Tenants of Lord Doneraile in Cork and Waterford 1765

Small Sources 60A:  This is a list of 100 tenants of Lord Doneraile on parts of his Cork and Waterford estates in 1765.  More specifically it lists 60 tenants on his estate in the Manor of Doneraile;   and a further 40 in his Kilmeaden estate, barony of Middlethird, Co. Waterford.    These rentals are among the very extensive Doneraile Papers in the National Library of Ireland.  The title Lord Doneraile was held by the St Leger family who owned extensive estates in Munster from  about the year 1630. The title Viscount Doneraile died out in 1767,  a few years after these records were created,  when Hayes St Leger, 4th Viscount,  died with no heir. In the absence of a direct heir,  the property passed to his nephew, St Leger Aldworth.  However, in order to inherit,  he had to take the surname St Leger, and was therefore legally obliged to take the name St Leger St Leger. The vast estate was no doubt a consolation for having to bear a ridiculous name!    The new ‘St Leger’ family owned the gradually diminishing estate until  1959 when the remainder was sold to the Irish Land Commission and the estate papers were sold to the National Library.  A history of the family and estate is here.  The family residence,  Doneraile Court,  has recently been fully restored by the Office of Public Works and is open to the public as a cultural centre and art gallery.  A recent Irish Times article describes the history of the restoration.  We have previously published a blog with some Doneraile estate workers in 1830.

The rental includes all strata of society as indicated by the rents which vary from 5 shillings for a tenement held by the wonderfully-named Keefe O’Keefe to £58.2.6 for the townland of Cloher rented by Charles Butler. (Note that ‘tenement’ in that period simply meant a holding and did not have any of the negative connotations of its current usage).  However,  many of the tenants are major landholders and gentry of the area.  Note that several are listed as ‘Esq.’ meaning Esquire, which was a title of respect for men of higher social rank, e.g. landed gentry above the rank of gentleman. Some of these may well have been ‘middle-men’ who sub-let the rented  properties to smaller tenants.   This practice,  and other rental information, is in our article on rentals here.   The major gentry on the list  include the Creaghs, Gethings and Crones, all of which families are briefly described in an article here. There are also some rare names including Wortheval, Trethervey, Neady and Hornbuckle.  If you are interested in information on specific families,  our e-book title ‘Sources for Irish Family History 2021  lists 6,500  books and articles on over 2,500  Irish families.  The sources listed contain a wealth of information in the form of articles and books. The full details are described in one of a blog.

This part of County Cork was well-populated with big houses and their sporting inhabitants. The ‘Steeplechase’ as a form of horse-racing was invented in 1752 by  Cornelius O’Callaghan and Edmund Blake, in a race cross-country from  Buttevant to Doneraile.

The rental lists the townland location of some holdings.  Where these can be identified as current townlands,  the current name is indicated in brackets and italics.  The Cork properties are mainly in the Civil Parish of Doneraile, while the Waterford properties are in the Civil Parishes of Kilmeaden, Reisk and Drumcannon (all in Barony of Middlethird).

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. 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 ‘CorkSS60A’ in the subject line. We also publish ‘Finding your Cork Ancestors‘   (see cover above left) which is available in book or e-book format. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

  We also have other blogs on Cork and  Waterford records:  see our map-based index to  blogs here   

Further Cork and General articles in our series on Irish Family History sources:

• 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.

Cork Sources

• Tenants of Sarsfield Estate, Cork 1817-23
• Tenants of Putland Estate in Garrycloyne & Templeusque, Co. Cork 1815-25
• Cork sources on Academia.edu
• Some Cork City Tenants 1784-1826
• Pupils of Charity School in Cloyne, Co. Cork 1742-1864
• Tenants of Lord Doneraile in Cork and Waterford 1765
• Labourers in Doneraile, Cork in 1839/40