Two of the most important land records in Ireland are Griffith's Valuation and the Tithe Applotment Books

The example above is an extract from one of the maps of Griffith's Valuation. This particular map is of Kinsale in County Cork. You can see each field with a number or letter corresponding to a column in the valuation itself that would help you locate, to a matter of feet, a property of interest. 

Griffith's Valuation

In the mid 1800's a Dubliner named Richard Griffith was charged with the task of listing all rateable land in Ireland. The results of his efforts are entitled Griffith's Valuation, and given the loss of Census records for the period they can prove extremely useful. The records are divided by County, Union, parish and finally townland.

Each entry gives;

• Ordnance Survey Map Reference
• Occupier
• Immediate Lessors
• Description of Tenement
• Area (of property)
• Rateable value of land and buildings shown separately in pounds, shillings and pence.
• Total rate value (sum of land and building rates)

Perhaps more useful than the valuation itself, is an index now available that shows the occurrence of a given surname in both Grifith's valuation and the Tithe Applotment Books per County, Barony and Townland. If you know the County from which your ancestors originated, then the index is a means of finding occurrence of that name in any given parish. If you are lucky and the surname is relatively unusual, you may only find a few occurrences and from these you can begin searching parish records.

A sample from  the index below for a certain  parish, Kerley G 4 T Ardee

shows use that the Surname Kerley occurs four times in that parish and (by G4) and the 'T' indicates it is also found in the Title Applotment Books in the Barony of Ardee.

The records are very accessible. They are typed, and indexed by parish to allow you to identify the portion of the valuation of interest. The records are available in the National Library and National Archive on Microfiche. An index to the fiche in the National Library per parish will give the fiche number and a reference into the exact parish. On each individual fiche  you will find an index for the town lands contained there in, giving it's exact position on the sheet.

In searching the records you need to be aware of a number of possible pitfalls. A parish may be fall between two Poor Law Unions. For example Killanny, a parish in County Louth is partially in the Union of Dundalk and partially in the Union of County Monaghan. So you may well need to examine both. Also, if searching for a town land, be aware that certain names are extremely common and you need to be sure you are examining the relevant one. For example the town land name Tully (meaing small hill), occurs in the Poor Law Union of Ardee, Dundalk and Monaghan. They are all within a 15 miles radius of one-another and to be sure your are searching the relevant area it may be best to take the Ordnance Map Reference for each and check it's exact location to be sure you search the appropriate town land.

Note that the lessor in Griffith's Valuation may only be a middle man, not the landlord. You'll have to search to see who he in turn leased his land from and work your way up the hierarchy of locate estate records to find the main Landlord for the area..

An index is available in the National Archive and many libraries that shows (per county and parish) the occurrence of a given surname in both Griffith's Valuation and the Tithe Applotment Books. This is extremely useful if you are researching your family and know only the County from which they came. Using this index, you can at least find a list of people with that surname for a period from circa 1830 to 1850. In the absence of Census records for this period this data is priceless!

If you can't get access easily to these records, we can examine them on your behalf as part of your Personal Ancestor Report . 

The Tithe Applotment Books

Going back even earlier, people were liable to pay a tithe to the Established Church of the time. And to facilitate this all land in the country was valued as a basis for what people were obliged to pay.

As mentioned above, an index now available that show the occurrence of a given surname in both Griffith's Valuation and the Title Applotment Books per county and parish. So it is best to examine this to be certain the surname your researching does occur. These records are a little more difficult to search than Griffith's as they are hand written rather than typed, and some are quite faded. The records are on microfilm, and copied book by book for a certain region. And index to the Tithe Books for a particular Parish will locate the relevant microfilm

Each entry gives;

• Townland
• Occupier
• Acreage (size of land holding)
• land classification (quality)
• amount of tithes (tax) due

The books used to build the Valuation are now held in the Valuation office. For more information see here