Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (19 page)

Defenders
. A Catholic network of secret societies that emerged in Armagh in the early 1780s to resist the disarming raids by the Protestant
Peep O'Day Boys
and whose activities were largely concentrated in south Ulster, north Leinster and north Connacht. The Defenders were associated with the
United Irishmen
and participated in the 1798 rebellion. Very little is known about the structure of the society although it appears to have had a regional and national dimension which other secret agrarian movements lacked. Ideologically, the Defenders appear to have combined a mixture of agrarian, religious,
tithe
and
county cess
grievances with broader concerns and were influenced by the French Revolution and the activities of organised Catholic groups like the
Catholic Committee
.
See
Ribbonism. (Bartlett, ‘Defenders', pp. 373–94; Garvin,
The evolution
, pp. 27–9, 37–9.)

deforcement
. The forcible dispossession or withholding of property or goods from the rightful owner.

delegates, court of
. A post-Reformation innovation comprising a commission of delegates appointed by the
lord chancellor
to hear and determine ecclesiastical appeals formerly made to Rome. It was inaugurated in 1537 by the Act of Appeals (28 Hen. VIII, c. 6) which outlawed appeals to Rome and survived as a court of appeals in matrimonial and ecclesiastical causes until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869. The court of delegates lost its appellate role in testamentary cases in 1856 when the civil court of
probate
was established with appeals to the court of appeals in chancery.
See
prerogative and faculties, court of.

demesne
. Land held by the manorial lord and not set out to tenants. It was farmed by tenants owing labour services and by hired labour. Leasehold was first used on demesne land and became a lucrative source of income for the lord because it was not circumscribed by the
custom of the mano
r. It could be leased at its true market value and was subject to reviews. In leasing demesne land the lord no longer required labour services. Rather than forego this right, labour services were commuted to a cash payment known as
quit-rent
.

demi-jures. Sheriff's peers
, 48 of whom sat in the lower house or commons of Dublin corporation together with 96 councillors elected by the
guilds
of the city.

demise
. 1: To lease 2: The lease itself.

demurrer
. A defendant's assertion during trial that does not deny the veracity of the allegation against him but that the allegation in itself is not sufficient to justify the legal action.

denisation, grant of.
A grant of naturalisation under letters
patent
.

deodand
. (L.,
Deo dandum
, a thing to be given to God) In medieval law a horse, cart or any personal chattel that caused the death of a person. It was forfeited to the crown and used for pious or charitable purposes to appease the deity.

deposition
. A sworn statement.

depositions of 1641
. Thirty-two volumes of depositions taken from (largely Protestant) eyewitnesses to events dating from the outbreak of rebellion in Ulster in 1641 until the pacification of the country in 1652. Some of the material is clearly hearsay and fanciful but many deponents provide detailed and highly localised accounts of the events they had witnessed or endured. The collection is held in Trinity College, Dublin.

deprivation
. The revocation of a benefice by an
ecclesiastical cour
t for offences committed against clerical discipline.

deputy-lieutenant
. The chief governor of Ireland was styled deputy-lieutenant when the nominated lieutenant was in a minority. If the lieutenant was a member of the royal family he usually remained in England and nominated a deputy in his stead.

derbfine
. (Ir., true kin) The kin group, all of whose members have descended through the male line. It was from this group that the
tánaiste
or heir to the lord was chosen.
See
Brehon law.

Derricke, John
. An English engraver whose
Image of Ireland
(1581) contains 12 heavily-prejudiced representations of life in Ireland in the later sixteenth century. Each image is accompanied by a verse composition which denigrates the Irish or extols Lord Deputy Sidney. The images include representations of a native Irish cattle-raid, a Gaelic lord feasting on the fruits of the raid, Sidney leaving Dublin Castle, a Sidney victory over the Irish and Gaelic lords on their knees before him.

destrier
. A war-horse or charger.

detinue
. 1: An action at common law for the recovery of a personal chattel (or its value) which had been wrongfully detained. The action could be taken for the recovery of the actual property (
replevin
) or for its market value (
trover
) 2: The illegal detention of a personal chattel from another.

de Tocqueville, Alexis
(1805–59). French nobleman, scholar and author of
Democracy in America
, de Tocqueville spent six weeks in Ireland in July and August 1835 with his friend Gustave de Beaumont. During his brief stay his travels took him south to Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Cork and then along the west coast from Killarney to Galway from whence he returned to Dublin. The Frenchmen attended assizes, interviewed Catholic and Protestant clergymen and visited Newport Pratt, Co. Mayo, where they encountered a whole population dying from starvation. De Tocqueville's writing on Ireland is dominated by three themes: poverty, the hatred of the poor for the gentry and the deep bond between the poor and the Catholic church. (Larkin,
Alexis de Tocqueville
.)

Devon Commission
(1843). A royal commission of inquiry into the state of law and practice in relation to land in Ireland. It was prompted by William Sharman Crawford's unsuccessful bid in 1835 to introduce legislation to compensate evicted tenants for improvements they had made. Robert Peel established the commission to inquire into the occupation of land in Ireland. As the commissioners consisted of Irish landlords they were unlikely to advance a radical programmes of change in the system of tenure but they did confirm the benefits of
tenant-right
in those areas where it prevailed. They recommended the introduction of a bill to give tenants compensation for improvements but it was defeated in parliament when introduced by Stanley in 1845. The establishment of the Devon Commission represented the first time in which the Irish landed system as a whole was placed in the area of reform. Its report is extremely valuable to local historians for it contains detailed interrogations of landlords and farmers on conditions in the localities. (Devon.)

dexter
. In heraldry, the right hand of a shield from the point of view of the person bearing it.

dicker
. A pack of ten hides.

dignity
. A cathedral office such as
dean, chancellor
or
prebendary
. These offices were greatly prized for they were often supported by the income of several parishes and the emoluments could be considerable.

Dignitas Decani
. A sixteenth-century
chartulary
which contains a collection of charters, papal bulls, royal letters, patents, acts of parliament, episcopal correspondence and deeds pertaining to the dean and chapter of St Patrick's Cathedral. (White,
The ‘Dignitas Decani'
.)

dillisk
. Dulse, an edible seaweed.

dinnshenchas
. Placelore.

diocesan schools
. Diocesan schools were introduced by 12 Eliz., c. 1 (1570) which enacted that ‘there shall be henceforth a free school within every diocese of this realm of Ireland and that the school-master shall be an Englishman or of the English birth of this realm'. Little came of this initiative and by 1791 only 18 of the 34 Protestant dioceses had fulfilled the legislative requirement. Their impact was insignificant for they had in all but 324 pupils enrolled. By 1809 the number of diocesan schools had declined to 17 and by 1831 only 12 were operating.
The Irish Church Act
(1869) protected the life interest of the diocesan schoolmasters but an amending act in 1872 – which permitted them to commute their interest – effectively terminated the diocesan school system. (Diocesan Schools; Akenson,
The Irish education experiment
, pp. 25–7; Quinn, ‘The diocesan schools', pp. 26–31.)

diocese
. The district or jurisdiction of a bishop. Irish dioceses derive from three twelfth-century synods, Cashel (1101), Rathbreasail (1111) and Kells (1152), which reshaped the ecclesiastical administration of Ireland along continental lines. Thus the largely monastic basis of administration was replaced by a structure which consisted of four provinces (Armagh, Cashel, Kells and Dublin) each of which was an archbishopric and 22 dioceses. These remained unchanged in the Church of Ireland until the nineteenth century when the
Church Temporalities Act
reduced the number of archbishoprics to two (Dublin and Armagh) and ten bishoprics were united with their neighbours. After the Reformation the Catholic church found it difficult to maintain an episcopal structure within the area controlled by the Dublin administration. Under the direction and supervision of Rome, absent bishops were replaced by regulars and regular clergy performed diocesan tasks that were normally the remit of the seculars. By 1630 nearly every diocese had a resident ecclesiastical authority in the form of a bishop. In the second half of the century many sees fell as a consequence of the Confederate rebellion, the Williamite war and the Banishment Act of 1697 (9 Will. III, c. 1) and it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that an effective diocesan administration along episcopal lines emerged.

direct-entry house
. A house with a front door opening directly into the living space at the opposite end of the room to the hearth. Direct-entry houses were typically features of the western half of the country.
See
hearth-lobby house, jamb.

directory
. A listing of names and addresses. The first small-scale Irish trade and commercial directories appeared in the eighteenth century. Over time they expanded to incorporate the legal and clerical professions, the gentry, government and municipal officials and a host of other occupations. Specialised ecclesiastical and medical directories appeared in the nineteenth century and street-by-street listings of householders were carried by publications such as Alexander Thom's annual
Irish Almanac and Official Directory
which appeared in 1844. Directories often contain notes on the history, topography, economic development and administrative structure of towns as well as lists of the principal inhabitants and professional and business people. The best collection of Irish directories can be found in the National Library of Ireland. (ffolliott and Begley, ‘Guide to Irish directories', pp. 75–106.)

discoverer
. An amending act (8 Anne c. 3, 1709) to the 1704 ‘popery act' (2 Anne, c. 6) introduced the discoverer who was enabled to obtain possession of a Catholic's land where he could show that there had been an evasion of the penal land laws. In practice the majority of discoveries were collusive actions agreed between Catholic landowners and Protestant intimates to secure an estate from hostile discoverers but families were often riven by the activities of discoverers within.
See
Penal Laws.

discovery
. The pre-trial disclosure of facts or documents pertaining to a court action.

Disestablishment
.
See
Irish Church Act.

dispensary
. Privately funded local health centres first appeared in the eighteenth century to provide health care for the poor, maternity facilities and inoculations. Their numbers grew after 1805 (45 Geo. III, c. 110–111) when provision was made for partial funding by local subscription and matching
grand jury
grants. Subscribers were entitled to issue tickets to the sick to enable them to attend the dispensary where a medical officer was employed to provide free medical attention and medicines. By 1840 there were over 600 in operation, supported by the provision of an infirmary and fever hospital in each county. In 1851 responsibility for the dispensaries was transferred from the grand juries to the
poor law unions
under the Medical Charities Act (14 & 15 Vict., c. 68). The
poor relief
act of the same year laid upon the boards of guardians of each poor law union the duty of dividing their union into dispensary districts, in each of which a local committee comprising poor law guardians and
ex-officio
guardians were to maintain a dispensary and appoint and pay a medical officer. Under the 1898
Local Government (Ireland) Act
dispensary committees were abolished and their duties placed in the hands of the boards of guardians. In the 1920s the dispensary network came under the control of boards of health and public assistance and from 1942 the county councils assumed responsibility for their maintenance and upkeep.

dissenter
. A person who dissented from or opted out of the established church, the Church of Ireland. Dissenters did not conform to Anglicanism or subscribe to its forms of worship and so are also known as nonconformists. Included among the dissenting tradition were
Presbyterians, Baptists, Independents, Quakers, Huguenots, Moravians
and
Methodists
. Although the term dissenter is usually understood to embrace non-Anglican Protestants, Catholics were also technically dissenters and all ultimately became liable to the
penal laws
.

dissolution
. Initiated in 1537 as part of Henry VIII's ecclesiastical reforms, the dissolution of the monasteries in Ireland led to the closure and confiscation of about 130 houses by the close of the century. Dissolution was both a means of extending the Henrician reformation – the monastic
regular
orders remained loyal to papal authority and opposed Henry – and an instrument for increasing royal revenue. The blow was softened by the granting of life pensions to members of religious houses (but not to mendicants) and the passage of relevant legislation was facilitated by sweeteners to the Old English gentry in the form of additional land grants. Major beneficiaries included senior administrators such as the lords deputy, Leonard Grey and Anthony St Leger, and about 20 New English settlers. The suppression was not a cataclysmic event for monastic life was already in decline and the bulk of Irish monasteries remained untouched, located as they were in areas under native Irish control beyond the compass of central administration. Nor did it turn out to be a revenue cash cow for less than £2,000 accrued to the exchequer from the dissolution. (Bradshaw,
The dissolution
; Mac Niocaill,
Crown survey
; White,
Extents of Irish
.)