Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (39 page)

millenarianism
. A belief in the coming through revolutionary action of a utopian society which took root in Ireland in early decades of the nineteenth century with the dissemination of
Pastorini
's prophecy that the destruction of Protestant supremacy was imminent. (Donnelly, ‘Pastorini', pp. 102–39; O'Farrell, ‘Millenialism', pp. 45–68.)

ministers' money
. A house tax imposed in lieu of
tithe
in 1665 (17 & 18 Chas. II, c. 7) on householders in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Clonmel and Kinsale and collected by
church-wardens
for the upkeep of Anglican ministers. The tax was assessed on the yearly value of a house to a maximum of 12 pence in the pound and no house could be rated above a yearly value of £6. It was inequitable in that the burden fell largely on non-Anglicans, on the poorer citizens proportionally greater than the richer and it did not apply to towns in the north. In the nineteenth century about £15,000 was levied annually by this tax. Minister's money managed to escape the tentacles of the
Church Temporalities Act
of 1833 but was reduced by 25% in 1854 and abolished in 1857. A body known as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for Ireland – which had been established under the temporalities act – was then charged with paying the ministers out of its own funds though it was permitted to recoup the payment from the municipal governments. In the event the municipal governments contributed only a fraction of the payment and after the passage of William Fagan's private member's bill through the commons in 1857 (20 & 21 Vict., c. 8) the ecclesiastical commissioners had to shoulder the entire burden. (Power, ‘A minister's money', pp. 183–200.)

misprision
. A failure of duty, an omission or misdemeanour committed by a public officer.

mocket
. A bib or handkerchief.

model schools
. Nineteenth-century district training schools vested in, controlled and funded by the National Board of Education where aspiring primary teachers worked for a six-month period before progressing to the Central Model School in Dublin, a residential training institution conducted on non-denominational principles. The first model school opened in Dublin in 1834 and by mid-century there were 25 in existence. Catholic bishops disapproved of the non-denominational ethos of the training institutions and campaigned against them. In 1862 priests were forbidden to send trainees to the model schools or hire model school graduates and Catholic school-children were withdrawn from 1866. The
Powis Commission
(1870) recommended government subvention for denominational teacher-training and in the 1880s St Patrick's College, Carysfort, Mary Immaculate (Limerick) and the Church Of Ireland Training College were established. Some model schools, shorn of their teacher-training role, continue to operate. (Akenson,
The Irish education experiment
.)

moderator
. The president of a
Presbyterian
governing body.

moiety
. A half portion.

Molyneaux, William
. Author of the
Case of Ireland's being bound by acts of parliament in England stated
(Dublin, 1698), Molyneaux criticised the anomalous legislative relationship between the kingdom of Ireland and the neighbouring island. Ireland was a separate kingdom, had a parliament of its own and was not represented in Westminster. On this basis the English parliament had no right to bind Ireland by legislation passed in Westminster. Molyneux was not preaching separatism for he believed a political union of the two kingdoms with Irish representation in Westminster would be preferable to the arrangement as it was. In the early 1700s there were appeals from Ireland for such a union but they were not heeded in England and the
Declaratory Act
of 1720 copperfastened the subordination of the Irish parliament to Westminster.
See
sole right. (Simms,
William Molyneaux
.)

month's mind
. A memorial mass held usually about one month after a person's decease.

monolith
. A single upright stone.

Moravian
. An evangelical religious sect of Czech origin founded in Saxony by persecuted Hussite emigrants from Moravia, the Moravians appeared in Ireland in the mid-eighteenth century. Their greatest success was achieved in Co. Antrim yet although the missionary work of John Cennick resulted in the formation of over 200 societies, the sect never attained critical numerical mass and by 1836 there were but seven congregations in Ireland. A Moravian model village was laid out at Gracehill, Co. Antrim, in 1746. The records of Moravian congregations in Ireland are retained at Gracehill and are available on microfim in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

mortar
. A mixture of water, sand and lime used as cement for construction purposes.

mort d'ancestor,
assize of
. A possessory action to settle disputes as to who was the immediate heir of a person last seised of a particular estate. It was initiated to recover lawfully inherited land that had been taken by another before the heir was able to take possession. Introduced under Henry II, the writ issued to commence the action demanded of the jury an answer to the question: ‘Did X, the ancestor of Y (plaintiff), die seised in his demesne and as of fee of Z (the property) and is Y his nearest heir?' If the jury answered ‘yes', the plaintiff was immediately given seisin of the estate.
See novel disseisin
.

mortmain, alienation to
. (Fr., dead hand)
Magna Carta
(18 John, c. 39, 1217) forbade the
alienation
of land to corporations or monasteries because, unlike human tenants, corporate bodies cannot die, marry or be in a minority and so the crown was denied its entitlement to the feudal incidents of
escheat, wardship, marriage
and
relief
. The Statute of Mortmain (1279) increased the penalties for such transactions and periodically between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries additional statutes were enacted to forbid alienations to mortmain without licence. Monastic institutions, nevertheless, managed to evade the restrictions imposed by the statute by taking an action for
recovery
, a legal fiction which the courts accepted in order to maintain the principle of alienability of land.
See
use, feeoffment to.

mortuary
. Death duty owed to the parish church comprising the second best beast (the best went to the manorial lord as a
heriot
if the deceased were a tenant), a chattel or a payment fixed according to parish custom. Testators often left specific bequests in their wills by way of mortuary.
See
canonical portion.

Moryson, Fynes
(1566–1630). Travel-writer, historian and secretary to Lord Deputy Mountjoy from 1600, Fynes Moryson is remembered for his almost universally disparaging views on Ireland and the Irish. In
An Itinerary
(1617), a four volume account of his travels in Europe, Moryson denigrates Irish diet, hygiene, dress, manners, customs and Catholicism, reserving his praise solely for ‘usquebagh'. His treatment of the Nine Years War remains valuable, however prejudiced it be, for he was an eyewitness to the later stages of the conflict, was present at Kinsale and the surrender of Hugh O'Neill and continued in Mountjoy's service until the latter's death in 1606. (Moryson,
An itinerary
.)

motte and bailey
. A truncated conical mound (motte) of earth, often moated, palisaded and surmounted by a wooden tower together with a lower adjoining palisaded mound or courtyard (bailey). These fortified earthworks, over 300 of which were constructed by the Anglo-Normans in the late twelfth century, were later replaced by stone castles. The greatest density of mottes is to be found in the eastern half of the country representing the extent of penetration of the invaders.

mouldboard plough
. A mouldboard plough consisted of a
coulter, share
and
mouldboard
. The coulter (a vertical blade fitted forward of the share) cut through roots, the share opened the ground and the mouldboard, a curved, sloping board or plate fitted above the share, lifted and turned the soil as it was opened to create the typical ridge and furrow pattern. (Mitchell,
The Shell guide
, pp. 143–4, 160.)

mulcture, multure
. A fee or payment in kind (usually a portion of flour) owed to the miller for milling cereals or to the manorial lord if he owned the mill. By the nineteenth century the fee had been commuted to a cash payment known as ‘mulcture money'.

mullion
. An upright bar or pier which divides a window into compartments.

mumping
. A begging practice engaged in by noble families of little means to provide a newly-matched daughter with a portion. It usually involved cattle or sheep. Peasants also resorted to mumping, though for items of less worth.

Municipal Corporations Reform Act
(1840). A municipal reform bill first introduced in 1835 and enacted five years later after an inquiry into the conduct of municipal corporations revealed considerable defects. In the 1830s there were 68 corporations and boroughs in Ireland, bodies that were only nominally open to Catholics for almost all had chosen not to enlarge the franchise when permitted to do so in 1793. Notoriously corrupt and a bastion of Protestantism, 58 were abolished in 1840 under the Municipal Corporations Reform Act (3 & 4 Vict., c. 108) and their functions passed to the county. The 10 remaining corporations (Belfast, Clonmel, Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Kilkenny, Limerick, Derry, Sligo and Waterford) were replaced by elected governing bodies with severely limited functions on a municipal franchise restricted to £10 householders. Unlike English corporations, Irish municipal governments were not given control of the police nor the power to elect a sheriff. The power to appoint sheriffs and magistrates lay with the lord lieutenant although from 1876 corporations were permitted to nominate three candidates from whom the viceroy selected one. Catholics were now eligible in their own right for admittance to the corporations of cities and towns and they immediately took control of a number of large councils. Towns with populations of 3,000 people or more could apply for a charter but only Wexford did so. Other boroughs could adopt the measures of an 1828 act (9 Geo. IV, c. 82) which empowered them to elect a body of commissioners with municipal powers limited to such areas as paving and lighting. About 25 towns adopted this course of action and a further 20 (55 by 1878) brought into force the provisions of a revised act of 1854 (17 & 18 Vict., c. 103).
See
borough, guilds, quarterage. (
First report of the commissioners appointed to enquire into the municipal corporations in Ireland
, HC 1835 [323] XXVII; Webb,
Municipal government
.)

muniments
. Deeds of title and other such records.

murage
. The right granted by charter to citizens to levy customs on persons selling goods in their town to construct or repair defences.

murrain
. Any of various cattle diseases such as anthrax, tick fever, plague or pestilence.

muster roll
. A list of men and their arms who were available for the defence of an area during a military emergency.

mutiny act
. The first English mutiny act was passed in 1689 to suppress indiscipline among regiments that had been ordered into service abroad. Although limited to a year, the mutiny act proved so effective that it was renewed annually. The act reaffirmed the clause in the
Declaration of Rights
which outlawed the maintenance of a standing army in peacetime without the consent of parliament and asserted that monarch and parliament considered it necessary for the safety of the kingdom to maintain such a force and that good discipline should prevail. Prior to 1779 there was no mutiny act in Ireland. Breaches of discipline were dealt with before a court-martial and punishments dispensed according to the provisions of the English act or by crown prerogative. When the validity of English laws in Ireland was challenged it became apparent that no one could be convicted in Ireland for offences against the English mutiny act. Subsequently the heads of an annual mutiny bill passed the Irish house of commons but were returned from England with no limitation as to time. When the amended bill passed the house (19 & 20 Geo. III, c. 16, 1780), Ireland now operated under a permanent mutiny act which did not require the assent of parliament for the maintenance of a peacetime army, a situation which Edmund Burke condemned as unconstitutional and contrary to the Declaration of Rights. In 1782 (21 & 22 Geo. III, c. 43) the permanent act was repealed and a mutiny act along the lines of the English act was enacted annually until the
Act of Union
.

name books
. The letters and notes on placenames and antiquities compiled by John O'Donovan during the course of the
Ordnance Survey
project to map the entire country from 1824 to 1846. The name books, together with other records of the Ordnance Survey, have been transferred to the National Archives.

naomhóg
. At about eight metres long and fitted with a mast and sail, the elegant Kerry
naomhóg
is the largest of the currachs. It has four seats and consists of a framework of wooden laths covered in tarred cloth.

napping
. The act of raising the short hairs or threads (the nap) on homespun frieze or flannel by combing the fabric section by section with a card. Later a few drops of honey were brushed over the fibres and the task repeated. The final stage in raising the nap involved curling the nap with a cork sheet.

National Archives
. Until the eighteenth century no serious effort was made to preserve important administrative records in Ireland. The main repository for records of the rolls was the Bermingham Tower in Dublin Castle but other records were considered to be the property of the relevant office-holder. The
State Paper Office
was established in 1702 to copy official documents from the collections of earlier chief governors but few pre-1690 records were available and the office contributed little towards improving the state of the records. Outbreaks of fire in the Custom House (1711) and the Bermingham Tower (1758) drew attention to the miserable state of the records but little was done to rectify the situation. John Lodge's appointment as deputy keeper of rolls and records in the Bermingham Tower represented a turning point in the fortune of state records. His 26 volumes of transcripts from the rolls were later acquired by the Public Record Office to compensate for the destruction of the originals in the Four Courts fire in 1922. The appointment of the
Irish Record Commission
represented another step forward. The quality of its surveys, indexes, lists and calendars of the records was severely criticised and it was abolished in 1830 but like Lodge's transcripts, the work of the commission attained an unforeseen value after 1922. In 1848 a second commission focused on ordering and publishing
exchequer
material, the most notable legacy of which is James Ferguson's multi-volume transcripts of exchequer records. From 1869 the Public Record Office, established by parliament in 1867 (30 & 31 Vict., c. 70) and housed in a dedicated building in the Four Courts complex, became the central repository for state and local government records. Records previously held in Dublin Castle (except for those retained in the State Paper Office), the Custom House and the courts were transferred there, the bulk of which were subsequently consumed in the 1922 conflagration. Since 1922 the record office has accumulated a large collection of family, estate, business, solicitors' and other records through donations and purchase. It also acquired the chief secretary's massive archive from the State Paper Office. In 1986 the Public Record Office was merged with the State Paper Office to form the National Archives and all government departments were required to lodge official records there on a 30-year rule. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland was established in 1923 as a central repository for the six counties of Northern Ireland. It holds state, local government, education, ecclesiastical, family and estate records. The reports of the deputy-keeper of public records are the best guides to records held and accessions to the records offices. (Griffith, ‘A short guide to the Public Record Office of Ireland', pp. 45–58; Wood
, A guide to the public records
;
Idem
, ‘The public records of Ireland'.)