Land Divisions Illustrated
As described in the Census of 1901 page of this website, Irish land divisions on Bloomsday had the hierarchy of Poor Law Union, County District, and District Electoral Division. This page illustrates those divisions using County Louth as an example. Prior to this system of land division, Ireland, below the county level, was divided and administered through baronies and civil parishes. Those antiquated land divisions are also described here, again using County Louth as an exemplar. At the foundation of both systems are the Townlands, historic land divisions that are mapped to this day by both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Poor Law Unions
In 1703, the Irish Parliament created a network of workhouses and orphanages. The Poor Relief (Ireland) Act of 1838, 1 & 2 Vict., c. 56, established the poor law unions to manage and fund those facilities. Poor law unions operated workhouses (residences for the indigent), orphanages, lunatic asylums, and hospitals (effectively hospices and nursing homes). These administrative bodies also assessed and collected property taxes to maintain those institutions.
Beginning in 1847, as a response to the "Famine," Parliament amended the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act, to authorize small cash payments to the poor not resident in workhouses (10 Vict., c. 31). Such payments were known as "outdoor relief" as the recipients lived outside the workhouse doors.
There were three Poor Law Unions within County Louth: Dundalk, Ardee, and Drogheda. As shown below, only parts of the Ardee and Drogheda unions were within the county.
Co. Louth - Poor Law Unions
Poor Law Union | Population in Louth |
Dundalk | 34,729 |
Ardee | 11,578 |
Drogheda | 19,513 |
County Districts
The 1851 Medical Charities (Ireland) Act, 14 & 15 Vict., c. 68, provided a limited amount of free medical care for the indigent. Poor law unions were divided into dispensary districts each of which having a medical doctor paid out of the poor law union tax assessment. The 1863 Acts for the Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in Ireland, 26 & 27 Vict., cc. 11, 90, created registration districts conterminous to the dispensary districts. The Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898, 61 & 62 Vict., c. 37, created county districts which were based on the registration and dispensary districts. There were urban and rural districts each governed by a district council.
Co. Louth - Districts
Poor Law Unions Outlined by Dashed, Blue Line
County District | Area in Sq. Miles | 1901 Population | Population per Sq. Mile |
Dundalk Rural | 145.4 | 21,653 | 149 |
Dundalk Urban | 2.2 | 13,076 | 5,944 |
Ardee No. 1 Rural | 103.0 | 11,578 | 112 |
Drogheda No. 1 Rural | 63.1 | 6,753 | 107 |
Drogheda Urban | 2.3 | 12,760 | 5,548 |
District Electoral Divisions
When the poor law unions were established by statute, the unions were divided into electoral districts in which the property tax payers elected a member of the union's board of governors. These districts became the building blocks for other constituencies such as ward, municipal council, and parliamentary districts. In many respects, the DEDs resemble the "tracts" utilized by the U.S. Census Bureau; however, unlike census tracts, the DEDs vary widely in population.
Drogheda No. 1 Rural - DEDs
District Electoral Division | Area Sq. Miles | 1901 Population | Population per Sq. Mi. |
Clogher | 9.8 | 1,463 | 149 |
Dysart | 9.4 | 828 | 88 |
Monasterboice | 9.1 | 784 | 86 |
Mullary | 9.4 | 836 | 89 |
St. Peter's | 14.6 | 1,388 | 95 |
| Termonfeckin | 10.9 | 1,454 | 133 |
Townlands
Townlands are mapping units only and never had a governmental purpose. Townlands are referenced in property descriptions that appear in legal instruments such as deeds, mortgages, and leases. They were the "building blocks" of both district electoral divisions and civil parishes. Townlands vary greatly in size and population, and many were simply the holdings of a major landlord. During the 19th Century, Irish residents of rural origin used the townland to indicate their place of birth or home.
Townland data enumerated in the census books are population (males and females), acreage, number of houses, and property assessment value.
Townlands Within Termonfeckin DED
Civil Parishes Outlined in Blue
Download ESRI Shapefiles for Townlands
Townland boundary files (polygons) are available for download from the Ordnance Survey Ireland (Republic of Ireland) and Open Data NI (Northern Ireland). Click on the respective link to obtain the files. The webpages will open in new browser windows.
Republic of Ireland
The file for the Republic of Ireland is large scale, high resolution (182 MB zip file). The CRS is IRENET95 (Irish Transverse Mercator). To initiate download, click on the "from the cloud" icon in the middle of the webpage.
The ROI file does not contain data for the metropolitan areas of Cork, Dublin, and Galway. Shapefiles for those areas (CRS WGS 84), and the entire island, have been created by the Irish OpenStreetMap Community (www.townlands.ie). Shapefiles for those three metropolitan areas can be obtained from Major Tweedy's Neighborhood. They are in a 0.5 MB zip file named Townlands_ROI_Suppl.zip. Click on the link to download the file.
Northern Ireland
Open Data NI gives you a choice of a medium resolution file ("50K Boundaries" 935 kb zip file) and a high resolution file ("Largescale Boundaries" 66 MB zip file). The CRS is TM65 (Irish Grid). Click on the file of your choice and a new page will open. Click the "Explore" button to the right of "Shapefile" and select "Go to Resource."
Historic Land Divisions
During the Tudor "reconquest" of Ireland (1547-1603), English monarchs imposed on Ireland a new system of land division modelled on the English system. Counties were divided into "baronies" (no relation to the aristocratic title of Baron) and Baronies divided into "civil parishes" (no relation to church parishes). Each level of municipal government had its own responsibilities. Use of this land division system for local administration began to deteriorate about the time of Union and by the mid-19th Century was obsolete.
Historic barony and civil parish boundaries are shown in Richards Memorial Atlas of Ireland, published in 1901. The atlas was digitized by the Cincinnati Public Library and the images can be viewed by clicking on the link. The webpage will open in a new browser window.
Tabulations for district electoral divisions are broken down in Table VII of the county census books by townland which are grouped under their respective civil parishes and baronies. For example, take the St. Peter's DED in the Census of 1901:
Drogheda B.
Ballymakenny P. (2 townlands)
St. Peter's P. (11 townlands)
Ferrard B.
Balllymakenny P. (3 townlands)
Beaulieu P. (5 townlands)
Phipstown P. (1 townland)
Tullyallen P. (4 townlands)
Today, the historic land divisions are of interest mostly to genealogists as prior to about 1850, state and municipal records for individuals were organized by barony and civil parish.
Baronies of County Louth
County Districts Outlined in Magenta
Barony | County District |
| Upper Dundalk, Lower Dundalk, Louth | Dundalk Rural, Dundalk Urban |
| Ardee | Ardee No. 1 Rural |
| Ferrard | Drogheda No. 1 Rural |
| Drogheda Liberties | Drogheda Urban |
Civil Parishes - Barony of Ferrard
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