Family and Local History
[Bill Macafee's Website]

1820s/30s Tithe Applotment Books

In Ireland, because the tithe system was used for the upkeep of the Established Church only, it caused a great deal of unrest among Roman Catholics and Presbyterians. Until 1823, the tithe was paid in kind by the occupier of the land. The replacement of payment in kind by payment in cash resulted from a series of Tithe Composition Acts between 1823 and 1838. Valuations of the land had to be made by local surveyors and assessors and the results, arranged by civil parish and townland, were collected in volumes known as the Tithe Applotment Books - read more.

As many of you probably know there is a database of the names in this source available from IrishWorld that covers the six counties of Northern Ireland. Ballymoney Ancestry includes some parishes for the Ballymoney area on its website.

So far, I have databased the names for the parishes of Ballymoney and Kilraghts in the Barony of Dunluce Upper, Co. Antrim. I then added the parish of Ballintoy in the Barony of Cary [20/10/12] and have just added the townland of Craigs in the parish of Craigs in the Barony of Kilconway [26/3/2013]. I am still working on the parish of Billy. I have just added a table for Co. Londonderry which contains a selection of townlands drawn from different parts of the county. These localities are, more or less, the same localities that I used on my CD Researching Derry & Londonderry Ancestors.

Remember that the Tithe Applotment lists only the landholders (usually the leaseholders) in a townland. Whilst, probably the majority of people listed lived in the townland, some did not. Note that [where it is given] I have included the acreage of each plot of land listed and the valuation of that lot. Sometimes both are given in a book and sometimes only one or the other. You should also be aware of the fact that different land measures are used throughout Ulster. For an excellent short paper on the historical background to these various measurements read this paper What size is an acre? by George Gilmore of Garvagh Historical Society.

The names in the Tithe Books can often be matched with those in the 1831 Census Returns and, at times, with some of the names [and even the acreages] in the c.1860 Griffith's Valuation. Note that to match names you will need to use the Excel version of a Tithe database and , first, sort it by record number. This will list each name and holding within the database in the order that it appears in the Tithe document. Only then will you be able match some of the names with those in the 1831 Census Barony databases. It is not possible to match names with the 1831 Census Index database. Note that it is rarely possible to do much more than assign a family or a group of families to a particular area within a townland - but, sometimes, you can do better than that.

NORTH ANTRIM - you might find these three maps helpful - Baronies and Civil Parishes of North Antrim - Townlands in the Parishes of Ballymoney & Kilraghts - Townlands in the Parish of Ballintoy - Townlands in the Parish of Craigs.
 

Barony	Parish	Date	Excel	PDF
Dunluce Upper	Ballymoney [Mixture of acreages &/or valuations.]	1825	Excel	PDF
Dunluce Upper	Kilraghts [Statute acres & valuations.]	1834	Excel	PDF
Cary	Ballintoy [No acreages given - just valuations.]	1824	Excel	PDF
Cary	Billy [Still to come.]	1824	Excel	PDF
Kilconway	Craigs [Townland of Craigs]	1825	Excel	PDF

Co. LONDONDERRY - you might find this map helpful - Baronies and Civil Parishes of Co. Londonderry.