Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (61 page)

towerhouse
. Medieval in origin, the towerhouse consisted of a small stone keep of three or four storeys. The living quarters were in the upper storeys. Towerhouses originally had a courtyard or
barmkin
attached. Some had a thatched hall adjoining the tower which served as the living quarters.

Town Improvement Acts
(1849, 1854). The 1849 act (12 & 13 Vict., c. 85) removed the few governmental functions such as lighting and fire-fighting that had been retained by the general
vestry
and vested them in Dublin corporation.. That of 1854 (17 & 18 Vict., c. 103) provided for the erection of town commissioners in towns with populations of 1,500 or more. By 1871 almost 80 towns had achieved a local administration under this act, bringing the number of municipal authorities in Ireland to over 110.
See
Municipal Corporations Reform Act.

townland
. The smallest and most enduring land division of the county (which it preceded), possibly deriving from
quarters
of the ancient
ballybetaghs
(or
tates
in the case of Monaghan). Larger townlands often comprise areas of poorer land and so the area of townlands may have been determined by its productive capacity. There are over 60,000 townlands in Ireland, ranging in size from Millbank in Co. Dublin at three roods one perch to Sheskin in Co. Mayo at 7,012 acres. Townland names are overwhelmingly of Gaelic origin but many, including those suffixed with ‘town', are Anglo-Norman and a few are the eighteenth and nineteenth creations of local landlords. Some townland names disappeared due to amalgamation or division by the nineteenth-century
Ordnance Survey
which also created new townlands, straightened boundaries and transferred portions of one townland to another. Mapped for the first edition of the Ordnance Survey, the townland became the basic unit for the taking of the
census
(although townland populations have not been published since 1911) and for
Griffith's Valuation
. (Crawford, ‘The study', pp. 97–115; Ó Dálaigh, Cronin and Connell,
Irish townlands
, pp. 9–13.)

Townland Index
. The General alphabetical index to the townlands and towns, parishes and baronies of Ireland,
or
Townland Index,
was published in three editions (1851, 1871, 1901) as a townland location finder. Entries provide the relevant Ordnance Survey map reference, the name of the civil parish, barony, county and poor law union (from 1901 the district electoral division and number) for each townland.

towne
. A Gaelic unit of spatial measurement employed in Offaly, Carlow and Antrim, equivalent to 20
great acres
.

townreed
. A township.

tracery
. Embroidered architectural work in Gothic windows.

transept
. The ‘arms' of a cruciform church.

transplantation
. Following the suppression of the Confederate Rebellion in 1652, Catholic landowners were ordered into Connacht to make way for
adventurers
who had contributed financially to the quelling of the revolt and for soldiers who had served in the war, all of whom were to be recompensed with grants of forfeited land. In addition to those transplanted from the other provinces, landowners in Connacht suffered transplantation to locations elsewhere in the province to accommodate the newcomers. (Simington,
The transplantation
.)

traverse
. In a legal action, to deny the plaintiff's claim.

treasurer
. 1: The senior official in the court of exchequer 2: A member of a cathedral
chapter
and fourth in rank behind the
dean, precentor
and
chancellor
, the treasurer was responsible for the cathedral plate and valuables. He performed parish duties as well.

treasure trove
. It was the prerogative entitlement of the crown to receive treasure that had been deliberately concealed, the owner of which was unknown. The rule of ‘finders keepers' applied if the treasure had been casually lost or deliberately parted with for the crown entitlement lay in the concealment and not the abandonment thereof. It was the function of the
coroner
to determine the fate of treasure trove which he performed by conducting an inquest.

trencher
. A flat piece of wood or metal or a slice of bread that was used as a plate.

trews (trowes, trouse)
. Tight-fitting, ankle to hip hose worn by the native Irish.

tricha-cét
. (Ir., three thousand) Originally an ancient Gaelic spatial unit with military associations, roughly an area of 3,000 fighting men that was further subdivided into units of 100. Later, in theory at least, it came to refer to a land division of 30
ballybetagh
s, each ballybetagh comprising 12 ploughlands of 120 arable acres each. (Hogan, ‘The tricha-cét', pp. 148–235).

triforium
. In a church, the wall above the aisle arches but below the
clerestory
.

Trinity
. A court session beginning in June and lasting until 31 July.
See
sittings.

tripartite deed
. An
indenture
drawn up between three parties, each of whom receives a copy of the deed.

trivet
. A triangular frame on which an oven-pot rested.

troper
. A book of tropes (phrases, sentences, verse and cadences) which were introduced as embellishments before or after the
Introit
and hymns during the celebration of the mass.

trover
. An action at common law invoked for the recovery of the market value of property wrongfully taken plus compensation for the loss of use, interest and legal expenses.
See
replevin.

truck
. The payment of wages in kind or the part-payment of wages in cash plus kind. Although forbidden by statute from as early as 1715 the truck system persisted into the nineteenth century. The Truck Acts of 1831 and 1887 forbade the payment of wages, either wholly or in part, by goods rather than money.

truss
. A timber blade used in couples to support a roof.
See
cruck truss.

Trustees Sale
. Under the English
Act of Resumption
(11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, 1700) parliament disallowed the bulk of William III's grants of forfeited Jacobite estates and vested them in trustees who were to sell them and apply the proceeds to meet officers' arrears, transport, clothing and other miscellaneous debts arising from the Williamite War. The trustees met with little success when they tried to obtain additional convictions for outlawry against unconvicted Jacobites and the amount of available forfeited land shrank when Protestants who had purchased from grantees such as Albemarle, Athlone and Romney were allowed retain their lands on favourable terms. They established a
court of claims
to hear the claims of any person with an interest in an estate forfeited before 13 February 1689 (the accession date of William and Mary). The auctioning of vested land began in October 1702 but an economic downturn due to restrictions on the export of wool, fears that excessive
quit-rents
might apply to purchased lots, disinterest on the part of English buyers and anxieties about a Stuart restoration conspired to deter buyers and more than half the land remained unsold. The trustees were eventually compelled to sell on favourable terms to the Hollow Blades company which failed to prosper and the company later divested itself of its property portfolio to (largely) Irish purchasers. The trustees sale failed to realise even half of the £1.5million which had been dangled before the English house of commons as a lure to agree to the resumption. (Simms,
The Williamite confiscation
, pp. 121–157.)

tuath
. Minor Irish lordship thought to be roughly co-terminous with a
barony
.
Tuatha
, however, are not identical to baronies for in the eleventh century there were 90
tuatha
and we have 273 baronies today.

tuck mill
. A mill used to shrink cloth.

tun
. 1: A large cask 2: Of wine, contained 252 wine-gallons. It was equivalent to two pipes or four hogsheads.

tunnage
. A variable impost on wine and oils introduced in 1569, levied at so much per
tun
.

turbario
. An Irish swordsman or pikeman.

turbary
. A bog.

turbary rights
. The right to cut turf on a bog.

turnpike
.
See
toll-road.

twentieth parts
. A crown tax of twelve pence in the pound levied on all benefices as they were valued at the time of the Reformation. In 1711 the crown forgave the twentieth parts.
See
Board of First Fruits,
valor ecclesiasticus
.

Ulster, Annals of
. A fifteenth- and sixteenth-century compilation also known as the
Annals of Senait MacManus
after its original compiler, Cathal MacGuire of the MacMaghnusa sept, who lived on Senait Island (Ballymacmanus Island or Belle Isle) in Lough Erne. The
Annals
commence with brief notices of matters of an ecclesiastical nature in 444 and become more elaborate from the sixth century with the inclusion of substantial entries for Armagh and (later) Derry until 1220. Entries continue until 1498, the year of MacGuire's death, after which they are extended to 1541 by Ruaidhridhe Ó Caisidé and to 1604 by Rory Ó Luinín.
The Annals of Ulster
are written partly in Latin and partly in Irish, sometimes both appearing within the same sentence. (Hennessy and MacCarthy,
Annála
; MacAirt and Mac Niocaill,
The Annals
.)

Ulster custom
.
See
tenant-right.

Ulster Cycle
. An early prose saga which deals with Conor MacNessa, the king of Ulster, and his warriors, the Red Branch Knights. It includes such tales as the Cattle-Raid of Cooley (
Táin Bó Cuailnge
), the deeds of Cuchulainn and the tragedy of Deirdre and Naoise. (Dillon,
Early Irish literature
, pp. 1–31.)

Ulster king of arms
. The chief Irish
herald
. It is not clear how the king of arms in Ireland became known as Ulster. It may derive from the fact that there had been an Ireland king of arms at an earlier date though the bearer appears to have had little connection with this country and thus the monarch's second Irish title, earl of Ulster, was chosen. Ulster was created by letters
patent
in 1552 as the sole authority for the issuing of patents of arms and recording pedigrees. He also performed ceremonial duties, regulated protocol and precedence at state ceremonies and assisted in the introduction of new peers to the house of lords. Broadly speaking, his duties revolved around arms, pedigrees and ceremonies and it is from these that the records of his office largely derive. In 1943 the office was renamed the Genealogical Office and Ulster was replaced by the chief herald. (Barry, ‘Guide', pp. 1–43.)

Ulster Revival
.
See
evangelical revival.

Ulster, Synod of
. The Synod of Ulster was the supreme governing body of northern Presbyterians until July 1840 when it merged with the
Seceders
to form the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland
.
See
Arianism, New Light, Presbyterian,
regium donum
, Remonstrant Synod, Southern Association and Westminster, Confession of.

ult
. (L.) An abbreviation of
ultimo
meaning last as in of the last month. Thus 23
ult.
means the twenty-third day of the month previous to the current month.

ultra vires
. T
he term which describes when an official embarks on a particular course of action that is beyond his legal authority.

ultramontanism
. (L.,
ultramontanus
, beyond the mountains) A view of church-state relations which favoured papal over state control and church centralisation. Although initially wary of encouraging such thinking for fear of arousing the ire of national governments, the papacy gradually endorsed ultramontanist principles, most notably in the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and the declaration of the dogma of papal infallibility (1870). The archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, who was educated in Rome, was the most important ultramontanist prelate in Ireland in the nineteenth century.
See
gallicanism. (Bowen,
Paul Cardinal Cullen
, pp. 15–20.)

undertaker
. 1: The scheme for the plantation of Ulster presented in 1609 foresaw the colonisation of the escheated counties by two distinct groups of planters: undertakers and
servitors
. An undertaker undertook to implement plantation in a specified area at his own expense and agreed to fulfil certain conditions imposed by government. It was stipulated that undertakers must reside on their holdings for five years, import English or Scottish tenants, construct a fortified bawn and keep a supply of arms. Unlike the servitors, they were prohibited from taking native Irish tenants.
See
Irish Society, Pynnar's Survey 2: In Ireland in the eighteenth century, an influential and important parliamentary figure who undertook to carry the king's business through parliament in return for a share in the disposal of patronage, sinecures and pensions. As the lord lieutenant was absent from Ireland for long periods when parliament was in recess, the business of government was left in the hands of undertakers such as William Connolly and Henry Boyle. All the leading undertakers were speakers of the house of commons and held other important posts. (Hayton, ‘The beginning', pp. 32–54; McCracken, ‘The conflict', pp. 159–79.)

Uniformity, Act of
. Two acts requiring religious uniformity were passed by the Irish parliament, the first of which, together with the
Act of Supremacy
, constituted the key statutory provisions for the establishment of Protestantism in these islands. The 1560 Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church (2 Eliz. I c. 2) was designed to bring
dissenters
into the fold of the
Church of Ireland
. The second, enacted a century later, was intended to keep them out. The Elizabethan act insisted on the use of the English
Prayer Book
by all clergy on pain of imprisonment and legislated for the imposition of recusancy fines on anyone refusing to attend divine service on Sunday. The latter imposition fell into disuse by the close of the seventeenth century but it was not removed from the statute books until 1793. The second act (7 & 8 Chas. II, c. 6, 1666) attempted to establish uniformity within the Church of Ireland by excluding
Presbyterians
and those with Presbyterian sympathies. It did so by requiring episcopal ordination of clergy and an undertaking from ministers not merely to use the revised
Book of Common Prayer
but also to give public assent to it. As an additional safeguard, schoolmasters were prohibited from teaching school without licence from a bishop of the Church of Ireland.