TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS
The administrative divisions in Ireland consisted of a variety
of land units in descending order of size: Province,
County, Barony, Parish and Townland.
BARONY
Originally the landholding of a feudal baron, the barony is now
an obsolete administrative unit that is mid-way in size between a
county and a parish. The system of bringing Irish local kingdoms
into the feudal system of baronies began in the medieval period
but
did not extend to the whole of Ulster until the early 17th
century.
Large baronies were later subdivided until there were 58 baronies
in the area that comprises the present day Northern Ireland.
COUNTY
A territorial unit equivalent to the English shire, it was
created by the English administration in Ireland as the major
subdivision of an Irish province and dates from the 13th to the
17th century. The
counties as they are today were planned in 1584 but many existed
long before this date.
Antrim and Down had been counties from the 13th or 14th centuries
but their modern boundaries were not settled until 1605, while
the modern boundary and the new county name of Londonderry did
not come into existence until 1613 although it had
existed from Anglo-Norman times with different
boundaries and under the name of Coleraine.
PARISH
An ecclesiastical unit of territory that came into existence in
Ireland in its present form in the 12th and 13th centuries and
was
continued by the Established Church of Ireland after the
Reformation. It was then adopted as a civil administrative area
but
over time the boundaries of some civil and ecclesiastical
parishes came to vary from each other. Roman Catholic parishes,
for
example, when re-instated, were often redrawn to suit the needs
of their parishioners. Because civil parishes may extend across
rivers that were often used to delineate the boundaries of
counties and
baronies, civil parishes can be in more than one county and in
more than one barony.
PROVINCE
This is the earliest and largest administrative division in
Ireland dating back into prehistory and early historic times.
There were
originally five Provinces in the island of Ireland with
provincial 'overkings' who were supported by the kings of the
smaller local kingdoms within them. However, by the 17th century
this had been reduced to the four modern Provinces of Ulster,
Connaught, Leinster and Munster.
Present day Northern Ireland comprises six of the nine counties
established in the Province of Ulster - the Ulster counties of
Cavan,
Donegal and Monaghan lie in the Republic of Ireland.
TOWNLAND
The townland is an ancient unit, dating back to pre-Norman times,
and is the smallest administrative division throughout the
island of Ireland that is still in use. It is the common term or
English translation for a variety of small local land units that
varied in name and meaning throughout the island of Ireland.
In the north there had been a large division called a
'ballybetagh,' generally divided into around 12 'ballyboes', but
into around 16
'tates' in the area of Fermanagh and Monaghan. The 'ballyboe' was
notionally of 120 acres and the 'tate', 60 acres, but these
measurements clearly referred to useable land in an area that
might also include marsh and mountain waste. The 'ballyboe' might
be
further divided into three 'sessiaghs' while the term 'carrow'
(Irish 'ceathramh', a 'quarter') may refer to either a quarter of
a
'ballybetagh' or a quarter of a 'ballyboe'.
The 'ballybetagh' disappeared after the Plantation and the
subdivisions became the modern townlands, the average size of
which, in most of Northern Ireland, is now c.350 acres but c.180
acres in Fermanagh. The spelling of townland names is subject to
considerable variation due largely to the difficulties of
representing the pronunciation of Irish language names in English
spelling.
DISTRICT ELECTORAL DIVISION/WARD
The District Electoral Divisions (D.E.Ds) were originally
established under the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act 1838 as poor law
electoral
divisions but their present names up to 1972 were fixed under the
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. They formed the territorial
units in rural districts for the election of members of Rural
District Councils. The equivalent territorial unit for the
purpose of elections in county boroughs, municipal
boroughs and urban districts is the Ward.
In the larger urban areas there will be a number of Wards but in
the smaller urban areas the entire urban district
actsX-Mozilla-Status: 0009new district councils were set up and
these 26 districts
were subdivided into 526 Wards which were in turn grouped into 98
District Electoral Areas for local government elections. However,
these District Electoral Areas and Wards are different in
composition from pre-1973 D.E.Ds and Wards.