Barony (Ireland)

In Ireland, a barony (Irish: barúntacht, plural barúntachtaí) is a historical subdivision of a county, analogous to the hundreds into which the counties of England were divided. Baronies were created during the Tudor reconquest of Ireland, replacing the earlier cantreds formed after the original Norman invasion. Some early baronies were later subdivided into half baronies with the same standing as full baronies.

Baronies were mainly cadastral rather than administrative units. They acquired modest local taxation and spending functions in the 19th century before being superseded by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Subsequent adjustments of county boundaries mean that some baronies now straddle two counties.

The final catalogue of baronies numbered 331, with an average area of 255 km² (98 sq mi; 63,000 acres); each county was divided, on average, into 10 or 11 baronies.

The island of Ireland was "shired" into counties in two distinct periods: the east and south during the Anglo-Norman period (from the 1169 invasion to the early fourteenth century) and the rest in the Tudor conquest of the sixteenth century. "Barony" was used in three overlapping but distinct senses in the early period:

Over the centuries, these senses diverged, and many administrative baronies were not associated with feudal or noble titles. Spurious "barony" titles have been sold by using the names of administrative baronies for which there is no corresponding hereditary or prescriptive barony. In counties Louth and Meath, the administrative subdivisions were called "baronies" from the beginning, originally as portions given by Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath to his vassals. Further south the name "cantred" was used till the fifteenth century. The cantreds declined with the rest of the English colony as its influence retreated to the Pale in the fourteenth century, and when the Tudors and Stuarts revived and extended county government, the baronies which they delimited often bore little relation to the earlier cantreds.

Most cantreds corresponded to the túath ('country') or trícha cét ('thirty hundred [men]') of a Gaelic chief. However, sometimes baronies combined small territories, or split a large one, or were created without regard for the earlier boundaries. In the Norman period most Gaelic chiefs were killed, expelled, or subordinated by the new Norman lord; in the Tudor period, many Gaelic and Hibernicized lords retained their land by pledging allegiance to the Crown under surrender and regrant.

Sir John Perrot's commissioners reported 184 "cantreds, otherwise called hundreds or baronies" in 1589; William Petty reported 252 baronies in 1672.

Baronies were sometimes subdivided, and occasionally combined. The parts of a subdivided barony were called half-baronies, but had the same legal standing. Some subdivisions came about when new counties were formed, and the new boundary split a pre-existing barony. In three cases, there are adjacent half-baronies in neighbouring counties with the same name: Rathdown (Dublin—Wicklow), Fore (Meath—Westmeath), and Ballymoe (Galway—Roscommon). Subdivision happened especially in the 19th century, when qualifiers "Upper"/"Lower"(/"Middle"), "North"/"South", or "East/"West" were used for the half-baronies. The main basis for this subdivision was the Grand Jury (Ireland) Act, 1836, which empowered a county's grand jury to divide baronies of at least 45,000 acres (180 km²) and unite baronies totalling at most 40,000 acres (160 km²). An 1837 act relaxed these restrictions for County Fermanagh, where many baronies were split by Lough Erne. The baronies of Iveagh, Muskerry, and Connello were each subdivided twice: Upper and Lower Iveagh each have Upper and Lower Halves; East and West Muskerry each have East and West Divisions; the western divisions split from Upper and Lower Connello were named Shanid and Glenquin respectively. When County Tipperary was split into North and South Ridings in 1838, the barony of Kilnamanagh was split into Upper and Lower half-baronies.