User:Mrchris/List of baronies of County Kilkenny



This is a list of the baronies of County Kilkenny, Ireland. The county is subdivided into 12 baronies, which Kilkenny in the centre of the county, and clockwise from north of the county, Fassadinin, Gowran, Ida, Kilculliheen, Iverk, Knocktopher, Kells, Callan,  Shillelogher (barony), Crannagh,  Galmoy. There are more than 140 civil parishes and 1600 townlands (See List of townlands in County Kilkenny).

History
The arrival of Cambro-Norman knights, the Norman invasion of Ireland, followed in 1172 by the invasion of King Henry II of England, lead to the creation of the shire of Kilkenny by John, King of England. Before 1200, William Marshal began the organisation of Leinster, by dividing it into four regions, governed from Wexford, Carlow, Kildare and Kilkenny. By the fourteenth century Anglo-Norman Lordship of Ireland the greater part of the county was divided into twelve cantred, (from north to south) Aghaboe, Galmoy, Odogh, Shillelogher, Kilkenny, Oskelan, Callan, Erley, Kells, Knocktopher, Ogenty, and Iverk. These cantred analogous to the cantref of Wales or the hundred of England. The area of a cantred usually corresponded to that of an earlier trícha cét of Gaelic Ireland, and sometimes to that of a rural deanery in the medieval Irish church. Cantreds declined in the fourteenth century and had fallen into disuse by the 16th-century Tudor reconquest of Ireland, when the barony became the subunit of the counties.

Baronies were created after the Norman invasion of Ireland as subdivisions of counties, mainly cadastral. In many cases, a barony corresponds to an earlier Gaelic túath which had submitted to the Crown. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they have been administratively obsolete since the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. However, they continue to be used in land registration and specification such as in planning permissions. Useful 19th century land records, such as Griffith's Valuation (1849-50 for Kilkenny) and the Tithe Applotment Survey (1823-38), were organized by Barony, Civil Parish and Townland.

In the 18th century County Kilkenny consisted of the following baronies: Galmoy, Lower Ossory, Fassadinig, Cranagh, Shellilogher, Gowran, Kells, Knocktopher, Ida, Igrin, Iverk and Ibercon. It additionally included the Liberties of Kilkenny and of Callan. In the Down Survey it was called "Callan Liberties", however, the 1836 Act explicitly states the town and liberties of Callan "shall be deemed and taken to be a barony" The Down Survey of Ireland was taken in the years 1656-1658. By the 19th century these were restructured into the baronies of Callan, Crannagh, Fassadinin, Galmoy, Gowran, Ida, Iverk, Kells, Knocktopher, Shillelogher. Baronies were mainly cadastral but with some administrative functions prior to the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Baronies continue to be officially defined units used in land registration and specification such as in planning permissions, however both civil parishes and baronies are now largely obsolete. Townlands were often traditionally divided into smaller units called quarters, but these subdivisions are not legally defined. For religious administration, the county was divided into parishes. The barony boundaries and the parish boundaries were not connected.

List
Creation date is sometimes specified as an upper bound (and possibly a lower bound) rather than the precise year:
 * "By 1672" indicates baronies depicted in Hiberniae Delineatio, "Perry's Atlas", engraved in 1671-2 by William Petty from the data of the Down Survey. This delimited all, and described most, of the baronies then extant.

Former baronies
The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c.108) separated the rural hinterland or "liberties" from some of the counties corporate, restricting their jurisdiction to the relevant municipal town, borough, or city. The Counties and Boroughs (Ireland) Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c.109) provided that the rural area would form a new barony of the adjacent county until the county Grand Jury should decide to allocate it to an existing barony. The reallocation happened quickly in some cases, slower in others.