https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Ballygurteen+Cross,+Co.+Cork/@51.6766894,-9.02152,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4844ff89920e414f:0x3b4e65c98ff93898

1840, Ballygurteen (Dunmanway/Clonakilty), West Cork, fairs 24th June, 25th July, 28th December, under a patent Granted to the Reverend Sir Michael Cox, Bart in the Reign of George 111 (1738-1820).

Fairs and Tolls could be lucrative. In Bantry the Bantry estate collected tolls until well into the 19th century they were levied on animals or produce entering the town on fair days. Sometimes they were farmed out.

Sale of Dunmanway Co. Cork, Lordship of Manor 1858, including Tolls of Ballygurteen fair, Patent allows 3 per year, 2 held, 1858, producing £30 per annum.

An account of the Kilgariff, Clonakilty, West Cork, Eedy family to Clifton and Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada some of the names mentioned Knowles, Bateman, Beamish, French, Morris, Stanley, Woulfe, Crowley, O’Donovan, Cahalane, Donoghue, A Glass of Whiskey Ballygurteen Fair prior to Emigrating.

From ‘Harvey’s Jocular Medley’, ‘The Annual Fair will be held on the 13th May 1738 at…

The information was collected by the RIC.  Tolls were traded as a form of property.

https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Clashadoo,+Co.+Cork/@51.6319007,-9.5460531,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x48459fd56e65e3f7:0xd76f2e9f91b569c0

Sarah Dukelow is still alive , former teacher, July 2016. The teacher in her school Líam Blennerhassett, from Tralee was particularly inspiring. Part of the collection has now gone online the rest in phases will happen. The collection is the most extensive in the world.

She said that two of her informants were Jack Dukelow and Mick Bohane the parish Priest’s manservant.

From Mick she got a poem in Irish which she transcribed. He did not speak Irish but this was by his grandmother in the style of the lament composed by Eibhlín Ni Chonaill on the death of her husband, ‘Caoineadh Art Ó Laoighre’. She wrote it in the jotter supplied but the teacher did not send all the jotters to Dublin. She said that went to Dublin was only a fraction of what she collected.

Jack Dukelow died in around 1954 and was from Rossmore, grandfather of…

The presentments were list of works, ‘presented’, by land owners to the Grand Jury in the hope that financial assistance would be forthcoming to enable them to be carried out.  This is from the Cork Examiner of the 8th November 1846.  For Cheskin read Seskin.

It is not clear if the money was paid directly by the Grand Jury adn later reimbursed centrally.  Some later drainage schemes were financed from Dublin.

Samuel Hutchins, listed 1835 at Ballylickey, 1838.  1835 in Bantry paying £5 toward Catholic Rent, frequently praised as a Liberal Protestant. 1840 petition on Catholic Equality. Attending address Ardnagashel 1840 Great Meeting Bantry re Poor Law. Listed 1843, Ardnagashel, Bantry.   Estate passed to him on death of younger brother Emanuel in 1839,  Brother of botanic artist Ellen Hutchins.  1820 Member Cork Library. 1837 donated £5 to Justice (Catholic Repeal) Rent.  Set up a soup kitchen during Famine.  Extensive…

From Pall Mall Gazette, September, 1890.

While reading the evidence before a parliamentary enquiry into land tenure taken in Bantry in 1844 and came across a reference to a tenant paying his landlord with a £3 note.  I never came across this before, I do remember the old orange 10 shilling note.

When I checked it out the history was interesting.  Ireland apparently joined sterling in 1825 (currency fluctuations are not new) and the Bank of Ireland was given authority to issue notes.  Included was the £3 and 30 shilling notes.

In 1844 a farm laborer was lucky to get 8p. per day and the salary of a Resident Magistrate started at £300 per annum.  If you took  a laborer now at a low €75 a day that would give the value of £3 at €6,750 or the pay of the modern equivalent of a Resident Magistrate a District Justice at €123K then the value of £3…

Obituary of Canon TJ Walsh, Cork Historian, 1984.

Father Walsh’s writing display an amazing knowledge of sources of going back to original material and are a testament to his keen intelligence.  When he was Parish priest in Durrus in the 1960s his sermons ranged over historical figures such a Aonghus Ó Dalaigh the Kilcrohane poet, alas it was lost on his congregation.

History Balckrock Father Walsh c 1963

In time to come his work may again be appreciated by the public.

Father Séamus Coombes who wrote the obituary was himself a noted historian in particular of West Cork themes.

Companile erected 1860 by Alexander McCarthy, MP bronze plaques commemorating historical figures of McCarthy Sept, Diamond Hill, Blackrock, The Galweys of Dundanion, Joseph Nagle d 1757, Clogarán Cléireach (Mass Bells) and old bell of St. Michael’s now in Columbus, Georgia, USA from Father Walsh’s History Blackrock. Cork, c 1963

Briseann an Duchais Trí Súil an Chait, The Maverick DNA of Black Jack Fitzgibbon, (Lord Clare 1749-1801), First Irish Born Attorney-General of the 18th Century, Pioneer of World-wide Metropolitan Policing, his sister Lady Arabella Jeffares, Blarney, Supporter of Tenant farmer and Rightboys, sister Eleanor married to Cork Barrister, Dominic Trant, the insult of Trinity Fellow Patrick Duignan to Father Arthur O’Leary, ‘The Friar with the barbarous Surname’ and an account of the Cork Rightboys in 1785 by Cork Apothecary John Barrett Bennett.

Bennett’s account is reproduced in an article in 1984 JCHAS by James S. Donnelly Junior, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He is a leading authority of Cork and its Political and land History.  He acknowledges his debt to his graduate student Irene Whelan Hehir who laboured for months in deciphering Mr. Bennett’s account written for family consumption in 1785.  Donnelly’s introduction sets out the overall backdrop in terms…