Irish Jurisdictions

o do effective research in Ireland, it's important that you have the place of origin for your ancestor. Most sources you refer to will require this information. Let me explain how the various divisions of Ireland.

In "Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research", Margaret Falley says, "Ireland is divided into four provinces. Each province is divided into counties; each county into baronies; each barony into parishes; and each parish into townlands.

There are in all of Ireland 28 diocese, 32 counties, 325 baronies, 2,447 parishes, and about 64,000 townlands.

Provinces
The present provinces and their counties are as follows:
- Connaught, the western province of Ireland, includes the counties of Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo.
- Leinster, the middle and southeastern portion of Ireland, includes the counties of Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Leix (Queen's County), Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly (King's County), West Meath, Wexford and Wicklow.
- Munster, the southernmost province, includes the counties of Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford.
- Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, was divided into the nine counties of Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone. In 1920, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan joined the Republic of Ireland leaving Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh and Londonderry as Northern Ireland.
Poor Law Unions
Poor Law Unions were established for poor relief by the Poor Relief Act (1) 1838 and were multiples of townlands, usually with a large market town as a center, within a radius of about ten miles.
Baronies
Originally, it was the district of an Irish chieftain. The name of the barony is used in land, military, tax and some other government records as descriptive of the district or section of the county.
Parishes
The parish was in early times a purely ecclesiastical subdivision of the diocese and it became also an area for civil or government purposes and, as such, could be said to be a subdivision of the barony.
There are two kinds of parishes--one is Civil, which is used for census and valuation, and the other is Ecclesiastical, which is a unit of local church administrations and covers a number of Civil parishes. Catholic parishes do not coincide with the name of the Protestant or Civil parishes. When a parish name is given without reference to either Catholic or Protestant, it is usually a Protestant or Civil parish.
Townlands
In size, the townland is the smallest geographical designation in Ireland and vary considerably. The average containing about 350 acres each. Successfully locating the records for your family, will be helped by knowing these specific jurisdictions for your ancestors homes.
Townland spellings have only been consistent since the 1850s or so; therefore, one townland might have several spellings (e.g. Keady, Kady, Cady in Co.Armagh).

To locate the various jurisdictions for your townland, see:
- "The General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns, Parishes and Baronies of Ireland: Based on the Census of Ireland for the Year 1851", Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD 1992
- "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland" by Samuel Lewis, S. Lewis & Co., London (1837)
If neither of these two resources list the townland name you seek, check the LDS Church Locality Catalogue (fiche version) under the subject: Gazetteers for issues of gazetteers published either earlier or later than the above.

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