I’m sure most of you have heard of at least some of these subdivisions, but how many of these do you actually know the function of? Or where they fall in the hierarchy? Here is the full list of all of Irelands many complicated (and sometimes unnecessary subdivisions)

1. Province (Cúige): The highest form of subdivision, the four ancient kingdoms of Leinster, Munster, Connacht, and Ulster While today they hold no administrative power, they make up the highest form of subdivision.

2. County (Contae): The core administrative unit of Ireland (in the Republic anyway, the north has weird distinct council things which I am not getting into) introduced by the Anglo-Normans. There are 32 counties across the island.

3. Barony: The direct Irish equivalent to the English hundred. Baronies often mapped over old Gaelic clan territories (tuatha) and were historically used for collecting taxes and running local courts.

4. Civil Parish: These are the administrative boundaries used by the Catholic Church and COI, a parish will have one or more dedicated priest who will work entirely within this area (Civil Parishes also fit into dioceses, but those may as well just be a bunch of counties merged together)

5. Townland (Baile Fearainn): The smallest official and legally standardized division of land. These were historically used to measure and manage land value, organize farming and collect taxes and rent. They have no standard size, some townlands can be the sizes of parishes and others are no bigger than a car park.

6. Hundreds & Sub-townlands: A very rare even smaller subdivision of a townland, these are usually found inside unmanageably large townlands which will be split into multiple pieces for easier monitoring.



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NoBrickBoy

20 comments

  2. Not sure why someone would downvote splendid educational content like this 🤔

  3. We really embraced those counties the English drew up for us. Life and death for a lot of people.

  5. Also to mention that outside of urban areas, parishes are generally two or more villages, with villages having multiple townlands. Obviously villages would be on the road signs while parishes are strictly a church thing.

  6. Bizarrely, I’ve never heard of hundreds before but I’ve seen two different threads reference them today.

  7. Never heard of a barony before. Tuatha sure, but not barony. Do I have to hand back my Irish card?

  9. Hundreds are kind of an English thing aren’t they? Townlands around my part were often divided into “Quarters” (*ceathrú or carrow )*

  12. Interesting. I only recently learned about “hundreds” when someone told me they lived in “Chafford Hundred” somewhere in Essex, England. Didn’t occur to me we had them too.

  13. Missing the biggest subdivision on the island: the UK and Ireland.

  16. How have I never heard of Barony before? What/how big is one? Like West Waterford?

  17. Are counties traditional? The clue is in the name “**Count**ies” – they were territories for the Counts

  18. There is a smaller legally defined area – rhe Small Areas, which are defined by the CSO and used for statistical purposes. They’re roughly 100 households each.

  20. Some townlands are not listed in townlands.ie I learnt this doing genealogy as I have ancestors from Barndarrig in Wicklow which isn’t listed but is in Logainm:

    https://www.logainm.ie

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