Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (62 page)

Union, Act of
(1800). The act (40 Geo. III, c. 38) which terminated the Irish parliament and transferred its legislative functions to the imperial parliament at Westminster. Ireland was to be represented in the house of commons by 100 members (a number negatively disproportionate to its population) and in the house of lords by 32 peers (including four bishops). The Irish executive, headed by a figurehead
lord lieutenant
and the effective governor, the
chief secretary
, remained, sharing the responsibility for Irish affairs with the secretary of state for home affairs. Although in theory, then, direct rule from Westminster came into force on 1 January 1801, in reality the executive in Dublin Castle continued to exercise considerable control over the administration of Ireland, notably in the areas of education, health and the economy. Many Catholics favoured the union because they were led to believe that the act would be accompanied by an emancipation act, a belief that was quickly shattered by George III's antipathy to enlarging the Catholic franchise. Some Protestants saw legislative union as a means of transforming their minority status in Ireland into a majority within the union, others feared it for the very reason that many Catholics favoured it – that Catholic emancipation would be included in the union package. (Bolton,
The passing of the Irish act
.)

Unionist Party
. An almost exclusively Protestant political party founded in 1885–6 to fight government proposals for Irish home rule. From 1921 it was the governing party in Northern Ireland until the northern parliament was prorogued in 1972. (Jackson,
The Ulster party
; Savage, ‘The origins', pp. 185–208.)

Unitarianism
. A Protestant non-conformist religious movement which denies the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, believing that God exists only in the one person. Unitarianism also stresses the free use of reason in religion. In Ireland the Unitarian church is known as the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian church which originated in the early decades of the eighteenth century with the refusal of a number of Presbyterian congregations to subscribe to the
Westminster Confession of Faith
and their secession to form the Presbytery of Antrim. Although they remained associated with the
Synod of Ulster
they severed that connection in the 1820s when subscription was made compulsory and they withdrew to form the Remonstrant Synod.

United Irishmen
. The Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast in October 1791 by a Protestant middle-class group dedicated to radical parliamentary reform and a truly representative, non-sectarian national parliament. Its leading members included Theobald Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, Archibald Rowan Hamilton, Lord Edward FitzGerald and Samuel Neilson. Government moves against the society together with the failure of FitzWilliam's Catholic emancipation bill in 1795 convinced many United Irishmen of the futility of seeking a constitutional resolution to the reform issue and encouraged them to plan for an armed insurrection. When fighting broke out in May 1798 the movement had already been hamstrung by the arrest of many of its leaders. Despite some successes, lack of military discipline and a shortage of arms told against the rebels and by mid-July the revolt was over. The society, too, almost disappeared but for a brief resurgence in Robert Emmett's abortive coup in 1803. (Curtin,
The United Irishmen
; Dickson, Keogh and Whelan,
The United Irishmen
; Jacob,
The rise
.)

universities
.
See
Queen's Colleges.

Unlawful Societies Bill
(1825).
See
Goulborn's Act.

urrí
. (Ir., sub-king, pl,
urrithe
) Sub-king or lesser chieftain, the client of a senior Gaelic lord. Written in English as urraught or urriagh.

use, feoffment to
. Until the abolition of feudal tenures in the mid-seventeenth century the feoffment or trust to use was a popular conveyance employed by chief tenants to avoid a number of crown taxes (specifically the
feudal incident
s of
wardship, relief, escheat
and
marriage
) and to circumvent certain statutory measures concerning family settlements, wills and
mortmain
. The feoffment to use achieved its end by exploiting the distinction between the common law interpretation of land law and that of equity, the view of
chancery
. Under common law a chief tenant's heir was obliged to pay
relief
to pass livery and assume ownership. Where the heir was a minor, wardship and marriage also applied. In a feeoffment to use
seisin
of the property was conveyed to a group of family intimates (feoffees) to the use (benefit) of the chief tenant and his heirs. According to common law, legal title to the land now lay with the feoffees or trustees and since the landowner was no longer seised of the land neither he nor his heirs were liable for the incidents. Security for the landowner lay in the certainty that the equitable side of chancery would uphold his beneficial interest. It is important to remember that feeoffees were not required to perform any duties in the management of the estate; their role was purely a nominal one. The use was also employed to circumvent common law prohibitions on family settlements, the bequeathing of land by
will
and, in earlier times, the conveyance of land to corporate bodies such as religious foundations. The Statute of Uses was introduced in England in 1534 and in Ireland 100 years later to close these loopholes and increase royal revenue by declaring seisin to lie with the beneficiary of any trust to use. Feoffments to use were rendered unnecessary by the 1634 Statute of Wills –(which permitted testators to bequeath land by will) and the 1662 Tenures Abolition Act (which abolished feudal tenures and most of the feudal incidents). (Wylie,
Irish land law
, pp. 78 ff.)

utfangeneth
.
See
outfangtheof.

utrum, juris utrum
. A writ which lies for the minister of a church whose predecessor has wrongfully alienated the lands and tenements thereof.

vade mecum
. (L., go with me) A ready reference manual, companion, handbook or guidebook that can be carried about.

vail
. A gratuity or tip given to servants by departing guests.

valor ecclesiasticus
. Following the Reformation the
first fruits
of all ecclesiastical benefices were impropriated by the crown and an additional tax, the
twentieth parts
, was imposed on all ecclesiastical incomes. In order to levy the tax a
valor
or valuation was conducted on benefices. Religious houses were not included in the valor for they were to be dissolved. In terms of detail the Irish valor is inferior to the extensively detailed English equivalent, entries simply recording the living and its monetary valuation. (
Valor
; Ellis, ‘Economic problems', pp. 239–265.)

valuation
. The value of a property were it to be rented for a full year. Thus a manorial valuation refers to its annual rental value and not the value were it to be sold. The Primary Valuation (1848–65), or
Griffith's Valuation
as it is more commonly known, was intended to establish the valuation of each house and holding in the country for the purposes of local taxation. The valuation books contain the names of occupiers of land and buildings, the names of lessors, the extent and valuation of the property together with a very brief description of the tenement.

verge
. A rod placed in the hand of a tenant by the lord to represent the
fief
into which he was being invested.
See
fealty, homage, investiture.

verger
. An usher or sacristan.

verso
. Abbreviated
v.
in references,
verso
refers to the side of a manuscript page that is to be read second, in other words, the back or left-hand side.
Recto
(
r.
) is the front of the page or right-hand side, the side to be read first.
See
folio.

vested schools
. The commissioners of national education required schools built with its support to adhere to its rules and be vested in local trustees. Non-vested schools received only annual grants for books and salaries and were subject to the commissioners' rules only for as long as they were in receipt of aid. The rules for both were the same. In 1840, in order to secure the connection of
Presbyterian
schools to the national system, the commissioners reinterpreted the status of non-vested schools and developed a number of unwritten rules to satisfy the demands of the
Synod of Ulster
which refused to countenance the presence of Catholic clergymen in Presbyterian schools. The commissioners now declared that clergymen of a persuasion different to that of the school manager were not entitled to provide religious instruction in the school – it must be provided elsewhere. They were permitted to visit the schools but only as members of the public. Non-vested schools were no longer required to allocate a separate day for religious instruction and children of a minority faith need no longer be excluded from the religious instruction classes of the majority. They might leave class if they wished but neither teachers nor managers bore any responsibility in the matter. These alterations effectively undercut the supposedly non-denominational status of the national system.
See
Education, National System of, Stopford rule.

vestry
. 1: An early form of local government, the parish or general vestry was an institution of the Established church which supervised the maintenance of roads and bridges and took responsibility for abandoned children, fed and maintained the poor and buried the destitute.
See
six-day labour. These civic services were financed by a local tax, the parish
cess
. After the abolition of the
penal laws
the vestry included all ratepayers irrespective of religious affiliation although the officers must be Anglicans. The ability of civil parishes to fulfil their civic functions varied significantly from place to place and, in general, Irish parishes failed to match the elaborate English parish system. In parishes where the Anglican congregation was small a comprehensive system was clearly impracticable but where strong concentrations of Anglicans existed – as in Dublin city – a sophisticated operation including fire-fighting, a parish watch, constables, street-cleaning (scavenging) and lighting was maintained. The 1833
Church Temporalities Act
disestablished the parish by abolishing parish cess. Subsequently its local government and health functions devolved to the
grand jury
, later to the
poor law union
and later again to the county and rural district councils under the 1908
Local Government Act
2: A church sacristy. (Refaussé
, A handbook
.)

vestry, select
. Unlike the general vestry, the select vestry comprised only ratepaying Anglicans. It was responsible for the physical maintenance of the church building and for payment of the minor church officers such as the
sexton
. From this body were elected annually the two
church-wardens
who administered the parish. They were assisted by volunteers and occasionally other appointees such as
overseers
who collected the parish
cess
and distributed money and assistance to those on the poor list.

veto controversy
(1808–1821) The veto controversy occupied centre stage in the debate on
Catholic emancipation
in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Some pro-emancipationists believed that a crown veto over Catholic episcopal appointments would reassure Protestants and smooth the path towards emancipation. Indeed, the pope agreed to such a limited veto in 1815 as a
quid pro quo
for legislative action on the issue. Others, including Daniel O'Connell, sought unqualified emancipation and opposed the veto. The controversy ended in 1821 with the rejection by the house of lords of William Conyngham Plunket's emancipation bill (which included the veto). From that date the veto ceased to be an issue as campaigners agitated for full emancipation. After Plunket's bill fell O'Connell wrote: ‘Even the Vetoists must admit that securities do no good because we are kicked out as unceremoniously with them as without them'. This did not prevent him from agreeing to other securities, the ‘
wings
', to facilitate the passage of the (unsuccessful) 1825 emancipation bill. (O'Ferrall,
Catholic emancipation
, pp. 3–9.)

vicar
. Whether the senior Anglican clergyman in a parish was a
rector
or a vicar depended on the disposition of the
tithe
. Where the great tithe was appropriated to a cathedral chapter or dignity or impropriated to a layman the incumbent was a vicar and he was entitled to the small tithe only. He was a vicar because he performed the ecclesiastic duties vicariously for the cathedral chapter, monastic institution or lay impropriator. An incumbent in full possession of the parish tithe was a rector.
See
appropriate, impropriate.

vicars choral
. Minor canons, skilled in singing, who deputised for the prebendaries (canons) for choral purposes in the cathedral and kept records of choir attendance. Not all vicars choral performed such duties. Often they simply collected the money associated with the post. In many cathedrals the vicars choral were endowed separately from the dean and chapter and they usually held a parish as well.

viceroy
. The lord lieutenant.

Victorine Canons
. An order of canons devoted to mystical theology which was founded by Richard of Saint-Victor, Paris. The Rule of St-Victor, a strict
Augustinian
rule, was introduced to the canons of the priory of St Thomas the Martyr in Thomascourt, Dublin, sometime after 1192 by John Comyn, archbishop of Dublin. Since it was customary for Victorine houses to enjoy abbatial dignity, the priory was thereafter referred to as Thomas' Abbey and the prior was elevated to the status of an abbot. Comyn's desire to introduce the Victorine rule appears to have derived from his earlier association with the English Victorine houses at Bristol and Keynsham in Somerset, formed when he served as
archdeacon
of Bath. (Gilbert,
Register of the abbey
; Gwynn, ‘The early history', pp. 1–35.)