Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (44 page)

partible inheritance
. A custom similar to
gavelkind
by which land was subdivided equally between the male heirs.

paruchia
. By the seventh century Christian Ireland was administered by networks of monasteries (
paruchiae
) supervised by abbots, a structure which superseded, and was later superseded by, an episcopally-dominated diocesan system.
See
diocese.

passage grave
. Dating from c. 4500 bc, most passage graves consist of a stone-lined passage leading to a corbelled chamber grave, the whole being covered by a round cairn. Undifferentiated passage-graves are simpler in form, comprising but a passage which also served as a burial chamber. In excess of 300 have been found in Ireland, mostly located in groups on hills in the east but also in counties Sligo and Antrim. Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, all overlooking the river Boyne, are elaborate passage graves, with side and end chambers creating a cruciform effect. (Herity,
Irish passage graves
.)

passim
. (L.,
passim
, in various places) Used in footnotes to refer to material that can be found here and there throughout the cited source.

Pastorini
. The pseudonym of the English Catholic bishop, Charles Walmsley. His
General History of the Christian Church
contained a millenarian analysis of the
Book of Revelations
which claimed that a violent destruction of the Protestant churches would occur in 1825. Published in 1771, the book achieved a massive circulation through cheap copies and digests from 1817 in Munster and Leinster. Its popularity is thought to relate to the typhus epidemic of 1816–17 and the poor harvests and declining social conditions of the early 1820s. Pastorini millenarianism influenced the Rockite movement. (Donnelly, ‘Pastorini', pp. 102–39; O'Farrell, ‘Millenialism', pp. 45–68.)

patent, letters patent
. A royal writ, the instrument by which land, rights, office and privileges were granted. Patents are so called because the grant begins with the words
Litterae patente
(open letters). They were open grants available for inspection by all, unlike
close
letters which were folded and sealed and to be opened only by those to whom they were directed. They issued from
chancery
, the secretarial office of government which held the authenticating great
seal
, and are recognisable because the great seal hangs from the bottom. Contained within the patent are the grounds on which the monarch was induced to make the grant together with the nature, extent and tenure of the grant and attendant conditions and penalties. The issuing of letters patent was a complex and often lengthy task. It was initiated upon receipt by the lord deputy of a king's letter directing him to make a grant of land to a certain specified value or some office or right to a named individual. In the case of land grants the first requirement was to locate a tract of land in crown hands to the value expressed in the letter. A copy of the king's letter was sent to the
surveyor-general
who examined his records and requested the escheator to conduct an
inquisition
. The results of the inquisition were submitted to the auditor general in the
exchequer
as a warranty against fraud and then forwarded to chancery. In the interim the lord deputy sent the king's letter to the
attorney-general
requiring him to draft a fiant (an instruction under the privy seal) to the chancellor to make a grant of land worth so much to the named individual. In chancery fiant and inquisition were put together to form a patent, the great seal was affixed and dispatched to the grantee. The issuing of patents conferring rights, privileges and office was altogether a simpler affair. Although it too could be preceded by an inquisition (see
inquisition ad quod damnum
), the normal procedure involved the delivery of the king's letter to the attorney-general who directed a fiant to chancery to issue a patent under the great seal. Until the seventeenth century letters patent were not required to be enrolled on the patent rolls unless this was specified as a condition of the grant but in any case it was a security to have it enrolled and on record. The original patent rolls, fiants and inquisitions were destroyed in 1922 but nineteenth-century calendars have survived. (Erck,
A repertory
; Griffith,
Calendar of inquisitions
;
Inquisitionum in officio
;
The Irish fiants;
Morrin,
The patent rolls
;
PRI rep. DK
, Appendices to 7–9, 11–13, 15–18, 21.)

‘patriot parliament'
(1689). The name given by Charles Gavan Duffy to the predominantly Old English Catholic parliament convened by James II in Dublin on 7 May 1689. This short-lived assembly asserted the independence of Ireland and attempted to roll back the mid-century confiscations and land settlements by repealing the Acts of
Settlement
(1662) and
Explanation
(1665). It opened with only six Protestant representatives in attendance in the commons out of a total of 230 members and immediately set about undoing the settlements. An act of attainder was passed attainting almost all Protestant landholders in the country. It was accompanied by an act for liberty of conscience together with legislation for the recovery of waste lands, for the improvement of trade, shipping and navigation and for the establishment of marine schools in the ports. Parliament asserted its independence of the English parliament and forbade appeals from Irish courts to the English house of lords. All came to nought within two years, however, when the Williamite cause triumphed in Ireland. In 1695 the ‘patriot parliament' was declared illegal, its acts were annulled and the records of its proceedings were destroyed. (Farrell, ‘The patriot parliament'.)

‘patriot' party
. A loose grouping of eighteenth-century Irish parliamentarians, including Henry Grattan, Henry Flood, Sir William Osborne, Charles Lucas, Gerard Hamilton and the duke of Leinster, which sought to achieve legislative independence for the Irish parliament. They claimed that only the king, lords and commons of Ireland could legally and constitutionally legislate for Ireland and that the power of the privy councils of Ireland and England to amend or reject bills originating in the Irish parliament was unconstitutional. They wanted to establish an independent judiciary, root out corruption and bribery in the administration and parliament, terminate the monopolisation of church and state offices by Englishmen and have a permanent
habeas corpus
act enacted. In the area of commerce they believed that restraints on trade should be lifted and all Irish ports opened to countries not at war with the king. They used the threat of military defeat in the Americas, the strength of the
Volunteer
movement and a refusal to vote supplies beyond six months to prise concessions from the government. In 1779 partial free trade was granted to Ireland when the free export of wool, woollen cloth and manufactured glass as well as free trade with the colonies was permitted. In June 1782 the
Declaratory Act
was abolished and a month later
Yelverton's Act
amended Poyning's law and removed the power of the privy councils to alter Irish bills. A
mutiny act
was enacted annually and the independence of the judiciary was established in the same manner as it existed in England. In 1783 the Renunciation Act confirmed Irish legislative independence by enacting that the people of Ireland were bound only by laws enacted in that kingdom. Henry Flood's attempt in 1784 to reform parliament by abolishing the right of corporations to return members of parliament, by suppressing the
rotten boroughs
, by limiting the duration of parliament to three years and by enfranchising Protestant freeholders was rejected. In 1785 Thomas Orde, the chief secretary, brought forward a measure to grant unrestricted trade between England and Ireland but his proposal was so heavily encumbered that it was withdrawn. In 1789 the ‘patriot' party gambled for power by supporting
Whig
attempts to have the prince regent succeed his temporarily insane father with full royal powers. They hoped the prince regent would get rid of Pitt and install Fox, a Whig, as prime minister but the king recovered and the issue died leaving Pitt cautious of Irish independence and awake to the idea of a union of the two parliaments.
See
Commercial Propositions, regency crisis.

patronymic
. A name derived from the father or from the paternal line which is usually identifiable by the fact that it has a prefix in Irish such as Mac or Ó. Once surnames became fixed in Ireland, as was the case in England, the patronymic ceased to refer to the father's Christian name and descendants simply inherited the surname.

pattern
. (L.,
patronus
) A religious festival associated with a holy well involving a procession, a number of circuits of the well and the recitation of prayers. It was held on the feast day of the saint in whose memory the well was named.

pavage
. 1: A toll or tax levied towards the paving of highways or streets 2: The right to impose such a levy.

payment-by-results
. One of the earliest experiments in tying the salaries of teachers to the results obtained by pupils under examination was conducted by the proselytising London Hibernian Society (1806). Recommended by the
Powis Commission
, the practice became general from 1871 when partial payment of national school teachers' salaries was determined by pupil attainment. School attendance increased considerably but the practice encouraged a narrow, mechanical approach to teaching and learning and was discontinued from 1900 following a critical assessment by the
Belmore Commission
. Payment-by-results was a characteristic feature of second-level education from its inauguration with the passage of the 1878 Intermediate Education Act (41 & 42 Vict., c. 66). Here the government funded schools indirectly through scholarships and results fees to avoid the criticism that it was supporting denominational education. The impact on enrolment and learning paralleled the national school experience. Numbers in attendance rose but teaching methods became mechanistic. Paradoxically, the
Palles Commission
(1899) was endorsing a modified payment-by-results system for intermediate schools at the same time as Belmore was recommending its abolition in primary schools. In 1900 the education commissioners opted for capitation payment and made provision for inspection by school inspectors.
See
second-level schooling. (Coolahan,
Irish education
, pp. 28–30.)

Peace Preservation Act
(1814). Chief Secretary Peel introduced the Peace Preservation Act (54 Geo. III, c. 131) in 1814 following an outbreak of agrarian unrest. It provided for the establishment of a uniformed peace preservation force (peelers) to be deployed to any district which had been proclaimed as disturbed by the lord lieutenant. The force possessed a hierarchical military-like structure and operated under a salaried police
magistrate
who was directly responsible to the administration in Dublin Castle. As the cost of maintaining the force was borne by the disturbed district, it was unpopular with ratepayers and local magistrates were reluctant to have their areas proclaimed. Instead they opted to call in the army and invoke the provisions of the Insurrection Act (54 Geo. III, c. 180, 1814). Under this legislation magistrates were permitted to declare a dusk to dawn curfew and suspend trial by jury. In 1817 an amending act (57 Geo. III, c. 50) provided for exchequer subvention of up to two-thirds of the maintenance cost of the force in a proclaimed district. The peace preservation force was poorly paid, badly trained and organised and had a reputation for partisanship. It had served in 16 counties by 1822 when a national constabulary was created and was revived briefly during the tithe war of the 1830s. In 1836 it was amalgamated with the county police force to form the Irish constabulary.
See
police.

peck
. A measure of capacity used for dry measures such as corn, normally the fourth part of a
bushel
or two gallons but which varied regionally and according to the goods being measured.

pediment
. The triangular space over a Greek portico.

‘Peel's brimstone'
. Indian corn. In November 1845 Sir Robert Peel arranged for the purchase and importation of Indian corn (yellow meal) as a cheap and nourishing substitute for the blighted potato crop. Poorly-prepared Indian corn caused stomach problems which, together with its yellow colour, resulted in it being called ‘Peel's brimstone'.

Peep O'Day Boys
. A precursor of the
Orange Order
, the Protestant Peep O'Day Boys was a violent sectarian movement which emerged in Armagh in the 1780s partly in response to the enactment of Catholic
relief acts
and partly because of industrial and land issues related to the linen-weaving industry. They conducted early morning raids on the houses of Catholics, supposedly for the purpose of seizing arms – which Catholics were forbidden to have under the penal laws – and sabotaged linen-weaving equipment. The activities of the Peep O'Day Boys drew a response from the Catholics in the form of the
Defenders
. In 1795 the two groups clashed at the Diamond near Loughgall, after which the victorious Protestants adjourned to Loughgall to form the Orange Order.

peers, trial by
. (L.,
judicium parium suorum
) A trial not by a jury of one's peers but one in which the judges are the equals of the accused.

peine forte et dure
. The practice, which continued as late as the eighteenth century, of pressing to death for refusal to plead to a serious felony. It consisted of placing weights upon the body of a suspect until he agreed to plead or died from the pressure. Sometimes to speed up the process a sharp piece of rock, timber or iron was placed under the back. In 1740 Mathew Ryan was pressed to death in the market-place of Kilkenny for refusing to plead in a case of highway robbery. To the question why one would choose to submit to such a harrowing death – and few did – rather than plead before a jury, the answer is that in such cases the suspect did not die a convicted felon and consequently suffered no escheat of land or forfeiture of chattels. Standing mute in cases of treason or misdemeanour, however, was regarded as equivalent to a confession.
See prison forte et dure
.