Small Sources 9: The list below is of the County Carlow tenants of the LaTouche estate. These tenants are signatories to a letter of Sept 1856, sent to the Knight of Kerry, Peter Fitzgerald, requesting that he not sell the properties on which they held land. The background to this is that Peter Fitzgerald had apparently recently inherited the estate from Lt. Col. LaTouche, who was his uncle. The tenants, fearful of the possibility of a rapacious landlord buying the estate, wrote the letter asking him not to sell it As reasons, they cite the relationship they had developed with his 
uncle, and the improvements they had made to their properties at his behest. Our article describing estate management practices is available here. The letter, and the tone that the tenants adopt in its wording, indicate the power of landlords at the time. This was to change in the coming decades. The letter, and a favourable reply, are in the National Library of Ireland (Ms. 5948).
Very unusually, we have found photographs of several of these tenants in the same file, which also includes a scrap-book. Examples are above and below. These photographs are not directly associated with the letter, and would appear to be the work of Peter Fitzgerald, who had a personal interest in photography. It is not clear how or why he came to have photographs of these tenants. It is noteworthy that the signatories are not all big farmers. Analysis of Griffith Valuation shows that their holdings vary from 18 to 225 acres and they are located mainly in the Civil Parish of Dunleckney, Co. Carlow. The photos above are of (left to right) tenants Patrick Kearney, Robert Kehoe, John Tenant and Terrence Byrne. The latter, for instance, held 76 acres in the townland of Ballywilliamroe. If you can make a connection with anyone on this list, we would be interested to hear, and we can also share the other photos. Those for which we have photos are indicated as (P) below. The images were created by Ancestor Network and are reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland. In addition, Ancestor Network will offer 1 free hour of research by a professional researcher to conduct further research on these individuals or to obtain copies. Click here and quote ‘Carlow SS9’ in the subject line.
John Evans
John Tennant (P)
Luke Agar
George Parker
John Parker
William Ruddock (P)
Robert Kehoe (P)
Thomas Doyle
Ralph James
Patt Walshe
Michael Lawlor
Thomas Burgess
George Young
Patrick Kearney (P)
Terrence Byrne (P)
James Nolan
Edward Rose (P)
George Feltus
Michael Kehoe
Ephraim James
Jas Stewart
William Ruddock (above)
Other articles in our series on Irish Family Sources:
- Petty Sessions– the records of local courts
- 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?
- Catholic Church Records
- Travellers’ accounts of Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries
- Census returns in Gaelic or Irish language
- 50+ blogs with names extracted from manuscript sources. A handy map index to these is available here.
