CSO/RP/1829/905. Letter from the Marquis of Lansdowne [Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquis Lansdowne], Bowood [House, Derry Hill, Wiltshire, England], to Francis Leveson Gower, Chief Secretary, forwarding memorial of nobility, magistrates and gentlemen of counties Cork and Kerry, to Hugh Percy, Lord Lieutenant, requesting the construction of a new line of road from Bantry to Skibbereen, containing 46 signatures, with covering note by Henry Greville, [Irish Office, London]. [Contains list of names not given in this description]
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Some of the names are very indistinct
Lansdowne, Marquis of Lansdowne [Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquis Lansdowne], Bowood [House, Derry Hill, Wiltshire, England],
Bantry, Lord Bantry
Berehaven, Richard White (1800-1868), 2nd Earl of Bantry, Lord Berehaven. As Berehaven travelled extensively he was often absent from Bantry. He visited the usual sites of the nineteenth century Grand Tour, also visiting Spain, Russia, the Baltics and Scandinavia. There were two activities he invariably participated in while travelling: sketching and collecting. The latter activity led to the creation of one of the most eclectic collections of art to grace an Irish home.
J. Herbert, Sheriff of Kerry
James Hickson, J.P.
Wiliam Godfrey, Rector of Kenmare and J.P.
Edward Godfrey
Daniel Cronin, J.P.
Daniel Mahony, J.P.
Christopher Gallwey, J.B. lives in Killarney manages Kenmare/Brown Estate in Bantry/Beara
John O’Connell, J.P.
J. D. Godfrey, J.P.
Thomas Marshall, ?, J.P.
Robert Blennerhassett, J.P.
T. C. Bland, J.P.
J. Bland
Thomas H. Fuller
Samuel Mathews, Clerk
Edward Donnell, P.P
Sylvester McSwiney possibly of the extended O’Sullivan family of Beara
Magistrate: Rev. Edward Herbert Kenny, 1799, died 1842. Freeman of Kinsale 1797. Subscriber, at Moviddy, James Mullalla, Review of Irish Affairs 1688-1795. Major figure in road building praised by Horatio Townsend for road work enabling sea sand to go through Kilmeen to interior. Present at enquiry Skibbereen 1823 into enquiry into fatal affray at Castlehaven caused by Rev. Morritt’s tithe extraction. 1822 received £50 for distress in Kilmeen from Lord Lieutenant. 1830 subscriber Robert O’Callaghan Newenham ‘Views of the Antiquities of Ireland’. 1833 tithes. 1831, Ballineen 1835, 1835 Son of Rev. Dr. John Kenny, rector of Kilbrogan which he spent £3. 104 on, his father had married sister of Emmett Archbishop of Tuam. Family based in Bandon area. Subscriber at Kilmeen Glebe where he was rector for 43 years. Lewis Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837. Rector of Durrus for 6 years. Edward Herbert Kenney 1793-1799, a Justice of the Peace 28th May 1799. He was later Rector Rosscarbery and his work in organising relief work (in the famine of 1822) and paying the workers in money or meal was praised by the Parish Priest for his ‘meritorious conduct’. Family buried at Ballymartle. County Freeman Kilmeen of Cork City voting in Cork City Election 1837.
Rev. Edward Herbert Kenny, Rector of Kilmeen, Widely Praised for Work on Road and Bridges enabling Sea Sand to be used as Fertilizer in Interior of West Cork. 1832 calls in Gunboat to Clonakilty, 69th Regiment and Police in Attempt to Collect his tithes at Kilmeen and Ballygurteen.
It is difficult to reconcile his altruism and industry wiht his tithe collecting attempts. Reading the Chief Secretary Papers the military and Dublin Castle Authorities wee thoroughly sick of him and his high handed antics.
Kilmeen Herbert Gillman, Edward O’Brien. Rev. Edward Herbert Kenny £750 entirely to Rev. Edward Herbert Kenny. Special Vestry chaired by Robert Sealy, William Buttomere (Buttimer), John Bateman, John Collins approved no variation for 21 years rector assented. 1833 For 7 years ending 1821 barrel of wheat £1 18 shillings 8 and a half pence grown in said country
CSO/RP/1832/5791. Letters from EH Kenny, Rector of Kilmeen and magistrate, Clonakilty, [County Cork], to Edward Smith Stanley, [Chief Secretary], stating that his bailiff was assaulted while attempting to distrain livestock in lieu of tithe arrears in his parish and that a party of police was stoned while attempting to restore order; seeking the stationing of a military force in the parish and suggesting that the military commanders be appointed to the commission of the peace.
Also letter from Daniel Conner and NS Shuldham, magistrates, to Stanley, reporting on the incident. CSO/RP/1832/6119. Letter from the [Maj Gen Edward Blakeney, Commander in Chief], Major General Commanding, Royal Hospital, [Dublin], to Sir William Gosset, [Under Secretary], forwarding a report [not extant] from Col Wilson, commanding the 65th Reserve concerning the enforcement of tithes at Kilmeen, [possibly County Cork]. CSO/RP/1832/5562.
File containing police reports of a serious attack on the police and military while attempting to assist Rev Edward H Kenny with the enforcement of his tithes at [Ballingurteen, County Cork] CSO/RP/1832/6335.
Letter from [Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron] Templemore, Military Secretary, Royal Hospital, Dublin, to Sir William Gosset, [Under Secretary], referring to military reports from Maj Gen James Douglas and Capt Patience, 65th Reserve at Clonakilty, [County Cork], concerning an unnecessary request made to Capt Patience by Rev EW Kenny, magistrate. Also copy of letter from Gosset, Dublin Castle, to Kenny, Kilmeen, Clonakilty, informing him that the troops should not have been required to march 18 miles on unnecessary business.
In his memoir he states his father an grandfather were absentee landlords,
William Bence Jones (1812-1882), B.L., Lisselane, Clonakilty, London Bar 1837. Attending Landlord Meeting Bandon Courthouse 1846, listed 1854, 1861, listed 1875-6. Subscribing £2 1851 to Clonakilty Infant School. 1858 funded erection of Kilmaloda church. Ross representative with Sampson Beamish, Standing Committee, Diocesan Synod 1871. Boycotted during Land war. Irish agriculturist, b. Beccles, Suffolk; his grand father bought an estate at Lisselane, Co. Cork, and Jones undertook its management in 1838 following embezzlement by agent; built Glenville, the family home, and lived there till 1880; his opposition to relief work – advocating emigration and drainage as alternatives – led to attacks by the Land League, followed by a boycott which he successfully resisted; he strenuously opposing Gladstone’s Irish Land Act of 1881, but left Ireland that year; works include Life’s Work in Ireland of a Landlord Who Tried to Do His Duty (1880); and works on ecclesiastical matters such as What Has Been Done in the Irish Church Since its Disestablishment (1875)
May be descendant of Cork Jones attorney and Droumbeg, Rosscarbery landed family.
West Cork Manors are in detail at page 334 on. The Manors are legacies of the forfeit lands and English Crown Grants to various Estates. The early report contains detailed evidence of the working of the Manor Court mainly not complimentary. The Courts were presided over by Seneschals. generally not legally qualified and often the local Landlord’s Agent.
1822, The Troubles of a Struggling Farmer, Mud Cabin, Heavy Taxes, Tithes, Cess, and Rack Rents, Wintry Wind, by Poet Mícheál Óg Ó Longáin (1766-1837), Caheragh, (lived later Glanmire), Co. Cork.
Life
1766–1837),poet and scribe; born to the Ó Longáin learned family in Carrignavar, Co. Cork. 1766-1837; b. Carrignavar, Co. Cork; son of Mícheál mac Peadair; orphaned young, his parents dying in 1770 and 1774; employed as cowherd; returned to education, 1784; assisted United Irishmen, 1797-98; wrote for Whiteboys, 1785; ‘Buachaillí Loch Garman [Boys of Wexford]’, 1798; m. 1800; worked as scribe, labourer, and teacher in Co. Cork; settled in north Kerry and East Limerick, 1802-07; wrote on poverty and oppression; employed as a teacher and scribe by Rev. John Murphy, Bishop of Cork, 1814; copied manuscripts, 1817-1820; sons Peadar and Pól, and Seosamh, also became scribes; died. on his son Pól’s 11-acre holding in eleven acres in Knockboy in…
The sums paid on tithes 1820s was enormous, not all went to the clergymen some went to lay impropriators who puchased tithes as an investment. Of the amount which went to clergymen part was to pay for services such as the care of fondlings burial of the indigent dead and other services.
Father Patrick Hickey in his Mizen history has document in detail this period.
Timoleague Tithes. Commissioners Patrick O’Brien, Michael Enright.
CSO/RP/1829/910 Letter from Rev Charles Ferguson, Bandon, relating to Patrick O’Brien who stands accused of smuggling tobacco. Confidential letter from Rev Charles Ferguson, Prebendary of Timoleague, Timoleague Glebe House, Bandon, [County Cork], to William Gregory, Under Secretary, relating to Patrick O’Brien who stands accused of smuggling tobacco.
Tithes payable to Rev. Charles Ferguson as Prebentry and Vicar of parish.
TCD, FERGUSON Charles 1811 14 Joseph Curator Dublin TCD
Charles Ferguson, Timoleague, 1832 was murdered while attempting to collect his tithes by force.
Involved in litigation with parishioners.
Commissioners set tithes at £413 British sterling, to Rev. Charles Ferguson as Prebentry and Vicar of parish. Unusually the Select Vestry of qualified voters on 1827 agreed a figure of £320 for 21 years, included Jerry Leary, Daniel Leary, ..Long Chairman his mark, Felix Mccarthy. Around this time the pay offered for teacher sin the new National Schools was £28 a year.
1828 Average price of wheat for seven years prior to 1821, £1 18 shillings per barrel
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Tithes
Tithes were a medieval tax of one tenth of crops. The benefits went to the clergy who were expected to provide civil services out of it. In Cork Richard Boyle (ancestor the the Dukes of Devonshire and numerous other lines) managed by underhand methods in the early 17th century to acquire most of the Diocesan tithes. A large part was ‘impropriate’ and in time were traded as any form of property. Much of the later trouble with tithes came from the vigorous enforcement to entitlements by tithe proctors who sometime acquired the tithes or received a significant proportion of money collected.
The Tithe Composition Act of 1823 provided that a special Vestry could appoint an arbitrator to determine the amount of tithe. The exemption of pasture from tithe was abolished in 1824. The amount of tithe was fixed at 21 years. Schull implemented tithe composition in 1826. Kilmoe followed in 1828, Aughadown in 1829 and Kilcoe in 1830. In Kilcoe the tithe of £215 of which went to the Rector Rev. Henry Stewart the balance to the ‘lay impropriator’, Lord Audley.
The local tithe compositions were extremely high, of Durrus £350 of which £170 to the lay Impropriator originally the Earl of Donoughmore in the 1820 it was divided into Nathaniel Evanson for Durrus and he and Alexander O’Driscoll for Kilcrohane, Schull Parish was £850, Kilmoe £500, Dunmanway £461 in contrast to Watergrasshill near Cork of £43. Tithes payable Rev. Edward Jones Alcock, Durrus, of £320 Sterling is due and payable by the year to the said Reverend Edward Jones Alcock, the composition from the tithes claimable by him as figure of such part of said Parish as is commonly known by the name of Durrus or Parish of KIlcrohane is payable to the Reverend Alcock Vicar of the said Parish the sum of £170.
After the depression starting at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the earlier measure to alleviate tithes was inadequate and widespread agitation broke out. The Reverend Robert Traill, Rector of Schull wrote, ‘One clergyman within 30 miles of us has been murdered, and another most narrowly escaped with his life by taking refuge in the house of a priest. The ungodly are rising up, and these poor deluded Roman Catholics are caballing to deprive me of my tithes, alas!. What wickedness is this?
Tithe agitation drew on the earlier activities of the Whiteboys. As late as 1822 Richard O’Donovan, of Bawnlahan said the Whiteboys had been caught in a pitched battle with police and troops on January 25th nine had been found guilty of Insurrection Act and hanged. This was prompted by and Excise raid on a poteen making operation which developed into a running battle with the Whiteboys.
From 1834 the anti tithe meetings combined with Repeal meetings but largely with the same organisers.
The Tithe Act of 1833 reduced tithes by 25% and converted it into a tax into a rent charge to be collected by the Landlord with the rent.
By 1838 there were public meetings in Skibbereen and Bandon where all sides agreed to look for ‘an equitable arrangement of tithes’ and asked parliament to make the necessary arrangements.
Old Caheragh Church and Caheragh Poets in Irish, Na Baróidigh, (Seán, Seámus, Riocárd) Lissane, Donnacha, Muiris and Paul Ó h-Anngáin, Donnacha Ó Briain, Diarmuid Ó Crualaoich, Mícheál Óg Ó Longáin (lived later Glanmire), Church Bell Provided by Patrick Rocky Mountain O’Brien of Dromore.
Thanks to Peter O’Driscoll, Aughaville now San Francisco.
It is difficult as you drive from Drimoleague to Skibbereen over the improved farmland now used for intensive dairying that pre Famine, Caheragh was one of the most densely populated, non urban areas in the world. The parish had a population of more than 10,000. It was along with Drinagh and Castlehaven in the 18th century a centre of Gaelic Poetry. Eugene Daly in the Skibbereen Journal has recently published an article giving more details:
In the records of mid 18th century the Catholic Church in Caheragh was a small shed and cabin:
1862 Whale Landed on Dunmanus Bay near Residence of James O’Callaghan, J.P. Rock Cottage. His son Sir FRANCIS LANGFORD O’Callaghan (1839–1909), civil engineer, born on 22 July 1839, was the second son of James O’Callaghan, J. P., of Drisheen, Co. Cork, by his wife Agnes, daughter of the Rev. Francis Langford, one time Rector of Kilmoe (Goleen), Chief Engineer to the Government of India. Chief Railway Engineer, Government of India. Later managing member of the Ugandan Railway Commission.
Engineer. Francis O’Callaghan was born on 22 July 1839, the second son of James O’Callaghan, JP, of Drisheen, Co. Cork, and his wife Agnes, née Langford. He attended Queen’s College, Cork, and received his practical training under HENRY CONYBEARE . In 1862, he competed for and won a place on the staff of the Indian Public Works Department. He spent thirty two years in the Indian service, rising to the rank of chief engineer, (first class), and retiring in 1894. On his return to England he was appointed managing member of the Ugandan railway commission, a post which he half for three years and in connection with which was awarded a knighthood in 1902. He died at his home in Guildford on 14 November 1909. He had married in 1875 Anna Maria Mary, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Powell, of Banlahan, Co. Cork.
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Claringbould Powell, (1801-1902), 1874, Bawnlahan (O’Donovan Estate), Leap, Resident, £67, 2nd. son Major Edward Powell and Eleanor d James B. Buchanan, m Mary Ann d Lieutenant-General Hutchesson, daughter 1837, oldest son Rev. Francis Perry Hutchesson b 1843, Newcastle. Estate to Powells from Lieutenant-General O’Donovan (The O’Donovan) on the death of his widow to her brother Major Powell. Probate last address 2, Alfred Place, Dover, in Ireland £1,886. Land record, 1870, 2,475 acres. O’Donovan estate passed to Powells from Wales on marriage of The O’Donovan, Miss Powell she died and the estate passed to her brother.
Cork Examiner 4 September 1862.
James McCarthy, Ballydevlin, Goleen. Cess payer representative. May be joint Commissioner to assess tithes in Parish of Kilmoe with Florence McCarthy, £500 undivided and payable to Rev. Francis Langford, Rector
Possibly related Denis O’Callaghan Fisher. Solicitor, Mount St., Dublin Genealogist. Brother of Rev. Fisher, Kilmoe may be connected to area. On his Vol 1 of Irish Marriages 1740-1820 handwritten medical notes on Goleen, Kilcrohane. May be connection to James O’Callaghan, J.P. Rock Cottage, Schull. Buried “Deansgrange No.3826 DENIS O’CALLAGHAN FISHER | Genealogist | born 18th Nov. 1809, died 22nd Decr. 1869 | Also | CHRISTABELLA DELANY | Aunt of the above | who died the 8th of May 1869 | aged 86 years | Also his brother | Rev. WILLIAM ALLEN FISHER | for 40 years Rector of | the Parish of Kilmoe, Diocese of Cork | born 4th Nov. 1808, died 5th Aug. 1880 | “”And I heard a great voice from heaven say | unto them come up hither”” | Rev. VI. 12.” Left £1,500 Possibly related
West Cork History 