Understanding Irish Jurisdictions

Do you have any Irish ancestors who you're having trouble tracking down? It's no surprise: Irish genealogical records are elusive and difficult to navigate. Luckily, we have Griffith's Valuation to assist us in our search (and if you don’t exactly know what that is, you can read this blog post). However, if you dive straight into searching the valuation and perusing the Ordnance Survey Maps without a strong grasp of Irish administrative and ecclesiastical subdivisions, you’ll likely be left baffled.

For example, the geographic details for a certain John Lynagh from County Donegal come up as follows:

County: Donegal
Barony: Kilmacrenan
Union: Millford
Parish: Kilmacrenan
Townland: Carrownasaul

These details, along with much, much more are provided by AskAboutIreland.ie, where you can search and peruse Griffith's Valuation and all of its accompanying wonders for free (and iff you're brand new to navigating the Griffith's Valuation, you can watch the video tutorial below to get started!)

When I first saw these details, my eye headed straight for 'parish'. A parish, as far as I knew, was the most exact way to narrow down a location. I understood a parish to be a small territorial division demarcated by an area overseen by a particular church. And in my mind, with my limited understanding of how churches operated in 19th century Ireland, that area must have been small.

So, going upon my false pretense, I did a Google search of Kilmacrenan and, lo and behold, it came back as a small village in County Donegal.

But then I explored the area a bit, and I came across another place by the same name (this time, spelled Kilmacrennan with two N's). That's when I had a sneaking suspicion that I could have the wrong understanding about Irish geographical subdivisions.

Using the accompanying Ordnance Survey Maps (which you can learn to navigate using the tutorial below), I found that the location in which John lived was actually a fair bit more north than modern-day Kilmacrenan. The red box below indicates the location in which he lived, and you can see Kilmacrenan is outside of it, to the south:

So, what is a parish, in Irish terms? And a townland, and a barony, and a union, and a county? All very, very different things.

County

We'll start with the most obvious of the land divisions in Ireland: a county. There are 32 counties on the island, 26 of which are in the Republic of Ireland and the other 6 in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. Note that Munster, Leinster, Connacht and Ulster - names which you have undoubtedly heard tossed around - are not counties, but provinces in which multiple counties fall. While historically they served administrative purposes, these provinces now function as cultural identities.

Barony

Baronies are the second largest form of land division, after counties. While they no longer exist, there were once a few hundred baronies on the island operating for taxation purposes by the Crown. The plantations of Ireland were often organized by barony. If you search for barony place names noted in historical documents, you aren't likely to find an accurate location as many names are now defunct, and some have been moved.

Parish

After baronies come parishes. There were two types of parishes: ecclesiastical and civil. Griffith's Valuation deal solely with civil parishes, which maintained property taxes and records. The aforementioned John Lynagh lived in the parish of Kilmacrenan which, as was discovered, is not modern day Kilmacrenan on Google Maps. On the contrary, Kilmacrenan parish was a large swathe of land inside County Donegal. Maps of civil parishes can be viewed on JohnGrenham.com.

Townland

In Griffith's Valuation, townlands were the smallest land divisions. Each civil parish contained an average of 24 townlands, which are viewable on the Ordnance Survey Maps, demarcated by bold red lines. Thus, rather than searching for Kilmacrenan to narrow down the location of John Lynagh, I should have begun with a search of Carrownasaul. If you want to learn more about these incredibly detailed maps, watch the tutorial below!

Union

Lastly, Griffith's Valuation provides Union details. 'Union' in the valuation refers to a Poor Law Union, which were created in Ireland beginning in 1838 in response to endemic poverty sweeping the island. Unions varied in geographical size, and encompassed several parishes. Each Union elected a Board of Guardians whose primary purpose was to oversee the running of union workhouses. Knowing the union in which your ancestor lived could provide some insight into their lives, as records of sickness and death, punishment registers, mortgage records, and other unique records may exist for each union.

Now that you have a grasp of the various geographical subdivisions central to Griffith’s Valuation, you’re ready to continue your search!