Cork and Liverpool for Canada. In 1847 over one-sixth of 100,000 Quebec-bound passengers died at sea or upon arrival. Shipboard mortality was largely a result of ‘ship fever' which multiplied in the stinking holds among emigrants already weakened by the famine. Mortality declined when stricter regulations were introduced to govern the transatlantic trade.

Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh.
Compiled in the twelfth century,
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh
is an account in narrative and verse form of the Norse invasion and the resistance to that invasion offered by the Uí Briain dynasty of Munster. Styled by one commentator as ‘the official biography of Brian Boruma',
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh
is a clever piece of propaganda on behalf of the Uí Briain, concluding as it does with Boruma's rout of the Norse at Clontarf in 1014. It was written for Boruma's grandson, Muircheartach, and deals largely with events that occurred in the southern half of the country. (Todd,
Cogadh Gaedhel
.)

cognate
. A person who is related on the maternal side.
See
agnate.

cognomen
. In Catholic marriage registers, the surnames of the couple.

collar beam
.
See
cruck.

collate
. To institute a clergyman to a benefice.

collation
. A light meal taken on fast days.

collative
. An office which is conferred or bestowed.

collodio-type
. A photograph produced on glass by the collodium process.

collop
. (Ir.,
colpach
) Land subject to grazing rights known as collop rights. A collop was the grazing unit for a mature animal. It was equivalent to one horse or two cows or one cow and two yearling calves, six sheep or 10 goats or 20 geese. The number of cattle included in a collop varied from place to place as the word signifies the number an Irish acre of average quality could support.
See
soum, stinting.

colophon
. An inscription placed at the end of a book or manuscript providing some details relevant to its production, usually the name of the writer or scribe, the location and the dates of beginning and completion.

combination
. A radical eighteenth- and nineteenth-century body of workers who combined to agitate on wages and conditions of employment.

comitatus
. In medieval Latin documents, refers to the
sheriff
.

Commentarius Rinuccinianus
. A pro-Old Irish (Gaelic) account of the mission of the papal nuncio, Archbishop Rinuccini, following his accreditation to the Catholic confederate government in Kilkenny in 1645. It was written by the Capuchins Daniel O'Connell and Barnabas O'Ferrall between 1661 and 1666 and was based on contemporary documents including the
nuncio
'
s and other letters, memoirs, reports and petitions.
See
Catholic Confederacy, cessation. (O'Connell and O'Ferrall,
Commentarius
.)

Commercial Propositions
. In 1785 at the instigation of William Pitt, Thomas Orde, the Irish chief secretary, attempted to bring forward measures to place Ireland and England on practically an equal footing with regard to trade. Trade between the two countries would be free of import duties and restrictions and Ireland would be free to engage in trade throughout the empire. In return Ireland was to contribute support for the navy. By the time the proposals were placed before parliament, however, they had been extended from 11 to 20 resolutions and were hamstrung by so many qualifications and restrictions that Orde withdrew them after a first reading in the Irish house of commons. The question of free trade resurfaced in later years as a lure to seduce members to vote for the
Act of Union
. (Kelly,
Prelude
, pp. 76–187.)

commonfield
. An agricultural field system consisting of fragmented or interspersed individual holdings (including intermixed demesne land) in large arable fields which operated throughout Leinster, Tipperary and Limerick prior to the widespread enclosures initiated between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the land, held of the manorial lord for rents and labour services, was left fallow every couple of years and tenants enjoyed the associated rights of common grazing after harvest and during fallow periods. The term is often used interchangeably with ‘openfield'.
See
course, rundale.

commonplace book
. A book in which memorabilia or striking passages are recorded.

common pleas
. Ordinary pleas between commoners.

common pleas, court of
. The court assigned to resolve civil disputes or common law actions between individuals as opposed to those which involved the crown. It emerged from the
curia regis
or king's court which peregrinated with the king (in Ireland with the
justiciar
) through the country. In England the differentiation in function followed
Magna Carta
which required civil jurisdiction to be administered at a designated place. Shortly afterwards the court began to maintain separate
rolls
and by the end of the thirteenth century was assigned a chief justice. In Ireland in the thirteenth century when the itinerant justices sat in Dublin to hear common pleas the court was known as the bench or common bench. The title court of common pleas was adopted after the English model. Land disputes were the staple of common pleas and it was here that the fictitious cases of
fine
and
recovery
were enrolled. Under the Supreme Court of
Judicature Act
(1877) and later acts the courts system was rationalised. Initially common pleas, along with
chancery
, queen's bench, exchequer and probate and matrimonial came under the umbrella of the high court but by the close of the century common pleas,
exchequer
, probate and matrimonial were amalgamated with queen's bench, leaving a high court division of just chancery and queen's bench.

Common Prayer, Book of
. The liturgical book used by members of the Anglican churches. Primarily the work of Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury,
The First Prayer Book
of Edward VI was introduced in 1549. Pressure from reformers forced a radical revision of text and ceremonies in 1552. After a period of suppression during the reign of Queen Mary it was restored by Elizabeth under the 1560
Act of Uniformity
which made its use mandatory by all clergymen. The first Irish-language version appeared in 1608. English puritans maintained a long struggle to have all traces of Romanist influence excised from the prayer book and succeeded in having some alterations made. The parliamentary victory in the English civil war resulted in the proscription of the
Book of Common Prayer
but at the Restoration it was once again reinstated and revised. This revision was adopted in Ireland with the passage of the 1666 Act of Uniformity. In Ireland additional revisions were made in 1878, 1926, 1933, and a new liturgy, the
Alternative Prayer Book
, was introduced in 1984.
See
revision.

commons
. The eating of dinners together by the members of the inns of court.

commons, house of
.
See
parliament.

Commonwealth
. The era of republican government which dated from the execution of Charles I in 1649 to the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

commutation
. The substitution of a fixed money payment for service or dues in kind.

composition
(1575–95). Inspired by the views of Edmund Tremayne, clerk of the
privy council
, composition was an attempt to extend civil order under the crown, remove the military power of provincial lords and make local garrisons self-supporting by abolishing
coyne and livery
(the means by which the lords maintained their armies) and
cess
(which paid for government forces within the
Pale
). In Connacht and Munster these exactions were commuted to rents payable to the provincial president who would forego the traditional impositions of purveyance, military service and billeting of troops on the country and maintain a standing army to keep the peace. The idea was to transform the local warlords into landlords and it was hoped, once they compounded, that they in turn would compound with lesser lords and a more civil society would emerge. In 1575 Sidney, the lord deputy, offered to abolish cess within the Pale in return for composition but the Palesmen were already in dispute about the extra-parliamentary nature of cess impositions and rejected it, agreeing only to a single payment of £2,000. Ten years later Perrot tried to enforce a permanent composition but, although two further payments were made in 1584 and 1586, resistance to the proposal led to its demise. In 1577 composition was imposed on Munster and Connacht but was overtaken in Munster by the outbreak of the Desmond rebellion and the subsequent plantation. In Connacht composition collapsed with the death in 1583 of the president, Sir Nicholas Malby, but a revised, more moderate version was successfully re-introduced by Perrot in 1585. By a series of indentures agreed between the lord deputy and the leading lords in Connacht, all government impositions were abolished in return for an annual rent of ten shillings per
quarter
(120 acres) of profitable inhabited land. The lords, in turn, agreed to forego traditional exactions on lesser lords and were compensated by annual rents. Succession was to be determined by
primogeniture
rather than
tanistry
. Under Sir Richard Bingham, the provincial president, composition yielded a profit yet Bingham governed the province harshly. The insistence on primogeniture caused little difficulty in Thomond or Clanrickard where it was already accepted but it led to revolts elsewhere which were brutally crushed. The Nine Years War interrupted the collection of the rents thereby disabling the presidency and reducing its effectiveness.
See
provincial council. (Cunningham, ‘The composition', pp. 1–14; Ellis,
Ireland
, pp. 304– 309, 322–325; Freeman,
The compossicion
.)

compurgation, trial by
. In civil cases in medieval times, trial by oath rather than by an assessment of the evidence. The jury decided for or against the defendant according to the number of men (usually 12) who would swear an oath that the oath the defendant had taken was true or that he was innocent. The oath takers, effectively character witnesses, were known as compurgators. To modern eyes this mode of procedure appears ridiculous but that is to overlook the grave consequences associated with false oath-taking in earlier times and the difficulty of assembling so many willing perjurers.

comyn
. (Ir.,
comaoin
, recompense) Through military activities a Gaelic lord might acquire a large herd of cattle which he hired out among members of the sept in return for rent and other exactions such as
coshiering, coyne and livery
, cessing of
kerne
and
rising out
. This process implies that a lord and vassal relationship was created. Comyn was analogous to the practice of commendation in Europe whereby a man placed himself under the protection of a powerful lord but without surrendering his status or estate and may point to the inchoate development of feudalism itself. Comyn was outlawed in 1610 to sunder the relationship between Irish lords and their vassals.

conacre
. Originally corn acre, conacre ground (ranging in size from one quarter of an acre to two acres) was prepared at the owner's expense and let to labourers or small-holders at high rents on eleven month tenures. Land exhausted by over-cropping was let in conacre at lower rates on condition that the cottier manured it for a potato crop. This was doubly beneficial to the owner in that he received the conacre rent and was spared the expense of making the land fit to yield a corn crop in the next year. The price was subject to change in a competitive market and payment was in the form of cash or labour services.

concealed lands
. Lands deemed to be illegally withheld from the crown after the dissolution of the monasteries, after forfeiture by outlawry or after crown leases had lapsed. Concealed lands amounted to a revenue loss for the crown and from the 1580s the administration attempted to search out and resume them. This created widespread unease because it encouraged adventurers to make minute examinations of land titles or discover long-forgotten royal titles in the hope of acquiring cheap leases. Four commissions for
defective titles
were conducted in the seventeenth century to enable landholders to obtain clean titles. (O'Dowd, ‘Irish', pp. 69–173.)