Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (5 page)

Association for Discountenancing Vice and Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion
. A Protestant, proselytising educational society, the Association for Discountenancing Vice was founded by three members of the Established church in 1792 and funded initially by subscription. After it was incorporated in 1800 the association began to receive annual grants of public money which transformed it from a distributor of religious books and pamphlets into a provider of elementary education. Whenever a suitable school site was acquired the association advanced money to pay the cost of construction and contributed towards teachers' salaries. Titles to such schools were vested in the local Anglican minister and church-wardens. Schools in receipt of aid were not allowed to accept grants from other public institutions, the teachers must be Anglicans, all literate pupils were required to read the scriptures and only the Church of England catechism was taught. Children of all faiths were welcomed and non-Anglicans were excused the catechism but all had to read scripture. In 1819 about 50% of the enrolment of 8,800 pupils was Catholic. By 1824, when the association was receiving public funds in excess of £9,000, it controlled 226 schools which provided a very basic education in the ‘three Rs'. By this time the association had embraced a more actively proselytising role and began to expose Catholic children to catechetical classes. This prompted a mass exodus from the schools. In 1825 the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry slated the association's school system, noting that the education of non-Anglicans was entirely an accidental and secondary object of the association. After the introduction of the national system of education in 1831 the well of public funds dried up and the educational activities of the Association for Discountenancing Vice withered. In a new guise – and shorn of the reference to discountenancing vice – the Association for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (APCK) developed as the publishing wing of the Church of Ireland. The records of the association are held by the Representative Church Body Library. (Akenson,
Irish education
, pp. 80–83;
Idem, The Church of Ireland,
pp. 139–42.)

assumpsit
. (L., he has undertaken) 1: A promise to fulfil a bargain 2: A common law action to recover damages resulting from a breach of contract or promise. Assumpsit first emerged in cases where goods entrusted to the defendant had been damaged through his negligence. Later the emphasis shifted from negligence to failure to keep a promise. Every contract executory (to be executed in the future) incorporates an assumpsit because when a person agrees to pay a sum of money for goods or deliver a product for a certain sum he assumes or promises to pay or deliver. Failure to fulfil the promise means that the other party may have an action of the case on assumpsit.

attachment
. The seizure by a creditor of the goods of his debtor wherever he can find them.

attachment, writ of
. A writ to enforce the judgement of a court by which a defaulter is committed to prison for contempt by his non-compliance.

attaint
. A legal term which signifies a writ of judgement against a jury in a court of record which has returned a false verdict contrary to the evidence or because of an erroneous statement of the law by the judge. Originally jurors producing a false verdict were liable to have their homes torn down, their meadows ploughed and their lands forfeited but this was later replaced by a monetary fine and a new trial ordered.

attainder
. 1: From 1539 a formal declaration by parliament and without trial that a person was a traitor. Once a bill of attainder was introduced or passed in parliament the attainted person was effectively outside the law, deprived of all civil rights, disabled from seeking redress in the courts (although he could defend himself) and he forfeited his estate. By ‘corruption of blood' the attainted lost his right to inherit or transmit property 2: Attainder was the legal outcome of judgement of death or outlawry in cases of treason or a felony, the results of which were similar to attainder by parliament. By law no person could be tried or attainted of high treason but by the evidence on oath of two witnesses to the same treasonable act.
See
outlawry.

attorney-general
. Senior crown law officer who advised the
privy council
on legal questions and conducted state prosecutions. He explained and defended the royal interest in parliament, a role which required him to be in attendance regularly in the house.

attorney, letter of
. A deed creating a substitute to act for one of the parties in a conveyance. In medieval times this was usually executed to grant or receive seisin of a property.

Augustinian Canons, Austin Canons
. The Augustinian Canons (in full, the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, abbreviated OSA) appeared in Ireland in the mid-twelfth century through the influence and promotion of the ecclesiastical reformer St Malachy and became the predominant religious order in Ireland. Its constitution was based on the Rule of St Augustine, a series of instructions written by the theologian St Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). Malachy introduced a version of Augustinian rule known as the Arroasian observance after an inspection of the Augustinian house at Arrouaise in Arras (c. 1140). After Malachy's death in 1148 new Augustinian houses were founded, many of which were Arroasian, some for canonesses and some jointly owned by canons and canonesses.

Augustinian Friars, Austin Friars
. The Augustinian Friars (in full, the Order of Hermits of St Augustine, abbreviated OESA), a mendicant order, appeared in Ireland, probably from England, c. 1282. By 1300 there were four houses in Ireland, rising to twenty-two by the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. Administratively, Ireland was considered one of the four ‘limits' or sub-provinces of the English province and was itself subdivided into four regions (
plagae
) viz., Munster, Connacht, Leinster and Ulster with Meath. Connacht survived the suppression of the mid-sixteenth century and the order experienced a revival from 1613 which continued right through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The closure of the Irish noviciates by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1751 (and of the continental seminaries some decades later) reduced the numbers seeking to join the order and led to a decline which was not arrested until the following century.

Austin friars
.
See
Augustinian Friars.

autograph
. A manuscript in the hand of the author.

avowry
.
See
advowry.

‘Back Lane parliament'
.
See
Catholic Convention.

backside
. A yard or plot behind a house.

badging
. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some parishes (including a number in Dublin city and Ulster) introduced a system of badging licensed beggars to ensure that only deserving local beggars were permitted to operate within the parish boundaries and to curb the activities of able-bodied strolling vagrants who infested the streets and were a burden on the parish poor list. Badging was permitted under a 1772 poor relief act (11 & 12 Geo. III, c. 30) which empowered committees in every county and city of a county to badge beggars and construct workhouses (houses of industry) for the restraint and punishment of sturdy idlers.
See
industry, house of.

baile.
(Ir.) Homeplace or townland preserved in placenames as Bally. Over 5,000 townland names in Ireland commence with Bally.
See
townland. (Hughes, ‘Town and baile', pp. 244– 58.)

bailey
. Walled courtyard or forecourt, generally rectangular in shape.
See
motte and bailey.

bailiff
. 1: A senior manorial official who supervised the daily operation and functioning of the
manor
, including the keeping of surveys and
account rolls
2: Bailiffs (Ballivi – always used in the plural form) were borough officials, second in rank to the mayor, who exercised judicial powers as magistrates in the civil courts. The title sheriff was later substituted for bailiff.

Balfour Acts
.
See
Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891.

balister
. 1: An archer 2: A crossbow archer.

balk (baulk)
. A narrow ridge of unploughed grassland dividing cultivated land in the openfield system.

ballastage
. A toll paid for the right to remove ship's ballast from the bed of a port.

Ballast Office
. Precursor to the Dublin Port and Docks Board, the Ballast Office Committee was established by the Irish parliament (6 Anne, c. 20) in 1707 to effect improvements in Dublin harbour. The irregular taking on and throwing out of ballast had seriously disabled the port and reduced its capacity to receive larger vessels. It was generally acknowledged that a regulatory office was required to oversee the raising, furnishing and discharge of ballast. Several private initiatives were proposed but the corporation of Dublin successfully resisted these encroachments on its civic authority. When the corporation itself proposed a ballast office bill, the admiralty objected on the basis that this was an infringement of the lord high admiral's rights. The bill passed the Irish parliament after the corporation acknowledged the admiralty's authority and agreed an annual payment of 100 yards of best Holland duck (a strong linen cloth). In 1729 (3 Geo. II, c. 21) and again in 1785 (25 Geo. III, c. 64) the Irish parliament legislated for the cleansing of the ports, harbours and rivers of Cork, Galway, Sligo, Drogheda and Belfast and for the erection of ballast offices in each town. From 1786 the Ballast Committee Office was replaced by the Ballast Board which was tasked with cleansing and deepening the port and maintaining the harbour at Dún Laoire. Spoil dredged from ports was retained for use as ships' ballast. In 1807 the Ballast Board was renamed the Dublin Port and Docks Board. (Falkiner,
Illustrations
, pp. 186–190.)

balliboe
. Unit of spatial measurement in Tyrone, three of which made a quarter. As a quarter was estimated to contain about 240 acres, the balliboe amounted to about 80 acres and therefore was broadly similar to the tate of Fermanagh and Monaghan.

ballybetagh
. (Ir.,
baile biataigh
, the steading or farmstead of a
biatach
or
betagh
) A unit of land measurement comprising four quarters. A quarter was generally considered to contain about 240 acres, Irish measure, so that a ballybetagh may have amounted to about 1,000 Irish acres. Thirty ballybetaghs made a
tricha-cét
or
cantred
or
barony
.

Ballymote, Book of
. A compilation written at Ballymote, Co. Sligo, largely the work of Solomon O'Droma and Manus Ó Duigenann. Consisting of 251 vellum leaves, it contains
Lebor Gabála Érenn,
chronological, genealogical and historical pieces in prose and verse relating to saints, remarkable Irishmen and important families. It also includes tracts on ogham alphabets, ancient history, the rights, privileges and tributes of the learned and ruling classes together with a Gaelic translation of the history of the Britons by Nennius. (Atkinson,
Ballymote
.)

‘the banker'
. In the nineteenth century a pig raised for market to pay the rent. Also known as ‘the gentleman who pays the rent'.

bankruptcy court
. During the eighteenth century cases of bankruptcy were dealt with by the issuing of individual commissions and this continued to be the case until 1836 when a permanent commissioner in bankruptcy (two from 1837) was appointed by the lord lieutenant. The commissioners in bankruptcy were barristers of ten years' standing and removable only by an address to the crown from both houses of parliament. The court for the relief of insolvent debtors, established in 1821 and headed by similarly qualified barristers, was united with the commissioners in bankruptcy in 1857 to form the court of bankruptcy and insolvency. In 1872 this court was re-styled the court of bankruptcy. (McDowell,
The Irish administration,
pp. 109–110.)

Baptist church
. The earliest Baptist congregations were established in Irish towns in the mid-seventeenth century by Cromwellian soldiers. The strength of their presence within the army was regarded as a threat to discipline and civil order for Baptists shared a belief in adult baptism with the sixteenth-century radical European
Anabaptists
, and, by extension, were often pejoratively so labelled. Numerically insignificant in the eighteenth century, Baptist numbers rose to over 7,000 by the turn of the twentieth century, aided by the
evangelical revival
of 1859. Today there are about fifty Baptist congregations in Ireland. Baptists believe that faith must precede baptism. Since baptism can only be valid after a profession of faith, they repudiate the practice of infant baptism. Organisationally, Baptists are congregationalists; they believe that the local congregation, under Christ, is the sole authority in matters of faith and worship. Local congregations are voluntarily associated with the Baptist Union of Ireland but remain autonomous.
See
Independents. (Greaves,
God's other children,
pp. 25–7; Gribbon, ‘Irish Baptist Church', pp. 183–191.)

Baptist Society
. An avowedly proselytising body founded in London in 1814. The society was most active in Connacht where it set up schools and provided financial aid to other schools that agreed to abide by its rules. Preaching and teaching were conducted through the medium of the Irish language, accompanied by the usual distribution of bibles and religious tracts. (Rusling, ‘The schools', pp. 429–42.)

baptizandi nomen
. In Catholic baptismal registers, the baptismal name of the child.

baptus est/bapta est.
He/she was baptised.

bar
. In heraldry, two broad horizontal bands across the centre of an
escutcheon
.