The Landed Estates Court Rentals are one of the lesser known, and consequently under-used sources for anyone engaged in Irish research.
Background
By the time of the Famine, as prices for sale or rental of land plummeted, the monies that had to be paid out from the individual estates remained the same, and many Irish estates became insolvent as debts exceeded earnings. However, the landowners could not sell their estates to discharge their debts, because the land was entailed.
Establishment of the Land Courts
The Encumbered Estates Court was established in 1849. In 1852, it was replaced by the Landed Estates Courts, which was itself superseded in 1877 by the Land Judges Court, part of the Chancery Division of the High Court. Although there were some differences in the powers of these courts, their principal function remained the same, to sell off insolvent estates.
The Land Courts system was the first significant step towards the break-up of the old estates in Ireland. From the genealogist’s perspective, the Rentals have an added value, because the estate records (rentals, maps, leases) that would have existed prior to these sales, no longer survive. This is because once the parliamentary grant to title was secured by purchase from the Land Courts, there was no need to retain any of the documentation regarding previous land title.
What are the Rentals and where can they be found
The Rentals are effectively printed sale-catalogues, which were circulated to prospective purchasers in advance of the sale. They were compiled with the intention of attracting purchasers and of providing information on the estate in a clear and uniform manner. The Land Courts sold estates in every county in Ireland, and the Rentals as a whole cover large parts of the country. The estates now sold included urban as well as rural property, and many of the Rentals relate to houses and other buildings in villages, towns and cities. The information is printed and presented in a standard manner.
The title page in a Rental identifies the estate and gives the date and place of the sale. So for example, In the Court of the Commissioners for Sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, No. 14 Henrietta Street Dublin…In the matter of the estate of the Rev. William Minchin of Green Hills in the County of Tipperary, Owner… Sale on Thursday the 27th Day of November 1851…
This is usually followed by brief descriptive particulars of the estate and its situation, intended to bring in prospective buyers. Anyone who has read the property section of a newspaper, will know what to expect in this section.
To the genealogist the critical information contained in these Rentals, are the Lot descriptions. These outline the ownership history of the lot, the quantity of land and the yearly rent that can be charged. Most significantly, they also include the list of tenants, the size of the holding and the terms of tenure.
Where a tenant held by lease, rather than on a yearly tenancy, the particulars will also name all lives contracted for (usually three), and any of those named still alive at the time of the sale. So the information contained in the Rentals can allow the genealogist to document connections between close family members going back one or more generations.
To give you an example, in the Rental for sale of the estate of the Rev. William Minchin, we are told that Lot 5 comprises “The Town and Lands of Moneygall, Kilkekearan … and Gurrane.” If we turn to Lot 5, we get a full description of all tenants, including, (p. 19, no. 43), “the representatives of William & Joseph Kearney… who hold two houses and gardens in [the town of Moneygall] for which they pay an annual rent of £6 10s.”
The Rental further tells us that this land was held by lease dated 1st May 1800… between William Minchin, and “William Kearney and Joseph Kearney (brother to the said William Kearney), and Joseph Kearney son to the said William Kearney, of whom the said Joseph Kearney, the son of the said lessee William Kearney is now [November 1851] the only surviving life.”
In the instance cited above, a gap in the parish records meant that the evidence in the Landed Estate Court Rentals, was the only documented proof of this family connection.
The Rentals also usually include a map to situate the estate or lot in relation to the surrounding countryside, and often also a detailed map of the lot itself. In the case of urban property, a village or town-plan.
In the Republic of Ireland, the National Archives holds most of the Landed Estates Court Rentals, of which the ones most relevant to genealogical research are two sets of published Rentals. The O’Brien Rentals include almost all Rentals published between 1849 and 1885. The Quit Rent Office set of Rentals is less complete, but includes rentals for the period after 1885. A third set of Rentals is held in the National Library of Ireland. In Northern Ireland another large set of the Rentals is held in the Public Records Office.
The complete set of Landed Estates Court Rentals are currently being digitised and indexed by Eneclann, and will be published online later this year.
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Topic: Link: Irish Estate Records (Read 13405 times)