What is a Townland?

A Brief Explanation of Ireland's Geographical Divisions

Karen Dalton Preston

In Ireland, the townland is the smallest territorial division of civil administration. Townlands can provide a traceable location to the present day for our ancestors. They are also the key to knowing where to look for records to trace your Irish ancestors.

You will spot townlands referenced in virtually every historic record. Without it, you will find it difficult to both find your ancestors in the records and make progress in differentiating between entries for common names.

What can be very confusing when researching Irish records is that the various land divisions are often independent of one another - parts of an individual townland may lie across different civil parishes and may also be in different Roman Catholic parishes and Church of Ireland parishes, with ecclesiastical boundaries having no relationship to civil parishes Even more frustrating is that the same townland names also recur, and can be found in different parishes and different counties, e.g. Newtown.

The term "townland" in English is derived from the Old English word tün, denoting an enclosure. The term describes the smallest unit of land division in Ireland. The townland system is of medieval Gaelic origin, predating the Norman invasion. Dating from medieval times or earlier, townlands were used to identify a small area of land at a local level. The Normans left no major traces in townland names, but they adapted some of them for their own use, possibly seeing a similarity between the Gaelic baile and the Norman "bailey", both of which meant a settlement.

The term baile, anglicised as "bally", is the most dominant element used in Irish townland names. Today, the term "bally" denotes an urban settlement, but its precise meaning in ancient Ireland is unclear, as towns had no place in Gaelic social organisation. The modern Irish term for a townland is baile fearainn. The term fearann means "land, territory, quarter".

Townlands cover the whole of the island of Ireland (the Republic of Ireland in the south and Northern Ireland). The total number of inhabited townlands in Ireland was 60,679 in 1911. The total number recognised by the Placenames Database of Ireland as of 2014 was 61,098, including uninhabited townlands. This database can be very useful to locate a place name or townland name - https://www.logainm.ie/en/.

Townlands typically cover 100–500 acres. Most have Irish-derived names. However, some townland names and boundaries come from the names of Norman manors, plantation divisions, or are the later creations of the Ordnance Survey.

These divisions were used as the basis for plantation grants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were considerably altered following subdivisions of the land. The townland was used, not only for regular land transactions such as the imposition of rents, but also as the primary division in major land valuations, surveys and census such as the Tithe Applotment books (1823-1837) and Griffith’s Valuation (1847-1864). Its significance now lies primarily in enabling the identification of small, localised rural areas.

Until the 19th century most townlands were owned by single landlords and occupied by multiple tenants. The "cess", used to fund roadworks and other local expenses, was charged at the same rate on each townland in a barony, regardless of its size and productive capacity. Thus, occupiers in a small or poor townland suffered in comparison to those of larger or more fertile townlands. This was reformed by Griffith's Valuation.

In the 1800s the townlands were mapped and defined by the English administration for the purpose of confiscating land and apportioning it to investors or planters from Britain.

Irish Ordnance Survey and standardisation

During the 19th century an extensive series of maps of Ireland was created by the Irish division of the Ordnance Survey for taxation purposes. These maps both documented and standardised the boundaries of the more than 60,000 townlands in Ireland. The process often involved dividing or amalgamating existing townlands, and defining townland boundaries in areas such as mountain or bog that had previously been outside the townland system. Slight adjustments are still made. There were 60,679 in 1911, compared to 60,462 townlands in 1901. To search for a townland for a particular county, go to https://www.townlands.ie

You will find several websites that provide search functions for Griffith's Valuation, including maps of the townland itself such as "AskAboutIreland" at https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=nameSearch

Current use

A road sign in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, notes that this part of the road lies within Teeshan townland.

A (rare) townland boundary marker in Inishowen, County Donegal

Townlands form the building blocks for higher-level administrative units such as civil parishes and district electoral divisions (in the Republic of Ireland) or wards (in Northern Ireland).

Townlands were also generally grouped together to form other geographic layers, both civil and ecclesiastical, as roughly portrayed below.

Note: In the chart above, "RC" = Roman Catholic; "CoI" = Church of Ireland

Because townland names were commonly found in more than one county in Ireland, you will need to know the names of the land divisions in which your townland fell in order to isolate the right records in a given record set.

There is one additional ancient land division, the Barony. It predates all of the other land divisions mentioned and largely fell out of general use. Having said that, you will find them used in a host of land records and you will need to know them for working out probate jurisdictions in the latter half of the 19th century.

The Irish Barony will be covered an a future article.

Sources:

Irish Genealogy website at https://www.irish-geneaography.com/townlands.html

John Gresham's Irish research website at https://www.johngrenham.com

RootsIreland at https://www.rootsireland.ie

Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townland