Paul Diver 1823 : Short Biography

My mother Grace Diver came from Mindoran, also known as Meendoran, a townland in Clonmany parish, in the Inishowen peninsula, Co. Donegal.  According to family stories, Grace’s grandfather Paul Diver had set up the home and farm when the land in the area was re-distributed among a number of families, including the Divers, with each acquiring individual holdings. Previously the families had been living in a cluster of houses in Meendoran which was known as “the Oul’ Town”. 

The Griffith’s Valuation map of the area shows two clusters of houses in Meendoran, called Meendoran Upper and Meendoran Lower.  The Griffith’s Valuation lists seven occupiers within Meendoran Upper, including William Diver, Paul’s father. It was around the 1850’s when the Valuation work was carried out. Six of the seven, including William, jointly held leases for two plots of land around the house cluster, one of 42 acres and the other of poorer quality being 224 acres of hilly bog on Meendoran Hill, overlooking the nearby lough, Lough Fad.

Paul was born around 1824. Some time in the 1850’s Paul married Rose Doherty from the neighbouring townland, Cloontagh. Paul and Rose had seven children between 1858 and 1875.   Of the seven, only two, William and Grace remained in Ireland, the other five, Dennis, Rose, Kate, Barney (Bernard) and Eugene, all emigrating to America. William’s birth certificate states that at the time of his birth, 1864, Paul was in America.  It is not known how long Paul was in America nor for what purpose. We can speculate that he went to see if the family could make a new life in America but decided against it.  One story within the family suggests that he came home due to the expectation of civil war in America.

The form of land possession and management that was practised in Meendoran seems to be an example of the rundale system, whereby a group of families jointly farmed plots of land, typically without any fencing, and sharing the better and poorer parts of the holding. The rundale system was regarded as an inefficient method of land management. In other parts of Inishowen it seems the breakup of rundale and creation of individual farm holdings took place earlier in the 19th century. 

Griffith’s Valuation indicates that the immediate leaseholder of Meendoran Upper was the Lohery (otherwise spelt Loughrey) family, who lived at Binnion, a townland north of Clonmany village.

The Griffith’s Valuation “Revision Books” show a series of revisions of the land holdings and valuations for the district from 1858 onwards. The Griffiths Revision Books show that Paul took over William’s holding in 1877.  The next revision of the Griffiths Valuation for Meendoran includes an observation against Paul Diver’s entry stating: “Rent £4.7.0 old rent £2.7.0 wanted valuation reduced ejected for non-payment”.  The next further revision, however, includes Paul as a tenant and so the dispute seems to have been resolved. This revision shows each of the tenants, including Paul, with individual holdings and so this seems to reflect the reorganisation of the land as referred to in the family story. It is not clear when exactly this took place but it seems to have been completed by the time this revision was recorded in the early 1880’s. However there is other evidence to indicate that the breakup of the rundale system in Meendoran took place in the late 1870’s.

In September 1880, Mr. John Loughrey gave evidence to the Irish Land Act Commission, known as the Bessborough Commission, established that year to inquire into the workings of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870. Mr. Loughrey stated that in one of his townlands, “Mindoran”, which had been held in rundale, the tenants had two or three years previously pressed him “to cut up the place”. Each had five to seven different patches in different parts of the townland. “This made the place almost worthless – they were constantly trespassing on each other and annoying each other and quarrelling. They asked me to take it out of rundale and each man to have his own holding. I did so…”

Mr. Loughrey also stated to the Bessborough Commission: “the class of tenants on my property have mostly very small holdings and I must say if they were let alone they would give very little trouble. Of course with men like that a bad season, sickness in their families, or any unforeseen misfortune throws them back and half a year’s rent is gone; but it is a thing that cannot be avoided and you are very well off if you get the rent the following year.”

Paul, Rose and their family continued to live on the family farm. Rose passed away in November 1897. Paul passed away on 16 March 1903, aged 80.