Article about 17th Century Census

A study of 17^th century census substitutes for the united parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnerath

By Hugh Sweeney - Newport News 2007 

Following the Act for settling Ireland in 1652 the land contained in the united parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnarath in the Barony of Owney and Arra in the county of Tipperary were surveyed by the government and those landowners who had sided with the King found that their lands were forfeit.

The resulting civil survey of 1654 gives the historian details of the proprietor’s names in 1640 be they either Irish papists or English protestants. It’s not until Petty’s ‘Census’ of 1659¹ and the Hearth Money Tax returns² that the further examination of the new owners of the united parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnerath and of the fledging settlement of Tullow which was later to be renamed and grew into modern Newport, can commence.

This study was undertaken to closely examine the information which can be collected from two seventeenth century documents and see in what way the new Cromwellian settlers and the dispossessed former owners co-existed in the parish of Killvellane and Kilnerath from 1659-1667. The sources involved are Petty’s census of 1659 and the Hearth Money Records for 1665-6-7. The reason that these sources are so interesting is that the information contained in them was collected within six years, almost half the period between modern day censuses. While some of the information is difficult to follow and much of it needs to be questioned as to its authencity and its completeness it is none the less the first data available to us concerning the new residents of Kilvellane and Kilnarath parishes, post Cromwell.

Petty’s census was not taken as a census in the proper sense but an assessment of the country for poll-tax so while it includes all the tituladoes names (the titled persons) it is possibly not so accurate as to give a definitive and accurate population figure for the united parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnareth in 1659. It gives a population figure for townlands within the parishes with the breakdown given between English and Irish residents. Worth noting are the tituladoes, or new owners of the land in the parishes whether or not they still remain by 1665 when the hearth tax returns are taken or where they have sold up their holding and moved on.

Petty’s census also gives the principle names of the disposed Irish and their numbers; but it is unclear as to its accuracy. The emergence of the town of Newport, its early formative years along with other smaller settlements which never quite made it into village/town status can be looked at and assessed.

The hearth money records were the basis for the collection of a tax on the number of hearths/fireplaces in each household, it was broken down into parishes and town lands, it is significant in that it gives a list of the tituladoes, new arrived protestants, as well as the Irish population who could afford a habitation with a taxable hearth. It gives the name of the household but its main flaw is the fact that it does not include persons living in habitations without a hearth, the poorer people of the parish, on its lists.

The first thing which stands out on the census of Ireland 1659 data is the tituladoes recorded for Killneragh (Kilnerath) in the townland of Cully are Richard Walkes gent and his son also Richard an obvious misspelling for the surname Waller, the landlords which would be associated with the town of Newport well into the twentieth century and to whom the town owed its future development through their future generations.

Waller or his son are not be found in the hearth money records which goes to substantiate Hayes findings that Waller lived in Limerick while he was rebuilding the ruined Ryan tower house at Cully into what would become his new home Castlewaller³ . Of note with his entry on the census is that nine English are counted in Cully. This would likely be Waller subordinates, artisans building his new house or possibly demobbed soldiers of Lieutenant Waller’s unit who were there as escort to the workers while they carried out their toils, for fear of Irish reprisals. The baronies beside the Shannon were reserved for soldiers following the forfeitures as they were deemed more likely to be able to rebuff the disposed Irish in Clare should they try to retake their lands.

Captain Henry Shrempton/Scrimpton is entered in the townland of Tullow, the townland from which would spring the future town of Tullow (Newport)⁴ . It was situated on the eastern bank of the Mulcair. Hayes also notes in his account of Newport the connection with the two documents, where he identifies the settlement of Tullow by 1659 there was a basic village in existence with one forge and three bakers⁵ . He equates the numbers of English (43) and the numbers of Irish (3) as per the census as households rather than individuals. This can be open to discussion as in Laffan’s hearth money records only twenty dwellings (with hearths) are recorded in 1665. Could so many of the less well off residents have had to forsake a fireplace in their dwelling so as to avoid the tax. As the 1659 census was to be the basis of a database for a poll tax it must be considered that the number of people recorded is relatively accurate, less the younger children and clergy they would have been exempt while women and children of the house of a working age would have been liable to taxation.

All the housing development is significant as in the civil survey of County Tipperary and territory of Owney West, that is the land of the parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnareth, it is described as being ‘a desolate place totally waste with no man at present living in it’⁶ . The survey of Kilvellane/Kilnareth was taken in 1654 which would mean that there was a significant amount of building in the settlement of Tullow from 1654 to 1665. It seems there was an influx of fortune seekers both English/Scots and native Irish who flocked to the newly developing town to seek employment. The Waller’s were to consolidate their position as the dominant gentry in the Killvellane/Kilnerath parishes by acquiring the lands of Henry Shrimpton/Shrempton soon afterwards. The low numbers of English on the 1659 census e.g. Tullagh (3) could be explained as three separated households as single adventurous English/Scots men would have been less likely to travel to such unsafe environments with families. While the later Laffan’s hearth money records show greater instances of English in the names. Included in the list for Towloe at least seven names which could be considered to be of foreign origin on Laffans hearth money records for Towloe (Tullow). There are twenty house units recorded with at least one hearth, so there was likely to be some without a hearth, unrecorded in this document. Given that there were three ovens records in Laffan’s there must be considerable population growth gaining employment from this 17^th century building boom.

In his essay on “Patterns of Living in Tipperary”, Nolan makes reference to the collections or clusters of dwellings in the Kilvellane and Kilnerath parishes in the 1850s⁷ . A cluster he says are nucleated settlements below the status of chapel village on the first edition ordinance survey map. He identifies one of the categories of cluster as the ‘agricultural cluster’ which could possibly be the explanation for the seeming large concentrations of housing in townlands where there were none recorded just over a decade earlier. In the civil survey of 1654 the townland of Rossagile in the united parishes of Kilnerath and Kilvellane is described as consisting of eighty-four acres of cultivated land, twenty-four arable and sixty of pasture⁸ . It is also mentioned that the said townland was without houses or accommodation . By the census of 1659 Rossaguile (Rossegeyle) is recorded with a population of ten, six English and four Irish. By 1666-67 the hearth money records show what could be the origin of the agricultural cluster noted in Nolan’s work for Rossaguile, namely, twenty three dwellings.

Only one of the names of proprietors mentioned in the civil survey as part owner of Rossaguile in 1640 remains in the hearth money list for 1666, a Teige Ryan. It is unknown whether he is the same man or a descendent. As was the case of the census of 1659 where the majority of Rossaguile’s population was of English origin, it would appear that almost half of the dwellings were non-Irish. This is an undocumented arrival of newcomers into the parishes of Kilnerath / Kilvellane for the new tenancies available. It may mean an intensifying of agriculture in the area as Rossaguile had been unoccupied probably due to the uncertainty of the Cromwellian campaign in the area and obviously had been used for agriculture both tillage and grazing for some time. This could have led to the possible origin of this agriculture cluster’ in Rossaguile townland.

Of interest in both documents are the English surveyor’s efforts in gathering Irish townlands names as well as Irish Christian names and surnames and their attempts at recording them. In Petty’s census of 1659 the principle Irish surnames and the number of instances of them are recorded for the Barony of Owny and Arra in which the united parishes of Kilvellane and Kilnerath are situated. Townlands and Irish names especially are spelt phonetically as they sounded to the civil servants who recorded the census.

If the townland of Clonbunny (modern spelling) is used as an instance of this we can see that in the 1659 census it is written as Clonbony, while in the hearth money records it is recorded as Cloanbonny as well as Clonboony. This goes to show that there was no definite method of writing down what were Irish words in their official documents; they were just reproduced in English as they sounded in Irish. For the area Kilnerath and Kilvellane the Ryan and Mulryan family were the dispossessed landowning sept of the parish. Two variations of the surname are noted in the 1659 census as Ryane and Rayne with nine and thirteen persons respectively recorded.

The end of 1659 was the end of transplantation, the moving of the disposed pre-cromwellian landowners (in the case of Kilnerath and Kilvellane) predominantly members of the Ryan clan to Co Clare where they were assigned portions of forfeited land. So at this stage if Petty’s census could be counted as being accurate the number of Ryan’s mentioned would seem to indicate a huge transplantation from the parishes.

It can be identified that it was not the case that the Ryan families of the parish were transported en mass. In the example of the townland Kilmacogue recorded as Killmcquake in the hearth money records mentioned in Hayes book on Newport as the site of a Ryan tower house. By the year 1667, eight years following the final transportation of all offending landowners we still have mention in hearth money records of only two houses in Kilmacogue that of William Rian and John Rian.

Instances of the Ryan name which went unrecorded by the authorities in the hearth money records were, in Carrowkeale townland Magoon Oge and in Killnecapie Teige Oge. These are only a sample of the format of names spoken which were written down as they were used on a day to day basis by the Irish. This was the method of differentiating between a numbers of people with a common surname. This format is still used today by Ryan families of these parishes, with each Ryan family having a nickname such as Ryan Og, to distinguish them from neighbouring families. These entries in the hearth money records are interesting in that they do show that the extended Ryan families never left and did co-exist in almost every corner of the parishes. The second reason is the fact that so many of them remain hidden due to the way their names were recorded. These two documents are hidden due to the way their names were recorded. These two documents are wonderful sources for the historian with the unrivalled detail contained in them. Many different historical exercises could be undertaken in utilising the information especially in the area of the origin of surnames within the parishes. The next census source with similar usable material wasn’t for just a century later with the religious census of 1766.

1. Hayes, William, Newport, Co. Tipperary the town its courts and gaols, (Roscrea, 2000)
2. Laffan, Thomas, Tipperary families being the hearth money rolls 1665-6-7, (Dublin, 1911)
3. Nolan, William (ed.) Tipperary: History and society, (Dublin, 1985).
4. Pender, Seamus (ed.) A census of Ireland circa 1659, (Dublin, 2002)
5. Prendergast, J.P. The Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, 3^rd Edition (Dublin, 1922)
6. Simington, R.C, The civil survey of Co. Tipperary, vol. 2, western and northern baronies (Dublin, 1934)
7. Public Record Office, document no. 693: Return from the Union of Killnirath in the Diocese of Cashel & County of Tipperary 1766.

Footnotes:

1 Seamus Pender (ed.), A census of Ireland circa 1659, (Dublin, 2002), pp 322-324

2 Thomas Laffan, Tipperary’s families being the hearth money records for 1665-6-7, (Dublin, 1911), pp 41, 167-169

3 William Hayes, Newport, Co. Tipperary, the town, its court and gaols (Roscrea, 2000), p 2

4 Seamus Pender (ed.) A census of Ireland circa 1659, (Dublin, 2002) p. 324

5 William Hayes, Newport, Co. Tipperary, the town, its court and gaols (Roscrea, 2000)

p. 2

6 R.C. Simington, The Civil survey of Co. Tipperary, vol. 2 western and northern baronies, (Dublin, 1934), p.136

7 William Nolan ‘Patterns of living in Co Tipperary from 1770 to 1850’ in William Nolan (ed.) Tipperary; history and society (Dublin, 1985), pp 308-316

8 R.C. Simington, The civil survey of Co, Tipperary, vol. 2 western and northern baronies, (Dublin, 1934), p. 194