A townland or bally (Irish: Baile Fearainn) is a small geographical division of land used in Ireland. The townland system is of Gaelic origin, pre-dating the Normans,[1][2][3][4] with most townlands believed to pre-date the Norman invasion with many retaining their Gaelic names.[2] Some townland names and boundaries however derive from Norman manors, plantation divisions, or later creations of the Ordnance Survey.[5][6] There are currently 61,402 named townlands in Ireland, covering the whole island.[7] The term was at one time also used in Scotland.
Contents |
In Ireland, a townland is the smallest administrative division of land.[8] Whilst the concept of townlands is based on the Gaelic system of land division, it was in the 1600s that they became mapped and defined by the English administration for the purpose of portioning the land for investors or grants.[8] The first official evidence of the existence of this Gaelic land division system can be found in church records from before the 12th century.[9]
The English term "townland" describes the smallest units of land division in Ireland. These are based upon various different kinds of Gaelic land division, many of which had their own names. The term baile, anglicised as "bally", is the most dominant element used in Irish townland names.[10] Whilst today the term "bally" denotes a town or urban settlement, it's precise meaning in ancient Ireland is unclear as towns had no place in Gaelic social organisation.[10] The modern Irish term for a townland is baile fearainn (plural: balite fearainn). The term fearainn means "land, territory, quarter" — from a Proto-Indo-European root *wer- which is also related to the English word ware, a valuable commodity.
Throughout most of Ulster, townlands were known as "ballyboes" (Irish: baile bó, meaning "cow land"[11]),[12] and represented an area of pastoral economic value.[11] In County Cavan, similar units where called "polls", and in counties Fermangh and Monaghan they were known as "tates" or "taths".[11][12][10] These names appear to be of English origin, however naturalised long before the 1600s.[11] In modern townland names, the prefix pol- is widely found throughout western Ireland, with "hole" or "hollow" its accepted meaning.[11] In County Cavan however (which contains over half of all townlands in Ulster with the pol- prefix) some of those should be translated as meaning "the poll of...".[11] In regards to tates, the modern distribuation of townlands with the prefix tat- is confined almost exclusively to the dicoese of Clogher (which covers counties Fermanagh, Monaghan, and Clogher barony in County Tyrone).[11], and it cannot be confused with any other Irish word.[11]
In County Tyrone the following heirarchy of land division was used: "ballybetagh" (Irish: baile biataigh, meaning "victualler's place"); "ballyboe"; "sessiagh" (Irish: séú cuid, meaning sixth part of a quarter); "gort" and "quarter" (Irish: ceathrú).[10] In County Fermanagh it was: "ballybetagh"; "quarter" and "tate".[10] Further sub-divisions in Fermanagh appear to be related to liquid or grain measures such as "gallons", "pottles", and "pints".[13]
In Ulster the ballybetagh was the territorial unit controlled by an Irish sept, typically containing around 16 townlands. The result of ballybetagh fragmentation saw the use of units consisting of four, eight, and twelve townlands. One of these fragmented units, the "quarter" (representing a quarter of a ballybetagh), was the universal land denomination recorded in the 1608 survey for County Donegal.[14] In the early 17th century, 20% of the total area of western Ulster was under the control of the church. These "termon" lands consisted likewise of ballybetaghs and ballyboes, however were held by erenaghs instead of sept leaders.[14]
Other units of land divisions used throughout Ireland include:
"Cartrons" were also sometimes called "ploughlands" or "seisreagh" (Irish: seisreach, meaning a team of horses yoked to a plough).[10]
Thomas Larcom, the first director of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, made a study of the ancient land divisions of Ireland and summarised the traditional heirachy of land divisions as being:[8][10]
10 acres - 1 Gneeve; 2 Gneeves - 1 Sessiagh; 3 Sessiaghs - 1 Tate or Ballyboe; 2 Ballyboes - 1 Ploughland, Seisreagh or Carrow; 4 Ploughlands - 1 Ballybetagh, or Townland; 30 Ballybetaghs - Triocha Céad or Barony.
This heirachy did not apply uniformly across Ireland for example a ballybetagh or townland could contain more or less than four ploughlands.[8] Further confusion arises when it is taken into account that whilst Larcom used the general term acres in his summary, terms such as 'great acres', 'large acres', and 'small acres' were also used in records.[8] Writting in 1846, Larcom remarks that the 'large' and 'small' acres had no fixed ratio between them and that there where various other kinds of acre in use in Ireland, for example: the Irish acre; English acre; Cunningham acre; plantation acre and statute acre.[8][10] The Ordnance Survey maps used the statute acre measurement.[8] The quality and situation of the land affected the size of these acres.[10] The Cunningham acre is given as being a medium between the Irish and English acre.[10]
Many of these land division terms have been preserved in the names of modern townlands, for example: the term "cartron" in both its English and Irish form has been preserved in the townland names of Carrowmeer, Cartron, and Carrowvere, whilst the term "sessiagh" in those of Shesia, Sheshodonell, Sheshymore, and Shessiv.[10] The terms "ballyboe" and "ballybetagh" tend to be preserved in the truncated form of "bally" as a prefix for some place names. Lesser known land division terms may be found in other townland names such as Coogulla (Irish: Cuige Uladh, "the Ulster fifth"), Treanmanagh (Irish: an train meánach, "the third middle"), and Dehomade (Irish: an deichiú méid, "the tenth part").[10]
Townlands vary in size from the smallest, of less than an acre (Old Church Yard, Carrickmore, parish of Termonmagurk, County Tyrone), up to 7,012 acres (28.38 km2) or 28.3 km² (Sheskin, parish of Kilcommon, County Mayo).[5] Typically 200 to 400 acres (1.6 km2) is a reasonable average.[15]
The ballyboe (a townland unit used in Ulster) was described in 1608 as containing sixty acres of arable land, meadow, and pasture, however this was misleading as the size of townlands under the Gaelic system varied depending upon their quality, situation, and economic potential.[12][10] This economic potential ranged from the extent of land required to graze cattle to the land required to support several families.[12] The highest density of townland units recorded in Ulster in 1609 corresponds to the areas with the highest land valuations in the 1860s.[12]
It seems that many moorland areas were not divided into townlands until fairly recently. These areas were "formerly shared as a common summer pasturage by the people of a whole parish or barony".[16]
During the 19th century, an extensive series of maps of Ireland were created by the Irish division of the Ordnance Survey for taxation purposes, which documented and standardised the boundaries of the more than 60,000 townlands in Ireland. This process often involved dividing or amalgamation of existing townlands, and defining townland boundaries in areas such as mountain or bog land that had previously been outside the townland system.[9]
Townlands form the building blocks for higher-level administrative units such as parishes and District Electoral Divisions (in the Republic of Ireland) or wards (in Northern Ireland). Before 1972, townlands were included on all postal addresses throughout the island. However, in 1972 Royal Mail decided that the townland element of the address was obsolete in Northern Ireland.[9] Townland names were not banned but were deemed "superflouous information" and people were asked not to include them on addresses.[9] They would be replaced by house numbers, road names, and postcodes.[9] In response, the "Townlands Campaign" emerged to protest against the changes. It was described as a "ground-level community effort". Taking place in the midst of "The Troubles", the campaign was a rare example of unity between Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists.[9] Townlands and their names "seem to have been considered as a shared resource and heritage".[9] Those involved in the campaign argued that, in many areas, people still strongly identified with their townlands and that this gave them a sense of belonging. Royal Mail's changes were seen as a severing of this link.[9]
At the time, the county councils were the government bodies responsible for validating such a change. However, as local government itself was undergoing changes, Royal Mail's decision was "allowed ... to become law almost by default".[9] County Fermanagh is the only Northern Ireland county that managed to resist the scheme completely.[9] Nevertheless, most road signs in Northern Ireland continue to show townland names (see picture on the right). In 2001 the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a motion requesting government departments to make use of townland addresses in correspondence and publications.
In the Republic of Ireland, townlands continued to be used on addresses. However, in 2005 the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources announced that the postcode system is to be introduced (see Republic of Ireland postal addresses).
A useful source of information on townlands (with an emphasis on the northern parts of Ireland) is the Federation for Ulster Local Studies. Its publications include Every Stony Acre Has a Name: Celebration of the Townland in Ulster by Tony Canavan, and Townlands in Ulster: Local History Studies, edited by W.H. Crawford & R.H. Foy.
In Scotland, townland boundaries were generally disregarded and lost during 19th century agricultural improvements. Townlands were called also fermlands and many names remain identifiable in farmstead names which include the word Mains, and "Bal-" (Baile) in placenames, such as Balerno or Balmoral.
Townlands in Scotland were often in contradistinction to kirktouns (Clachan), which were settlements with a church, sometimes of ecclesiastical origin.
See also Township (Scotland) for the crofting context.
There may be similarities between the notion of townlands in Ireland and the traditional land divisions of treens (c.f. the Irish word trian, a third part) in the Isle of Man. Treens are subdivided into smaller units called quarterlands.[17]