Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (29 page)

high cross
. A free-standing ringed cross mounted on a steeped base that first appeared in the eight century. Early examples were richly ornamented with abstract designs such as spirals, geometric motifs and interlacing. Larger, structurally complex crosses began to appear in the ninth and tenth centuries with biblical scenes depicted in panels along divided shafts. A cluster of about 30 of these scriptural crosses are located near the Barrow river at Moone. The patrons of later crosses, such as that at Dysart O'Dea in Co. Clare, eschewed the ring and all but abandoned carved embellishments save simple, prominently-positioned depictions of Christ or bishops. High crosses were associated with monastic sites and had an obvious didactic function. They may also have served to delimit boundaries or to enhance the status of the associated institution. (Harbison,
The high crosses
; Henry,
Irish high crosses
.)

High-King
.
See Ard Rí

Hilary
. A court session and university term commencing about the feast of St Hilary (January 13) and concluding on 31 March.
See
sittings.

hill-fort
. A hill-top enclosure fortified by defensive earthworks of one or more banks.
See
promontory fort.

hip roof
. A roof with sloping gable ends. On a half-hip roof the gables terminate short of the eaves.

hiring fair
. Farmers sourced servants and labourers at hiring fairs, the largest of which were held in west Ulster in the late nineteenth century. Farmer and labourer or servant negotiated conditions of employment and wages before agreeing a contract of six months duration, the interval between one hiring fair and the next.

hobby, hobin
. The light horse of a
hobelar
.

hobelar
. A medieval, light cavalryman who rode a
hobby
(or hobin) and was armed with a spear as distinct from the heavily-armoured and less mobile mounted men-at-arms who rode massive
destriers
or war-horses. (Hayes McCoy, ‘The hobelar', pp. 12–16.)

Holinshed's
Chronicles
. Raphael Holinshed's
Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande
(1577) originated in a plan by the printer Reginald Wolfe to publish ‘an universall Cosmographie of the whole worlde' which was to have included the history of every known nation. Holinshed (died
c
. 1580) was to compile the histories but after Wolfe died in 1573 the project was abridged and only the
Chronicles
made it to the press. A considerable portion of the history of Ireland came from the pen of
Richard Stanihurst
(1547–1618), a member of a prominent Dublin family. Stanihurst's favourable treatment of the Kildare rebellion landed him in trouble with the English privy council and he was compelled to revise the text. His treatment of the native Irish was not objective and his re-hashing of some of the fabulous tales of
Giraldus Cambrensis
attracted the ire of both Geoffrey Keating and Philip O'Sullivan Beare. In the second edition of the
Chronicles
(1587), John Hooker supplemented Stanihurst's history with material he compiled from contemporary Irish administrative records.
See Foras feasa ar Éirinn,
Zoilomastix. (Lennon,
Richard Stanihurst
; Miller and Power,
Holinshed.)

holy water clerk
. (L.,
aquabajulus
) A clerk who carried the holy water in church services and processions, read the epistle at mass, acted as bell-ringer and performed the duties of sacristan. After the Reformation the office became that of parish clerk.

homage
. A symbolic act in which the tenant surrendered to the lord by kneeling and placing his hands within the lord's clasped hands and swore to be his man. The act was an acknowledgement of the reciprocal bond of loyalty and protection that existed between tenant and lord.
See
fealty, investiture.

Home Rule Association
. Founded in May 1870, largely as a result of the efforts of Isaac Butt, the Home Rule Association or Home Government Association sought to develop popular support for an Irish parliament with full control over domestic affairs. Functioning more as a pressure group than a political party, the association eschewed involvement in land issues and denominational education and concentrated on pushing a federal solution to the national question. Butt's federalist vision – which saw Westminster retaining authority over defence, war, foreign policy and taxation and continuated Irish representation at the imperial parliament – did not meet with the approval of nationalists who wanted complete legislative independence. The membership comprised a heterogeneous mix of constitutional nationalists, Protestant conservatives, liberals and fenians. It was renamed the Home Rule League in 1873. MPs elected on a home rule platform were required to agree to concentrate their efforts on achieving home rule but they rejected this as it circumscribed their independence. (Thornley,
Isaac Butt
.)

Home Rule Bill
(1886). Gladstone's home rule bill offered a modest degree of home rule to Ireland. It conceived of an Irish parliament of two orders that would vote separately and have a suspensory veto over any proposals introduced by the other. There would be an Irish executive responsible to this legislature but important areas such as peace and war, foreign and colonial policy, customs and excise, trade and navigation, the post office, coinage and legal tender would remain the responsibility of the imperial parliament where there would be no Irish representation. One-fifth of the charges of the UK budget for imperial purposes would be met by Ireland and any remaining surplus would be at the disposal of the Irish parliament. The Irish judiciary would be appointed and paid by the Irish government and hold office on the same terms as their English counterparts. The right of appeal to the judicial committee of the
privy council
would remain. A land law act to accompany the bill would contain provisions for the application of the principle of land purchase on a massive scale.
Unionist
fears that the bill represented a stepping-stone towards complete independence were amplified and exploited by Randolph Churchill. The bill also trawled up prejudices regarding the fitness of the Irish to govern themselves. On its second reading in the house of commons the bill was lost by 30 votes to an alliance of Tories and Liberal Unionists.

hooker
. A half-decked, single-masted, gaff-rigged vessel with a bowsprit carrying a large mainsail and jib. Hookers were formerly used for transporting turf and livestock off the Galway coast. A smaller version of the hooker, the
gleoiteog
, is used for fishing.

horsemen's beds
. A Gaelic spatial measure equivalent to 20 or 30 acres in Kilkenny and Waterford. Known as
cowlands
in Wicklow or
capell lands
elsewhere.

hosting
. A military expedition by a royal army and contingents of unpaid militia organised for the defence of
Pale
but also for the benefit of other shires where leading magnates such as the Butlers in Kilkenny and Tipperary took the lead. Generally there were no more than one or two hostings in a year for a maximum of 40 days. Within the Pale the hosting was organised by the lord deputy who agreed with the
privy council
on the commencement date and duration together with the amount of carts that would be required. Instructions for the same were issued in the form of
chancery
writs which were declared throughout the Pale. Cartage – the requirement to provide carts for the transportation of supplies – was usually fixed at a rate of one cart for very four ploughlands. Hostings applied to all free tenants. In areas dominated by the native Irish the equivalent service was called a
slogad
or
rising out
which was declared for the purpose of defending the
tuath
from attack or attacking another
tuath
.

houbote (houseboot)
. A tenant's right to procure a reasonable amount of timber from the manorial woods for the purpose of housebuilding or house-repair without payment. He was not entitled to cut timber in excess of his immediate needs for future repairs.

houghing
. The mutilation of animals, often carried out as part of agrarian campaigns. It involved the hamstringing or cutting of the leg tendons of cattle, thereby crippling them. It is thought to have emerged in the eighteenth century as a result of the widespread conversion of arable land to pasture which reduced the amount of land available for letting to peasants and encouraged landlords to evict. An outbreak of cattle houghing in Connacht in 1711–12, for example, has been attributed to the resentment generated by landlords who upped the rents, evicted defaulters and converted the land to pasture. By 9 Anne, c. 11 (1710) cattle-maiming was made a felony and liability for damages was imposed on the baronies. The practice of houghing, however, pre-dated the eighteenth century. In Antrim in 1585 a small English force under Captain Edward Barkley, frustrated at their failure to locate Sorley Boye MacDonald, carried off most of his cattle but ‘houghed' those they could not carry away. (Connolly, ‘Law', pp. 51– 68;
Idem,
‘The houghers', pp. 139–62.)

hue and cry
. 1: The legal obligation on all able-bodied persons within earshot of a crime to pursue miscreants. A fine was imposed on anyone failing to respond to the raising of a hue and cry 2:
Hue and Cry
was the twice-weekly gazette published by police headquarters at Dublin Castle and issued to the constabulary and metropolitan police forces. It contained police regulations, details of stolen animals and property, apprehensions sought by police forces, lists of apprehensions and names and particulars of deserters.

Huguenots
. French Protestants who fled into exile to escape religious persecution in their native land. They arrived in Ireland, usually from England, in four waves between the late sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the largest wave occurring after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1689. They settled in numbers in urban areas, often at the request of local notables who invited them to set up woollen, linen or silk manufactories. Some Huguenots conformed to and were assisted by the Established church. Others chose to adhere to their own non-conformist beliefs. Large Huguenot colonies were established in Dublin, Cork, Lisburn and Portarlington, while smaller clusters of families settled in at least 27 other towns. (Caldicott, Gough and Pittion,
The Huguenots
; Ryan,
Irish Church
, pp. 171–181.)

huke
. A Dutch, hooded mantle shaped like a tabard.

hundred
. 1: A civil, military and judicial division of an English county, apparently derived from the ‘hundred hides', a hide being equivalent to about 120 acres. It was roughly equivalent to an Irish barony 2: The equivalent of 126 fish. A hundred contained 42 casts, each cast comprising three fish.

hundred court
. A Saxon institution that was retained as an instrument of civil government following the Norman conquest, the hundred court was a court of burgesses to which every hundreder or
burgess
was liable for jury service. Every chartered town was granted the right to hold its own weekly hundred court which was distinct from the common law courts.

hungry months
. In nineteenth-century Ireland, the months of June, July and August when the old crop of potatoes had been exhausted and the new crop was not yet ready for picking.

husbandman
. A fairly prosperous peasant who held 20 or 30 acres by long lease.

ice house
. An outbuilding, partially underground, where ice gathered during winter was stored to preserve food during the summer months. The ice was usually sourced from an adjacent ice pond. Belvedere House, Mullingar, and Ardgillan Castle in Co. Dublin each possess ice houses. Ice houses or ice stores associated with commercial salmon fisheries, such as those at Ballina and Lismore, were used to preserve fish for export.

Ibid
. (L.,
ibidem
, in the same place) An abbreviation used in references to cite the same book or passage as has been cited immediately previous.

Idem
. (L., same) A footnote convention repeating the immediately preceding male author(s) but a different work.
Eadem
(pl,
eaedem
) is used where the author is female.

imparking
. In late medieval documents, refers to the engrossing or enclosure of open field strips.

impropriate. Tithe
assigned to a lay person. Where all of the tithe of a parish, both great and small, was in lay hands it was termed ‘wholly impropriate'. Impropriation of tithe – which was intended to support clergymen in the conduct of their duties – was a consequence of the granting of the lands of the dissolved monasteries to laymen after the Reformation. In receiving a grant of the land they also received the attendant tithe. With the tithe came the
advowson
or right to present and maintain an Anglican clergyman but in many cases, and especially where the lay impropriator was a Catholic, clergymen were poorly paid in proportion to the value of the tithe. In any case many parishes had few or no Anglicans and so the lay impropriator no doubt considered the clergyman privileged to receive anything at all considering the few duties he would be called on to perform. A clergyman's appointment in instances where the tithe was wholly impropriate was known as a
perpetual curacy
.
See
appropriate.

improved land
. Land that has been drained and brought into production.

income tax
. Introduced in Ireland in 1853 (16 & 17 Vict., c. 34) but earlier in England, income tax affected only a small minority and was introduced as a
quid pro quo
for the extinction by the government of famine debts incurred by the Irish
poor law unions
, the repayment of which imposed a crippling burden on ratepayers.