Griffith Valuation
Griffith ’s Valuation is the name widely given to the Primary Valuation of Ireland, a property tax survey carried out in the mid-nineteenth century under the supervision of Sir Richard Griffith. The survey involved the detailed valuation of every taxable piece of agricultural or built property on the island of Ireland and was published county-by-county between the years 1847 and 1864.
The process of valuation was painstakingly thorough, involving multiple visits by valuation teams to analyse all of the factors influencing the economic status of the property: the chemical and geological properties of the land; average rents paid in the area; distance from the nearest market town. The aim was to get as accurate as possible an estimate of the annual income that each property should produce. This is the “Net Annual Value” figure (in £ s d, pounds sterling, shillings and pence) in the far right column of each valuation record. This was then used as the basis for local taxation, and continued up to the 1970s. The local authorities decided on a percentage of the Annual Value to be paid every year and usually expressed as “pennies to the pound”. For example a rate of 3 pennies to the pound meant that someone in possession of property valued as £10 would have to pay 30 pence, or 2/6.
The individual in economic occupation of the property was responsible for payment of the local taxation based on Griffith’s, with one exception: tenants with a holding valued at less than £5 annually were exempt, but their landlord was liable for the tax. This liability was a powerful incentive for landlords to get rid of smaller tenants in any way they could and certainly contributed to the wave of evictions that took place throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.
Options available to search by place of name
https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=placeSearch
There are three versions of maps available, none of which are dated
Fairy Forts / Ring Forts
National Monuments Service
Fairy forts (also known as lios or raths from the Irish, referring to an earthen mound) are the remains of stone circles, ringforts, hillforts, or other circular prehistoric dwellings in Ireland.
Possibly the late Iron Age to early Christian times, people built circular structures with earth banks or ditches. These were sometimes topped with wooden palisades and wooden framed buildings. As the dwellings were not durable, only vague circular marks often remained in the landscape. The remains of these structures, in conjunction with the vegetation around them, are associated with local traditions and folklore, perhaps involving fairies or other supposed supernatural entities, who would "defend" the structures from destruction by builders or farmers. As of 1991, there were between thirty and forty thousand identifiable fairy forts in Ireland's countryside, the oldest of them possibly dating back as early as 600 BCE.
Interpretation
Tradition claimed that ringforts were "fairy forts" imbued with druids' magic, and believers in the fairies did not alter them. The early pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland came to be seen as the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann and Fir Bolg. They were associated with stories of fairies – also known as the "Good People". Fairy forts and prehistoric tumuli were seen as entrances to their world. Even cutting brush, especially the sceach or whitethorn, on fairy forts was reputed to be the death of those who performed the act. There are many folk tales about supernatural events happening at fairy forts. Actual accidents which occurred at ringforts could be given supernatural explanations. For example, a man who tried to blast a dolmen suffered a septic hand. The wrecked dolmen was subsequently left untouched. Other traditions hold that a leprechaun may allegedly know of hidden gold in a fairy fort. In literature, British author Rudyard Kipling made allusions to the process by which such legends grow in his 1906 novel, Puck of Pook's Hill.
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