Farmers in Castletown, Co Limerick in 1848/49

Small Sources 14: This list of small farmers is derived from 2 documents in Ms. 8344 in the National Library of Ireland, entitled “Rent ledger of lands in Co. Tipperary the property of the Maunsell (?) family, 1848”. Despite the title, the properties are in the townland of Carrig Beg (403 acres; spelt Carraghbeg in the document) which is in the Parish of Castletown, Co. Limerick. A map and further information is here. It is on the Tipperary border and in the Poor Law Union of Tipperary.

The two source documents are (a) a rental with a list of 22 tenants, and (b) a separate letter from Michael Ryan (presumably the land-agent) to the landlord detailing the “..number of acres in tillage and meadowing in Castletown” dated Oct. 24 1849. The latter document contains almost all of the same persons as the rental, but the final three on the list below are additional to the rental list and may have taken up tenancies in the interim. The file also contains rent receipts which clearly show the location of the properties as being Carrig Beg.

The names include many that are common in Tipperary including Ryan, Maher and O’Brien, but also a few less common names such as Hammersby and Anderson. Further information on some of these families may be available through our e-book title ‘Sources for Irish Family History 2021‘. It lists 6,500 books and articles written about specific Irish families. It provides access to a wealth of published information on about 2,500 Irish families.

Note that Flyleaf Press, the publishing arm of Ancestor Network, has published guides to researching in both Tipperary and Limerick.

Tracing your Limerick Ancestors – by Margaret Franklin
Tracing your Tipperary Ancestors – by Noreen Higgins-McHugh

The images of the document above and below were created by Ancestor Network in the National Library of Ireland and are reproduced here through their courtesy. If you need help in following up on anything related to this source, or any other Irish research, you can outline your requirements here and we will let you know what we might be able to do for you. Ancestor Network will offer 1 free hour of research by a professional researcher to conduct further research on these individuals, or on other tenants of this estate. We can also obtain images of the original documents. Click here and quote ‘Limerick SS14’ in the subject line.

Thomas Crowe
John Ryan
Mary Ryan (Widow Ml.)
John Maher
William Ryan
Denis Berrane
James Stapleton
John Stapleton
Denis Stapleton
William Coffey (Coffy in agent’s letter)
Denis Coffey
Connor Gorman ( ‘Cornelius’ in the agent’s letter)
John Berrane
Patk. Berrane
Denis Anderson
Patk. Anderson
Thomas Hammersly (Hamersly in agent’s letter )
James O’Brien
Widow Buckley (noted as ‘Honora’ in agent’s letter)
William Power
James Doyle
Mary Ryan
Michl. Fraley (?)
Jas. Maher
Widow Birrane
John Crowe

Fig 1. Extract from the list of Farmers showing the acreage that each had under tillage and meadow.

Further Tipperary and general articles in our series on Irish Family History sources include:

Petty Sessions– the records of local courts
Catholic Church records
Grand Jury Presentments – records of local councils on payments for public works and staff
Rentals – management of tenants by estates and the records created
Middle names – the use (or non-use) of second or middle names in Irish records
How comprehensive are Irish Civil Records?
Census returns in Gaelic or Irish language
70+ blogs with names extracted from manuscript sources from many counties. A handy map index to these is available here.