County, Barony and Parish-level population counts for Ireland in 1851.

Table ID:

PAR_1851_I     (1252352)

Contents:

County, Barony and Parish-level population counts for Ireland in 1851.

Approx. number of rows:

3,462

Table type:

Raw Data

Documentation Author:

Humphrey Southall

Chronology:

The data are for the single year 1851.

Sources:

1. These data are a selective transcription from the main set of tables in Part I of the County Reports of the Census of Ireland for 1851. They are selective in that most of the information in these tables is for the very large number of townlands, while this transcription is limited to the totals for parishes, baronies and counties, but all columns from the source are included here.

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Notes:

1. Unlike the 1851 census reports for Great Britain, which cover all censuses 1801-1841, the only retrospective data are for 1841, but the table also includes the poor law valuation for 1851. Although the table covers only a short period, the potato famine means that many areas saw drastic declines in population. The data have been carefully checked, as detailed below, and the acreage and population data contain no major discrepancies. The valuation data do contain some significant problems.
2. This table includes data for a number of different geographical levels, and careful use of the 'row_type' column is needed. One aspect is that about half of all parishes had parts falling within more than one barony, and a few baronies were split between counties. The following methods are therefore required to extract accurate totals:
   • Counties including cities: Select rows of type 'County' or 'City', and group by county_unit.
   • Counties and Cities separately: Select rows of type 'County' or 'City'.
   • Baronies, including Boroughs: Select rows of type 'Barony' and group by barony_unit.
   • Parishes: Select rows of type 'Parish' and group by parish_unit. N.B. this will exclude small numbers of persons and valuations who were effectively extra-parochial.
3. The Irish AUO was constructed primarily from the 1851 Townlands Index, so relatively few changes were required to match these data to it, as compared to the work required for 1831:
   • There were separate reports for the East and West Ridings of County Cork, and for the North and South Ridings of County Tipperary. These Ridings were therefore added as Counties, defined as parts of the relevant Province, and further relationships added to link them to their component Baronies. The Barony of Muskerry East was split between the two Ridings of Cork, so it was made a part of both Ridings.
   • As in 1831, a number of Cities and Boroughs were listed separately from their associated counties. These were the Cities of Cork, Dublin, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford, and the Boroughs of Drogheda and Galway (unlike 1831, Carrickfergus is not so treated). Thay had been defined as 'Counties' for 1831, but the names used in 1851 were added as Alternatives. NB those names always include 'CITY OF' or 'BOROUGH OF' to avoid confusion with the counties of the same name. In each of these cases two copies of the City/Borough totals were created, one to match the county-level unit and one to match the barony-level.
   • Belfast is a special case as it was not included among the 'Cities'. Within the county of Antrim, "Town of Belfast" is listed as it it were a unit at the same level as a Barony, while containing only part of the parish of Shankill. It is clear from how the sub-areas of the parish were listed that the 'Town' was defined as a larger area than the Borough of Belfast, and as it could not be defined within the AUO the area has been re-assigned to the Barony of "Upper Belfast", whose totals it was already included in.
4. In some cases, the 1851 totals for the cities include persons and houses not included within parishes, but rather listed in separate rows for 'Public Institutions'. In two cases the Poor Law officials for urban areas said they were unable to supply valuations for parishes or townlands, leading to missing data; see notes on checking.
5. Footnotes to the "Summaries by Baronies" sometimes list valuations of fisheries, railway properties and turbaries ("a place where turf or peat is dug or cut under the right of turbary") within the relevant barony. Notes add that, for example, "N.B. these valuations are included in the forgoing table but not in the townland list, as the valuation of these properties is not made by townlands." These valuations are needed for the checksums to work correctly, so they have been added as additional rows with appropriate types.

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Checking:

1. For each individual row, the totals for population in 1841, population in 1851, houses in 1841 and houses in 1851 have been checked against the component categories (e.g. all persons against males plus females). All rows currently pass these checks.
2. The reported barony totals for total area, total 1841 and 1851 populations, and total 1841 and 1851 houses have been checked against the calculated sums for the component parishes; and reported county totals similarly checked against calculated totals for the baronies. After carefull proofreading, these discrepancies have been found:
   • Clare Barony, Co. Galway: For 1851, the sum of the total number of houses in the component parishes is less than the reported Barony total by 100, as is the number of inhabited houses.
   • Connello Upper Barony, Co. Limerick: The sum of the 1841 parish populations is greater than the reported barony population by 5.
   • Dunkerron South Barony, Co. Kerry: The sum of the parish areas is greater than the reported barony total by 20 perches, i.e. much less than an acre.
   • Iffa and Offa, East Barony, in the South Riding of Co. Tipperary: For 1841, the sum of the total number of houses in the component parishes is greater than the reported Barony total by 2.
   • Moycashel Barony, Co. Westmeath: For 1851, the sum of the total number of houses in the component parishes is greater than the reported Barony total by 2.
   • Slievardagh Barony, Co. Tipperary: The sum of the parish areas is less than the reported barony total by 23 perches.
   • Tirkeeran Barony, Co. Londonderry: For 1851, the sum of the total number of houses in the component parishes is greater than the reported Barony total by 1.
3. The reported barony totals for the Poor Law Valuation have been similarly checked against the sum of the individual parish valuations. See note above for the need to include certain additional valuations to the final checksum. The following discrepancies have been confirmed following careful proof reading:
   • The reported valuation for Cork Barony, Cork, is greater than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;30,630. This is beacuse parishes have no valuation, as explained in a footnote: 'The clerk to the Guardians of the Cork Poor law union has stated that the valuation of the Cork Electoral division does not distinguish the value of each townland separately; these columns (AC, AD & AE) could not therefore be filled up for the townlands within that Electoral division.
   • The reported valuation for Inishowen West Barony, Donegal, is less than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;10.
   • The reported valuation for Kilmacrenan Barony, Donegal, is less than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;470 1s..
   • The reported valuation for Raphoe Barony, Donegal, is more than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;467 2s. (this immediately follows Kilmacrenan so there may be a transposition error somwhere).
   • The reported valuation for Drogheda Barony, Louth, is greater than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;20,859. This has been checked carefully, and no clear explanation is given in the report, but it may result from the unusual treatment of the Borough of Drogheda (see above), which was separate from the Barony but had overlapping parishes. In particular, the Barony Summary lists a total value of $pound;4,689 15s. 4d., but one of the only two parishes in the barony, St Peters, is listed as having a valuation of $pound;24,896 10s. 2d. just for its area within the barony. It seems plausible the figure for St. Peters includes the part of the parish within the Borough, but no adjustment has been attempted.
   • The reported valuation for Carbury Barony, Sligo, is greater than the sum of parish valuations by over $pound; 15,000. A footnote in the report says 'The Poor Law Valuation of the electoral division of Sligo, "under the denomination of streets", amounts to $pound;15,569 5s. 0d., as returned by the Clerk of the Union; but the Poor Law Valuation does not distinguish between the portion of the town in the parish of Calry and that in the parish of St Johns. The value of these parishes cannot, therefore, be stated separately; their united value amounts to $pound;28,218 10s. 0d.'
   • The reported valuation for Middlethird Barony, Tipperary, is greater than the sum of parish valuations by $pound;5.
   • Other discrepancies of less than one pound exist for the following baronies or counties: Idrone East and Idrone West in Carlow; Shillelogher in Kilkenny; Duleek, Lower and the county total in Meath; Clanwilliam and the county total in Tipperary; Upperthird in Waterford; and Shillelagh in Wicklow. Some of these may be due to halfpennies being missed from the transcription.
4. All counties, baronies and parishes have been matched to the AUO.

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Columns within table:

Column	Type	Contents
row_type	Text string (max.len.=24).	Type of row: The bulk of the data are held for these types (with frequencies): 'County' (41), 'City' (5), 'Barony' (327), 'Parish' (3,046). In certain cities, 1851 counts of persons and houses are listed for 'Public Institutions' (11) and, in one case just for a 'Part'. Footnotes to the Barony Summaries identify various kinds of property which were included in Barony totals but not for any particular parish, which have therefore been added as separate rows with these types: 'Canal' (1), 'Fishery' (10), 'Public Building' (4), 'Railway' (9), 'Turbary' (2; i.e. areas where there was a right to dig peat).
province	Text string (max.len.=16).	Name of the province containing the county.
county	Text string (max.len.=36).	Name of the county. This always contains a value as all data comes from the county reports.
barony	Text string (max.len.=44).	Name of the barony. This will be empty for counties.
parish	Text string (max.len.=84).	Name of the parish. This will be empty for counties and baronies. For fisheries, railways etc it will include the name of the fishery, company, etc, if this is given in the footnote.
part_of	Text string (max.len.=6).	Contains 'P' if part of the parish was separately listed under a different barony, and otherwise empty. The notes column usually provides more details.
bracketed_letter	Text string (max.len.=10).	Letters that appear in brackets immediately after the parish name, providing a link to footnotes. In general, any such notes have been copied into the 'notes' column.
area_a	Integer number.	Acres part of total area.
area_r	Integer number.	Roods part of total area.
area_p	Integer number.	Perches part of total area.
area_decimal	Floating point number.	Area in acres, including the area given by roods and perches as a decimal fraction of acres. This derived value was computed based on 4 roods per acre, and 40 perhes per rood.
male_1841	Integer number.	Population in 1841: Males.
fem_1841	Integer number.	Population in 1841: Females.
pop_1841	Integer number.	Population in 1841: Total.
male_1851	Integer number.	Population in 1851: Males.
fem_1851	Integer number.	Population in 1851: Females.
pop_1851	Integer number.	Population in 1851: Total.
inh_1841	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1841: Inhabited.
unin_1841	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1841: Uninhabited.
build_1841	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1841: Building.
hous_1841	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1841: Total.
inh_1851	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1851: Inhabited.
unin_1851	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1851: Uninhabited.
build_1851	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1851: Building.
hous_1851	Integer number.	Number of Houses in 1851: Total.
val_pnd	Integer number.	Poor Law Valuation in 1851: £ [Pounds]
val_shil	Integer number.	Poor Law Valuation in 1851: s. [Shillings]
val_pence	Floating point number.	Poor Law Valuation in 1851: d. [Pence]. This is defined as a floating point values as this column sometimes includes halfpennies.
val_pence_tot	Floating point number.	Total Poor Law Valuation in 1851 converted into pence, based on 20 shillings per pound and 12 pence per shilling.
notes	Text string (max.len.=804).	Footnotes appearing in the original tables.
province_unit	Integer number.	ID number for the province containing the county, as defined in the AUO.
county_unit	Integer number.	ID number for the county, as defined in the AUO.
barony_unit	Integer number.	ID number for the barony, as defined in the AUO.
parish_unit	Integer number.	ID number for the parish, as defined in the AUO.
rec_num	Integer number.	Sequence number to keep rows in their original order, added on loading the data into GBHDB.