Legananny

If you have a look at the PRONI website and search on James Brown of Donaghmore or T2279/2, you?ll find his reminisences which tell you a bit about life in the early 1800s.

As far as church going was concerned, for members of the Church of Ireland (which I recall your family were) the countryside is divided up into parishes and so they would normally attend the local parish church for their townland. In this case, Drumgooland, also known as Ballyward church. About 2 or 3 miles from Legananny. See picture on attached link:

http://www.downanddromore.org/parishes/drumgath#.VEwrMr4zKnu

The land in that area is rolling small hills, being in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains, and being covered with drumlins (glacial moraine). The land is reasonably good for farming. By and large Co Down was, and still is, quite a prosperous county compared with some other parts of Ireland.

There were usually small shops every few miles, so that there was always one within walking distance of where you lived. Some were combined pubs and shops. Some farms also had shops, selling their own produce as well as other good eg whiskey. Some was by barter rather than cash, as people didn?t earn a lot of actual cash, save from linen. People might go into the nearest big town on a fair day for bigger purchases.

Children would have attended until they were about 12 or 13 but were often kept back from school if needed on the farm, so often left with a fairly low level of education.

Also, from: http://ukga.org/ireland/Down/towns/Drumgooland.html

There is a school for boys and girls at Ballyward, built and principally supported by C. F. Beers, Esq.; the parochial school, adjoining the ruins of the old church, is supported by the vicar and Miss Beers; and there are six other public, and five private, schools, also three Sunday schools. In this parish are several large and nearly perfect raths and forts; at Legananney is a large cromlech, of which the table stone is supported by three large upright stones; at Mullaslane are four large upright stones; a fifth, but smaller, stands not far off, and in the adjoining field is a single upright stone of enormous size. In the gable of the school-house at Drumgooland is a large, perfect, and ancient stone cross, which formerly stood in the churchyard, but, having been thrown down and broken, it was built into the wall by the late rector: the shaft and cross are of porphyry, and the plinth of granite.

lotsahunters,

I think the term townland may be causing some confusion. There usually isn?t a town in a townland. The word town is a bit misleading.  Disregard it. Townland is just a term to describe an area of land - a clearly defined area with specific boundaries. So places like Legananny, Moneyslane,  Leitrim etc have no town in them. These are rural agricultural areas, with anything from 1 to 150 households, depending on the size of the townland. Legananny consists of 1894 acres and in 1863 it had 113 households.

The reason you can?t find many of these townlands on modern maps is because they are too small to be worth marking. Only certain specialist maps such as Griffiths show them. So if you want to see the boundaries defined, use those.

Townlands are uniquely Irish. No other country uses them. They are nothing like US townships. (Their origins are lost in the mists but some reports say they were designed as a way of sharing the land out fairly. But whatever the explanation they remain a fundamental land unit, and were used in legal documents such as leases and wills and other official records. Most have no road names or (until recently) house numbers. The townland alone was sufficient to identify you, or get a letter delivered. (The postman, and anyone else who needed to know, knew where each family lived).

The nearest town to Legananny is Castlewellan. After that the nearest of any consequence are Banbridge and Ballynahinch. But these would be a full days outing, and so visited just now and again. Those are the towns where a fair would be held. Castlewellan still has one. See link:

http://www.castlewellanshow.com/index.asp

If you google ?Pictures of Drumgooland? you?ll get a few of the local area which should give you an idea of what it looks like. There?s also one of Legananny dolmen (5000 years old), as well as of Legananny school.

It would have been perfectly possible for someone in Legananny to have friends in Dromore or Downpatrick, though they probably wouldn?t have seen them that often. Farming is an activity that required you to stay on the farm much of the time. Cows need milked twice a day and so getting away has always been difficult. Your ancestors may well have had access to horses and carts in which case their options would be wider but for most people walking was the normal method of transport. Most were every fit and so 15 miles a day would be perfectly reasonable if you could be spared from the farm. (My wife?s grandmother lived in Fermanagh and never held a driving licence. She walked everywhere, and often walked 10 or 15 miles a day even into her 70s. That was obviously how it was in the Legananny area too).

Regarding disposal of property on death, you are correct that the eldest son usually got the farm. Where the farmer was successful and had more than one property (and quite a few did) then sometimes a second son got a farm too. But otherwise everything went to no 1 son, provided he was willing to take it on. The main thing was not to subdivide the land between the sons, leaving it all too small to be viable. (That?s why so many sons had to leave and go to America or Scotland, or wherever). And it?s also why the farm was rarely left to the wife. The important thing was to keep it in the family. So you left it to the son, so that it passed to the next generation. The widow was then given a life interest. That is to say she could live in it, but on her death it passed entirely to the designated son. Should the widow remarry her life interest would lapse. (A remarriage could otherwise lead to the farm passing on to someone other than the designated son). It was all about protecting the land for the next generation. The references to kitches etc was the farmer trying to deal with the possible awkward siutation whereby his son and daughter in law did not get on with his widow. (Not an uncommon situation). So you often see detailed instruction on what is to happen if they start fighting. I have seen instructions on where dividing walls are to be erected and new entrance doors knocked through. Likewise you often see reference to the provision of milk, potatoes, linen and the use of the good parlour on Sundays. All intended to try and keep the peace. Unmarried daughters were often given the right to live on the farm till they married or reached say 30 years of age. (No pressure there then!).

Concern for the land is probably a strong factor in all cultures but if you want a good idea of how it is regarded in Ireland, I can recommend the film ?The Field? which is based on a play that sums it up perfectly. See:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099566/

"Bull" McCabe's family has farmed a field for generations, sacrificing endlessly for the sake of the land. And when the widow who owns the field decides to sell the field in a public auction, McCabe knows that he must own it. But while no one in the village would dare bid against him, an American with deep pockets decides that he needs the field to build a highway. The Bull and his son decide to convince the American to give up bidding on the field, but things go horribly wrong.

I am puzzled about your reference to a hall. It?s not something that a farmer would routinely build. (A barn yes, but not a hill). Was it by any chance an Orange Hall (ie for the use of the Orange Lodge)? Can you give me an example of where there is reference to it, and I might be able to help you more with that query.

 

 

Elwyn

 

If you look at the map of the US States, in many cases, the division of the states is just arbitrary. Sometimes with straight lines and sometimes following natural features. That?s all townlands are in Ireland, only on a much much smaller scale. It?s just a way of dividing the land up into administrative units. Nothing to do with plantations or ranches.  Which are unknown in Ireland anyway. What Ireland has, and still has, is just a multitude of small farms. By and large the land is fairly productive and so you could feed a family on 10 acres or more. Someone with 60 or 120 acres would be pretty wealthy. Today a typical farm is probably 150 acres. That would normally give you a very comfortable income, with plenty of spare cash.)

Senior and junior (in Griffiths) in the same townland are normally father and son. So Wm Jr and Snr should be father and son. Two people of the same name in the townland, who are not father and son, are usually known by agnomens (nicknames) rather than by jnr and senior. 

For reasons I don't understand, I can't attach anything to this particular e-mail, so I'll send you a separate e-mail with a bit more information on Griffiths.

 

 

 

Lotsahunters,

Yes it?s feasible that your ancestors would have mixed with people from adjacent townlands such as those you have named. Indeed their immediate social circle was probably anywhere within a 5 mile radius.

Schooling would have been more local with most schools being within a mile of where people lived.

As far as marriage was concerned, you tended to marry someone from your own vicinity. Since the normal method of travel was on foot, save for some wealthier people, the majority of the population were more likely to marry someone from a neighbouring townland than from somewhere 20 miles away, for obvious practical reasons. (That started to change in rural Ireland with the arrival of the bicycle (c1860s) which enabled people to travel further and so meet people from further afield). The arrival of the railway also widened people?s opportunities in the 1800s but Ballyward didn?t get a railway till about 1905 so that was quite late.

Farmers didn?t move about much. They tended to stay in the once place if they could. If you have spent 25 years improving the land, you don?t willingly up and move somewhere else, unless there?s a good reason. So for the Martins who were farmers, I would expect them to have been in the area, if not on the same farms, for several hundred years. Conceivably right back to the 1600s when they would have first arrived.

Regarding Robert Martin?s year of birth, if the information is from a death certificate, then it?s only as accurate as the informant?s knowledge. Mistakes on death certificates are very common and ages can often be out by up to 10 years. In general men married around 23 and women a year or two younger. If you have no other guide, then I?d work on that. Unless it was a second marriage of course. One in 8 women died in childbirth or as a result of post natal complications, so second marriages were fairly common.

Regarding the famine, if your ancestors were farmers in Co Down, the impact wouldn?t have been too bad. They would have got through it OK. Most farmers in Co Down had reasonable sized farms and weren?t one crop dependent. They grew a variety of produce, and perversely the prices for corn and some other produce were very high, and consequently though any potatoes they grew would have been ruined, they would have got by on their other produce. (It was weavers and agricultural labourers further down the social scale, who only had a few perches of land, and who therefore only grew potatoes, who were hit more by the famine. Though even then, many of the weavers in Co Down had a little income from linen making, a source not available to much of Ireland, and so again they weren?t quite as badly off as other parts).

Drumgooland falls within Banbridge?s Poor Law Union. Their admission records are in PRONI in Belfast. If you want, and assuming the records are complete, you could search them for Martins from Legananny for the famine years, to see if any were ever admitted. (I?d be surprised if they were).

To put a modern map over the Griffiths map, you use the slider bar in the top right hand of the screen. Slide it from one side to the other and it changes from the 1860s map to the modern map. You can leave it so that you can just see both simultaneously.

 

Elwyn

lotsahunters,

Regarding wills for Martin in Benraw, go to the PRONI wills site and enter Martin as the surname and Benraw in the box marked ?Full abstract?. This will bring up all the wills, from 1858 onwards that PRONI has for Martin households in Benraw. There are 7. None of them are on-line, and so if you want to read the wills, I would need to get them from PRONI for you. I checked for pre 1858 wills for Benraw (which is on the PRONI name search site) but there are none listed.

If you want to see what life and activities were taking place in the Benraw area in the 1840s, have a look at Lord Annesley?s letter book.  Extracts are on-line on the PRONI e-catalogue site ref: D1854/6/5

Regarding the Orange Lodges that your family were connected to, the Orange Order is an organization with a sometimes controversial history. Essentially it?s members were a Protestant fraternity, determined to prevent Home Rule in Ireland (ie to prevent Ireland becoming a separate state). Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, its focus has been on ensuring that what is now Northern Ireland remains part of the UK. Here?s a link to their website, which should explain a bit more background:

http://www.grandorangelodge.co.uk

10 Armstrongs from Legananny, 10 Martins from Benraw, and 7 more from Legananny signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912, at Drumgooland Church of Ireland. You can see their individual signatures on the Ulster Covenant website:

http://applications.proni.gov.uk/UlsterCovenant/search.aspx

(The Ulster Covenant was essentially a declaration by people loyal to the British Crown stating that they did not want to be part of an independent Ireland, and in effect, threatening civil war if it was forced upon them. Half a million people signed it, including interestingly slightly more women than men.) So this tells you a bit about the Martins? and Armstrongs political views. (And today their descendants will probably perceive themselves as British rather than Irish).

Re interpreting the information in Griffiths Valuation, you mentioned James Martin (Legananny) who is shown on plot 28 in Benraw. What that means is that that particular James Martin lived in Legananny. If you look at the holding he had in Benraw, it was land only (ie no house). So his main farm was in Legananny and he had 7 more acres in Benraw, but didn?t live there.

Regarding whether farms were sold or not, there?s no easy way to tell from Griffiths. The relevant paperwork would not normally have survived. In general, farmers liked to pass their farm on to the next generation, so many were inherited rather than sold. Only where the farmer had no-one to continue running the farm was he likely to sell it. If the farm was rented, then it could still be sold. What you were selling was the unexpired portion of the lease rather than the freehold, but it could be sold all the same.  You commented you hadn?t seen ?in fee? very often. Certainly looking at Benraw in the revaluation records it appears that pretty well the whole townland was still owned by Lord Annesley in the early 1900s. Everyone staying there was a tenant. Legananny seems much the same. (Where Robert Martin?s name appears as immediate lessor, it means he was subletting a house on the farm, rather than that he owned the property.). However by the early 1900s there were plenty of properties in Ireland where the occupants had the freehold, and so were ?in fee?. Just not in that part of Co Down evidently. Wyndham?s Land Act of 1903 in particular had enabled a lot of tenants to buy their freehold. These are marked on the revaluation records with a rubber stamp saying ?L.A.P? meaning Land Act purchase. (The government provided a 25 year mortgage to assist the tenant make the purchase).

Elwyn

lotsahunters,

Yes your Martins almost certainly came from England or Scotland. Though Martin is a common surname across Ireland (with 13,875 of them in the 1901 census), in Co Down the vast majority are of settler stock.  In the 1901 census there?s 2115 people named Martin in the county of which only 207 were RC, so less than 10%. The vast majority were therefore Presbyterian, Church of Ireland or other incomer denominations (most of whom were Protestant, though there were some RC settlers too). You know that Co Down was heavily settled in the 1600s, and so it?s therefore not too surprising to find that the majority of the Martins are Protestant. (No native Irish family would join the Orange Order, so you can be fairly certain about your family origins from that piece of information alone!)

There?s about 7 Martins listed in the Muster Rolls for c1630 in Co Down, so there were evidently a few Martin households in the county at that time. More probably arrived later that century. (There was a big influx in the 1690s).

I had a look at the 1841 census for Scotland and there were only 7072 people named Martin. The same census for England and Wales had 47,876, so clearly the name is much more common south of the border than north. Perhaps that?s a hint as to where yours originate.

 

Elwyn