Irish Land Commission records & the Howlin family of Wexford
Starting around 1879, the Roman Catholic tenant farmers began to have a chance to buy their farms or at least to petition for fair rent. One such farmer, James Howlin (1813-1889), from Ballykeerogue, Kilmokea, County Wexford, wrote a petition titled a New Ross Union Tenant to the landlord Colonel Tottenham, Ballycurry, and agent T. Boyd, Chilcomb. He states that the land had been owned by Lord Valentia until he sold all the town's land to Tottenham in 1866.
James writes in part: "My father held a farm of good land in another part of this same town’s land. He died in 1826, leaving six children. I was the eldest. I was then thirteen years of age. Six months after my father’s death, my mother and her six young children were removed from our comfortable home to my present farm. My mother did not owe a penny of rent, but Mr. Sweeny, agent to Lord Valentia, our landlord, told her he was going to square the farms in Ballykerogue and that she should leave as her farm fitted in with a neighbour's. Of course, she could not resist. Mr. Sweeny gave her the farm I now hold, containing forty acres. When we removed to it with our little stock and property, there was not a house nor even a cabin or ditch on the whole farm. A shed was built for us to live in. I remember it well."
James mother, Margaret, is on Griffith's lot 9 in Ballykeroguemore, Kilmokea, County Wexford. She died in 1865. The petition was discovered hidden in the old house in the mid 1960s. I would like to discover his father's first name and his mother's maiden name. The relevant parish records of Suttons begin in 1826, which is too late in this case. The Tithe Applotment books for Ballykeroge list a James and Nicholas Howlin with 15 acres each. Another book dated 1826 lists a James Howlen with 22.2 acres in Ballykeeroge; I don't know if that is the same person. The books for Horeswood, which is adjacent to Ballykeerogue, list a Nicholas Howlan with 2.1.38 acres and a John Howlan with 5.1.18 acres. Thankfully, the Howlin name is not prolific.
The Land Commission records may hold the answer. Has anyone had luck searching the 1800s Land Commission records? I reached out to the Archives in Dublin, but they have no staff to search the Land Commission records.
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