When would a person become a head of household and be listed in Griffith's Val?

[NewHudsonRyans]

Here's a concrete example.

My Ryan family apparently lived in Cooneen, Tipperary until emigration.  Michael Ryan married Bridget Lynch in Templederry in 1859.

There is only one Lynch family living within a few miles of Cooneen in Griffith's Valuation, while there are numerous Ryan families.

Here are the successive tax records as provided by the Valuation Office for the Lynch house in Foilnamuck, with the lessor shown as the last name on the line:

1)  [Date of valuation:]  Ellen Lynch
2)  [1856-1860]  Ellen Lynch (struck out), Thomas (struck out), Michael.
3)  [1860-1862]  Michael Lynch (struck out), Anne Lynch.
4)  [1862-1864]  Anne Lynch (struck out), William (struck out), Anne.
5)  [1864-1870]  Anne Lynch (struct out), Patrick Ryan.
6)  [1870-1884]  Patrick Ryan.
7)  [1884-1893]  Patrick Ryan.
  [1893-1908]  Patrick Ryan (struck out), Anne Ryan (struck out), Martin Lynch.

From research of the marriage records, I know this happened:  (a)  Anne Ryan married Michael Lynch (1859); (b) after Michael's death (1862), Anne remarried to Patrick Ryan (1864).

The sequence of lessors seems pretty clear.  Yet if these people were related to my great-grandmother Bridget Lynch, it is puzzling to me.  Bridget's father was Michael Lynch (Bridget's mother was Mary Butler), not shown in this sequence of lessors, unless he was living in the house while the lease was held first by Ellen, then a succession of her children (Thomas, Michael, William) with Michael's widow named as the lessor after Michael died.

Recall that Michael Lynch and Mary Butler had these (known) children:

1)  Patrick, circa 1830.
2)  Thomas, 1832.
3)  Bridget, 1834.

If these people were living in that house in Foilnamuck with all of the others I discussed about, it surely must have been pretty crowded.

Yet if they lived elsewhere, how to explain Bridget's marrying Michael Ryan in 1859 and the couple then living in Cooneen (contiguous with Foilnamuck)?

-- Mike

[hallmark]

depends on size of the house doesn't it?

[aghadowey]

We owned the house where husband's great-grandfather was reared- 11 children in the family spread out over about 20 years- 2 rooms downstairs and loft above.

[hallmark]

...and now people need all that space for all the household appliances! Indeed many families were reared in similar size houses. If one takes a basic 3 room cottage, living room in middle with bedroom at each end, with sleeping quarters above the bedrooms in the loft they had 4 sleeping areas.

[NewHudsonRyans]

If indeed they all were born and raised in the same house, probably it explains why Thomas moved to England and became a coal miner by 1855, and why Patrick and his wife Eliza Keys emigrated in 1850 to New York State.

I'm in touch with the Lynch family who descends from the Martin Lynch who was living there in the early 1900s, and with a Butler descendant who I suspect descends from Michael Lynch's wife Mary Butler.  So with any luck, I'll eventually meet my goal of finding an Irish relative.

-- Mike