Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (8 page)

box bed
. A canopied bed with closed sides and sometimes hinged doors.

boycott
. The practice of isolating and ostracising any tenant who took over the holding of an evicted tenant, so called after Captain Hugh Cunningham Boycott, agent to the earl of Erne in Co. Mayo from 1873, who clashed with the
Land League
in 1880 and whose name became a synonym for social isolation. The principle of the boycott, the eschewing of all social and economic contact with anyone who transgressed a particular code, had been employed in the 1790s by the
Rightboys
and in the 1820s by supporters of Catholic emancipation.

Boyne Societies
. Early eighteenth-century, semi-secret Protestant defence and social clubs, initially composed of Williamite veterans, which operated in areas of strong Protestant settlement and together with the
posse comitatus
functioned as an unofficial local defence network until 1715 when a county
militia
was regularised. Boyne societies with their grades, rituals, passwords and signs were, to all intents and purposes, an Orange freemasonry. Their recognition signals derived from incidents associated with the Williamite War and society ceremonies were heavily influenced by Old Testament stories such as the Exodus, the Red Sea crossing and the wandering in the desert. The Orange Order was formed in imitation of the Boyne Societies. (Haddick-Flynn,
Orangeism
, pp. 100–107.)

brace
. A cross-beam supporting the chimney-breast or canopy.

bread and ale, assize of
. An ordinance defining the quantity and quality of bread and ale within a
liberty
. Short measures or deficiency in quality rendered the vendor liable to fines.

breakens
. (Ir.,
breacán
) A plaid.

Brehon law
. (Ir.,
breith
, a judgement) The complex Gaelic legal system which survived into the seventeenth century. It was rooted in ancient Celtic law and leavened with borrowings from canon law after the island was Christianised. The principal law tracts derive from the seventh century and were produced in Brehon ‘law schools'. Although they claimed to express the laws of Ireland, the tribalised nature of Irish society ensured that interpretation varied regionally. Brehon law was characteristically local and private – unlike English common law which was supported and diffused by a centralised administrative authority – but, like all legal systems, it was conservative, protected the status quo and favoured those with high social standing. Gaelic society was divided into the free (
sóer
) and the unfree (
dóer
) which corresponded to nobles, men of learning and craftsmen on the one hand and serfs on the other. Compensation was the chief means of righting a wrong and the level of compensation was determined by social standing and the possession of property. Disputes were arbitrated by brehons on the basis of equity and precedence, pledges having first been taken from both parties to ensure that the arbitration would be accepted. Contract rather than tenure was the basis of Brehon property law and contracts were accompanied by sureties as a guarantee that contractual obligations would be fulfilled. The local administration of Brehon law was a matter for the wider kin group, the
derbfine
, to which certain rights and obligations were attached. The kin group, for example, was liable for the compensation payments of a defaulting family member as it was for exacting compensation if one of its members was slain or unable to prosecute in his own right. Land owned by the kin group was divided partibly among the male heirs or devolved as a life estate to the daughters where the male line failed. Subsequently, however, it reverted to the kin group.
See éiric
, kincogish,
tánaiste
, tanistry. (Kelly,
A guide
.)

bressumer
. A brace or horizontal beam spanning a large opening and supporting the upper wall.

bretasche
. A temporary wooden gallery (brattice) mounted on the battlements of a castle as an additional defence during a siege. The term is also used to refer to the wooden towerhouse erected atop a motte.
See
motte and bailey.

Breteuil, law of
. A set of privileges named after the Norman town of Breteuil where it first emerged as a custom. Its principal features included the granting of
burgage
holdings at a fixed annual rent of one shilling, freedom of
alienation
of burgages, a low fixed fine for all but the gravest offences, the limitation of the period for which the lord might have credit, the right of burgesses to own their own
hundred court
and to enjoy a share in common fields. The lord could exact neither
wardship
nor
marriage
and restrictions were placed on the duration of imprisonment of burgesses. Such privileges were usually offered as enticements to lure settlers to Ireland.

bridewell
. Originally the name of a sixteenth-century London prison, the term came to describe a prison, a prison for vagrants or a house of correction.

Bright clauses
. Provisions in Gladstone's
Landlord and Tenant Act (1870)
which enabled tenants to purchase their holdings in the
Landed Estates Court
with the assistance of an advance of two-thirds of the purchase price from the
Board of Works
. The loan was to be repaid over 35 years at 5%. The scheme was conceived by John Bright who had prompted similar provisions in the earlier
Irish Church Act
(1869).

British Relief Association
. A philanthropic society founded in January 1847 to relieve distress in remote areas of Ireland and Scotland. About £470,000 was raised in England, America and Australia, a considerable portion of which derived from subscribers responding to the issuing of a ‘Queen's Letter' in which Queen Victoria appealed for aid for Ireland. Victoria herself contributed £2,000. Unlike the Quakers, the British Relief Association did not establish an administrative structure in Ireland to disburse aid. It chose to channel its funds through the British treasury which loaned and granted money to the most distressed unions. Count Strzelecki, the association's Irish agent, clashed with Charles Trevelyan, the treasury secretary, over the manner in which the money was distributed but succeeded in diverting only a small proportion of the funds towards feeding needy schoolchildren in the west. Trevelyan's control over the destination of aid was unfortunate in that he was able to apply it for purposes that would otherwise have required exchequer funding. By autumn 1848 – when the need for relief was increasing – the association's funds were all but exhausted and it began to wind up its Irish operation. As well as feeding schoolchildren, the British Relief Association aided 22 distressed unions and part-aided a further 25. (Kinealy,
This great calamity
, pp. 161–2
passim
.)

broadcast
. The sowing of seed by hand.

Brotherhood of Arms of St George
. A force established by the Irish parliament in 1474 comprising thirteen nobles, 120 archers and forty horse to assist in the defence of the Pale. To finance the force a tax of twelve pence in the pound (
poundage
) was imposed on goods being transported into and out of Ireland. This short-lived force was abolished in the 1490s.

Brunswick constitutional clubs
. Rabidly anti-Catholic clubs which appeared following O'Connell's by-election victory in Clare in 1828. They were opposed to the granting of
Catholic emancipation
and committed to the belief that only through solidarity and unity could Protestant interests be safeguarded. The name was taken from the duke of Brunswick who presided at a dinner at which the idea for such clubs was first floated. They were a mirror image of the
Catholic Association
even to the extent of collecting a ‘Protestant rent'. About 200 clubs were formed with a largely aristocratic membership. Brunswick clubs replaced the lodges of the
Orange Order
which had been outlawed in 1825 along with the Catholic Association under the Unlawful Societies Act (6 Geo. IV, c. 4). After the granting of Catholic emancipation the clubs gradually declined as the Orange Order (legal again since the expiration in 1828 of the Unlawful Societies Act) became the vehicle through which anti-Catholic feeling was channelled. (Haddick-Flynn,
Orangeism
, pp. 231–3, 235; O'Ferrall,
Catholic emancipation
, pp. 207–209.)

buannacht, bonnacht, bonnaught, bonaght
. (Ir.) The free quartering of mercenaries on the country by a Gaelic lord as a cost-free stratagem for retaining a standing force. In the sixteenth century the quartering of troops was replaced by a tax (bonaght beg) which was proportionally levied on every
ploughland
. English commentators often confused the terminology so that the mercenaries themselves became known as bonaghts.
Buannacht
was known and employed as
coyne and livery
within the Pale.
See
coshering.

buckram
. Coarse linen cloth stiffened with glue.

budge, buge
. Lambskin fur with the wool outwards which was used to trim jackets.

bulk
. A ship's cargo.

bulk, to break
. To unload or partially unload a ship's cargo.

bulkies
. A municipally-controlled police force which operated in Belfast from 1816 until 1865 when it was abolished and its policing duties assumed by the Irish Constabulary. (Griffin,
The bulkies
.)

bullaun
. (Ir.,
bollán
, a small bowl) A
quern
or stone containing a bowl-shaped depression into which grain was poured and ground with a stone pestle.

bundle
. Of linen yarn, 60,000 yards.

bundling
. A custom which enabled an engaged couple to sleep together and enjoy the comfort and warmth of the marriage bed but without engaging in sexual intercourse.

bungal
. (Ir.,
bonn geal
, white groat) A Tudor silver
groat
known in Irish as a
bonn geal
and anglicised as ‘bungal'.

burials
. After the Reformation Catholics continued to be buried in their local graveyards although by law these were now in the custody of the Established church. Until 1824 it was believed by some Protestants that Catholic and dissenter burial services were prohibited in
Church of Ireland
graveyards and the only service that could be performed was that prescribed by the
Book of Common Prayer
. By 9 Will. III, c. 1 (1697) burials within the precincts of former monasteries, abbeys or convents where divine service was not celebrated were forbidden but in rural areas this was ignored. In the cities Catholics were interred in their local graveyards and had prayers recited over their graves by Catholic priests. Local Protestant ministers raised no objections to this practice because they received burial fees without having to perform a service. In September 1823, at the instigation of the archbishop of Dublin, the sexton of St Kevin's church in Dublin, intervened in the burial of Arthur D' Arcy to forbid the recitation of graveside prayers by a priest. Catholics were outraged and a government attempt to legislate its way out of the embarrassment with the Easement of Burials Act (5 Geo. IV, c. 25, 15 April 1824) actually worsened the situation. The
Catholic Association
attacked as intolerable the provision that non-Anglican clergymen must apply to the Church of Ireland minister for permission to assist at gravesides and embarked on a campaign to purchase distinctly Catholic burial sites. Within a few years both Goldenbridge (1829) and Glasnevin (1832) were operative and Church of Ireland ministers were left to rue the sexton's meddling as the well of burial fees dried up. (FitzPatrick,
History
; O'Brien and Dunne,
Catholic Ireland
, p. 51.)

burgage
. The holding of a
burgess
, recognisable by a narrow street frontage and a long narrow garden behind the house.

burgess
. A town inhabitant or citizen of a
borough
with full citizenship rights. Statute conferred a considerable array of privileges on burgesses, the most important of which included the granting of burgage holdings at an annual rent of one shilling per annum, the right of burgesses to own their own
hundred court
and the entitlement to a share in common fields. This set of privileges was known as the law of
Breteuil
. The offer of burgess status during periods of colonisation was probably a lure to attract settlers. Members of municipal corporations, usually to the number of 12 or 13, were also known as burgesses and possessed important privileges in relation to the election of parliamentary representatives.
See
borough.

burning and paring
.
See
bettimore.

buddachan
. (Ir.) A measure of oysters containing 360 oysters. One bushel contained two-and-a-half buddachans and weighed one hundredweight.

bushel
. A measure of capacity and weight characterised by great regional diversity. In terms of capacity the bushel is equivalent to four
pecks
, eight gallons or 32.239 litres. The imperial bushel, established in 1826, contains 80 pounds liquid measure or 60 pounds in weight, the Tudor Winchester bushel slightly less at 77.6 pounds.
See
barrel.

butt
. A cask for wine or ale, the capacity of which varied according to the commodity. A butt of ale contained 108 to 140 gallons whereas a butt of wine contained 126 gallons. Two hogsheads were equivalent to a butt or pipe and two butts or pipes were equivalent to a
tun
.

butlerage
.
See
prisage.

buying
.
See ceannuigheacht
.

byre dwelling
. A one-roomed house in which animals are stabled at one end and people inhabit the other. Known as a ‘long house' in England. (O'Neill,
Life
, pp. 12–13.)