Barony (Ireland) - Historical Functions

Historical Functions

The various Plantations of Ireland were organised largely by barony. Different categories of English and Scottish settlers were planted in particular baronies in the midlands, Munster, and Ulster. In certain counties after the Cromwellian reconquest, Adventurers got lands in half the baronies, with soldiers in the other half. The Irish who had forfeited their lands in those regions were resettled in particular baronies in Connacht and Clare. William Petty's Down Survey of 1655–6 collected statistics and produced maps at barony level to assist the reorganisation.

Acts of 1787 and 1792 allowed the Lord Lieutenant of a county to appoint a constable for each barony, and the county grand jury to appoint up to 16 sub-constables. These powers were seldom used and the constables had few powers; they were usually older men nicknamed "old Barnys", with the archetypal "old Barny McKeown". They were superseded by the Royal Irish Constabulary.

The cess to pay for roads, bridges, and other public works was set per barony. "Presentment sessions", where petitioners applied for funding for such works, were originally held as part of the county assizes, though the costs were paid from the barony cess if the work was of local benefit only. The county grand jury was supposed to included jurors from each barony, though this did not always happen. From 1819, significantly modified in 1836, baronial presentment sessions were held for these purposes, with a local jury picked by the county grand jury from among the barony's highest rate-payers, according to a complicated formula. The baronial presentment sessions were a convoluted process, lacking public confidence and marred by allegations of corruption and favouritism. Special emergency sessions were held during the Famine of the 1840s for the make-work schemes.

Several parallel local administrative divisions were formed in the nineteenth century, which were not based on the barony. The Poor Law Unions were established in 1838, each centred on an eponymous town; most new or altered responsibilities were given to them in subsequent decades. These Unions which were divided into district electoral divisions (DEDs) for funding purposes. Petty sessions courts for civil cases and quarter sessions for criminal cases used still another set of land divisions.

The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 defined most Irish county constituencies largely or exclusively in terms of the baronies which they comprised; though in some cases, a barony was split parish by parish between two constituencies. The 1891 census was the last for which returns were aggregated by barony as well as by Union and DED; the 1901 census used only the latter classification.

The 1898 Act replaced the county assizes with an elected county council; at a lower level, the county was divided into urban districts and rural districts, each with an elected council. These councils had power to levy rates and build public works, and the baronial presentment sessions were abolished.