Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (36 page)

ligan
. Goods thrown overboard in an emergency which sink to the sea bed.

lights
. The openings between the
mullions
or piers of a window.

Limerick, Treaty of
(1691). The treaty enacted between the Williamites and the remnants of the Jacobite army which allowed the Jacobites free passage to go abroad or, if they wished to remain in Ireland, to be secured against discriminatory laws. Under the civil articles of the treaty Catholics were promised such privileges as were consistent with the laws of Ireland or enjoyed by them under Charles II (which, beyond tolerance, amounted to few) and the property rights of those whose claims were accepted by the
privy council
and a court of nine high court judges were guaranteed. Although William favoured toleration he failed to take account of Protestant anger at the prospect of Catholics apparently getting off the hook. Thus, when the Irish parliament ratified the treaty in 1697 (9 Will. III, c. 2) the military articles and the bulk of claims relating to forfeited estates by persons admitted to articles were legislatively enacted but the religious articles were not. No mention of the right to religious freedom was included in the act and instead repressive
penal laws
were introduced, effectively breaking the spirit if not the letter of the treaty.
See
articlemen, court of claims, Trustees Sale, Williamite confiscation. (Simms,
The treaty of Limerick
;
Idem
, ‘The original draft', pp. 37–44.)

Linen Board
. A body established and funded by the Irish parliament in 1711 (9 Anne, c. 3) to encourage and regulate the linen industry. Although composed of unpaid commissioners, including Anglican bishops and members of the gentry, the day-to-day business of the board was conducted by full-time officials. An inspectorate was responsible for ensuring that manufacturing standards were maintained and prizes were awarded for superior work by spinners, weavers and bleachers. The domestic industry declined in the early nineteenth century as linen production became mechanised and factory-based. By the 1820s the board was credited with having encouraged experiments which private individuals by themselves would not have risked yet at the same time was criticised for acting as a restraint on private enterprise. The most serious criticism – that public money should not be expended on an industry that was successful in its own right – led to its abolition in 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 62). (Crawford, ‘The evolution'; Johnston-Liik,
History of the Irish parliament
, pp. 303–311.)

Lismore, Book of
. A
compilation of religious, military and topographical tracts including a treatise on the lives of Irish saints, a dialogue between St Patrick and two surviving Fianna warriors, extracts from the travels of Marco Polo, an account of Charlemagne's conquests and a description of several hills, mountains, rivers and caverns in Ireland. (Macalister,
The book of Mac Carthaigh
.)

livery
. 1: The provision of food, clothing or an allowance to servants 2: A distinctive suit of clothes worn by a servant 3: An allowance of provender for horses. Horses stabled, fed and groomed at a fixed rate are said to be ‘at livery'. Hence, livery stable.

livery, to sue out
. The act by an heir upon reaching majority of commencing a suit to obtain possession of his estate which was in the custody of the
court of wards
and
liveries
. The heir was required to pay a fine (
relief
) to sue out livery. Failure to observe the legal formalities rendered the defaulter liable to financial penalties.
See
also livery of seisin, majority, ousterlemain, and livery of seisin.

Llanthony
Prima
, Llanthony
Secunda
. Two priories –
Prima
located in Monmouthshire,
Secunda
in Gloucester – that were endowed with lands in Meath, Westmeath, Louth and north county Dublin by Hugh de Lacy and his sub-tenants and held in
frankalmoign
(which liberated them from having to render military service to the crown) or
fee-farm
. The Irish possessions were supervised by a canon known as a proctor. The cartularies of the Llanthony priories contain charters and civil and ecclesiastical documents dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries and are preserved in the Public Record Office, London. (Brook,
The Irish cartularies
.)

Local Government (Ireland) Act
(1898). Gerald Balfour's reforming Irish local government act (61 & 62 Vict., c. 37) which provided a system of local government with county councils, district councils and rural district councils, elected bodies chosen on a
franchise
that included women for the first time. Membership of town commissions and district councils now lay open to women but they remained excluded from county and borough councils. The new councils assumed the fiscal and administrative (though not the legal) duties of the grand juries. They were eligible to receive treasury grants and entitled to impose their own local rates and were immediately dominated by Catholic nationalists. Thus control of local government was taken from the landlord ascendancy class and placed in the hands of farmers, shopkeepers and publicans. Local councils did not possess unlimited powers to draw up their own laws, however, for all local enactments had to receive the approval of the supervisory Local Government Board, a body staffed largely by Protestant unionists.
See
grand jury, poor law commission.

Local Government Board
.
See
Poor Law Commission.

locative
. A surname derived from a placename.

Lough Key, Annals of
. (Annála Loch Cé)
Compiled in Connacht in the sixteenth century with a few additional entries as late as 1636, the
Annals of Lough Key
was apparently the work of the Ó Duibhgeannain's, a learned Gaelic family who had a special association with the Mac Diarmada clan of Loch Cé. They derive from an earlier fifteenth-century text written by the Ó Maoilchonaire family. (Hennessy,
The annals of Loch Cé
.)

loc. cit
. (L.,
loco citato
or
locus citatus
, in the place cited) A footnote convention, now almost obsolete, referring the reader to a book that has previously been quoted.

lock hospital
. A hospital for the treatment of venereal disease. In 1792 the Westmoreland Lock Hospital was opened in Dublin under the direction of the lord lieutenant. Since it proved difficult to attract private subscriptions, it was maintained entirely by public money. Within a short time the hospital was overcrowded and earned a reputation for disorderliness. Two commissions of inquiry and a new board of governors produced significant improvements and by the mid-nineteenth century it was regarded as an efficient and prudently economical institution providing an importance service to a garrison city.

Lodge, John
. Lodge's appointment as deputy-keeper of records in the Bermingham Tower represented a turning point in the fortune of Irish administrative records which had suffered serious neglect throughout the eighteenth century. His 26 volumes of transcripts from the rolls were later acquired by the Public Record Office to compensate for the wholesale destruction of the originals in the Four Courts fire in 1922. Lodge edited
Desiderata curiosa Hibernica
(a collection of seventeenth-century documents) in 1772 and his unfinished
Liber munerum publicorum Hiberniae
, a directory of patentee office-holders in Ireland, was taken up by the
Irish Record Commission
in 1812 and partly (and poorly) completed by Rowley Lascelles. Lodge was also the author of
The peerage of Ireland
(later continued and enlarged by Mervyn Archdall).

London Hibernian Society
. A proselytsing bible society founded in 1806 and one of the earliest of such groups to use the Irish language as a medium for conversion. Initially Scots Gaelic-speaking missionaries were employed but these were soon dispensed with for they could not be understood and they were replaced by natives. Day, evening and Sunday schools were conducted under the scrutiny of an inspectorate and teachers (who did not have to be Protestants) were paid by results achieved by their pupils under inspection. By 1823 the society claimed to be educating over 60,000 pupils in its schools. It was jointly funded by the
Association for Discountenancing Vice
and the
lord lieutenant's school fund
. Although the printed regulations governing the schools forbade proselytism and the use of controversial reading matter, pupils were expected to read the bible. As was the case with the other bible societies, its impact was negligible and it made few conversions. In the 1820s opposition to Protestant missionary activities grew in intensity and Catholic children were withdrawn from the society's schools.
See
Second Reformation. (Akenson,
The Irish education experiment
, pp. 82–3.)

long-house, byre dwelling
. A common house style in the west consisting of a rectangular stone-built dwelling in which humans and animals lived at opposite ends of a single compartment.

lord deputy
.
See
lord lieutenant.

lord justice
. In the absence or death of the
lord lieutenant
or lord deputy, three lords justice acted as chief governors of the Irish administration. They were usually crown nominees.

lord lieutenant
. The chief governor and senior crown official in Ireland. In the early modern period the title lord lieutenant was conferred on members of the royal household, members of important English families or lord deputies who had distinguished themselves in Ireland. Where the lord lieutenant chose to remain in England he was represented in Ireland by a lord deputy or lords justice. In the nineteenth century, although nominally the head of the administration, the lord lieutenant was eclipsed by the
chief secretary
who was, effectively, the prime minister.
See
county governor.

lord lieutenant's school fund
. The lord lieutenant's school fund was established in 1819, having been first mooted by Thomas Orde in 1787 as a vehicle to provide funds for the purchase and construction of schools and for the provision of free education for the poor. Although primarily intended to finance the education of poor Catholics, the money was channelled through Protestant societies. Between 1819 and 1826 the fund commissioners disbursed over £63,000 for educational purposes but little of that sum found its way into Catholic hands. Having been given a free hand to dispose of the money as they saw fit, the commissioners introduced so many obstacles that few Catholics succeeded in prising money from their grasp. In the six years to 1825 all but 12 out of a total of 481 grants had favoured Protestants, largely because Catholics were unable to provide strong guarantees of local financial aid. The commissioners also demanded the vesting of title in the local Church of Ireland minister, a requirement that proved obnoxious to Catholics. Slated by the commissioners of inquiry into Irish education, the fund was extinguished after 1825. When the national system was established in 1831, public moneys voted by parliament to the national school system were funnelled to the board of education through a fund also known as the lord lieutenant's education fund. This new fund was administered more equitably and continued to finance the school system until 1848. Thereafter the money was transmitted through the exchequer. (Akenson,
The Irish education experiment
, pp. 83–5.)

lord protector
. The title assumed by Oliver Cromwell, the principal puritan military leader, after the forcible dissolution of the
Rump
(the purged English parliament) in 1653. In 1658 Richard Cromwell succeeded his father as lord protector but was deposed in April 1659.

lords, house of
. The upper house of the Irish
parliament
emerged as a distinct parliamentary entity in 1536–7 and remained the premier house until the
Act of Union
. Membership and procedure were regulated by
Ulster king of arms
at least until 1688 after which the house was self-regulating. It was presided over by the
lord chancellor
. In the eighteenth century the house comprised 22 spiritual peers (4 archbishops – all Englishmen – and 18 bishops) and a variable number of temporal peers. In the first half of the century the lay peers were largely inactive and the spiritual peers exercised considerable political influence. From 1750, however, the initiative passed to the lay peers as peerages were offered to loyal politicians for their service in the commons and as bribes to MPs to stifle parliamentary opposition. Throughout the eighteenth century the house was never full. Many peers were absentees and although all peers received writs of summons Catholic peers were unable to attend because of the oath of supremacy. No dissenters sat in the lords. The influence of the upper house lay chiefly in its control of the composition of the commons with almost half of the seats in the lower house in the gift of the lay and spiritual peers. The right of the lords to exercise appellate jurisdiction over decisions of the Irish courts was voided with the passage of the
British Declaratory Act
in 1720 but final judicature was restored in 1782. Only fragments of the early proceedings of the house have survived but the printed series, the journals, commences in 1634. (
Journals of the house of lords
; James
, Lords
; McCracken, ‘The political structure', pp. 71–72.)

lorimer
. A bit and harness maker.

losset
. 1: A large, flat wooden disc used as a kneading trough 2: A productive field or good fertile land.

loy
. A long, heavy spade used to cut and turn sods to form
lazybeds
.

lucht tighe
. (Ir., the members of a household) Mensal lands, the distinct parcel of land which furnished provisions for a Gaelic lord's table.

lumper
. A large, watery potato widely cultivated in Ireland during the 1830s and 1840s. It did not store well but its high yield ensured its popularity among the poor. Also known as the ‘horse potato'.