Griffith's Valuation Revision Books--John Mulchrone--Moyhastin, Mayo

Lorie:

Short answer is not now but in the near future. The Mayo records have been digitized but are only viewable at the Valuation Office in Dublin but maybe in a year or two the records will be available online.

Claire Santry produces the Irish Genealogy News. See Claire's status update from June 22nd of this year  https://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2021/06/irelands-vo-revision-books-o…

Roger McDonnell

Thanks for your quick albeit disappointing reply Roger! 
 

Lorie,

You can contact the Valuation office in Dublin and ask for them to look the information up. There may be a fee though.

https://www.valoff.ie/en/archive-research/

I have attached an example of what the records look like. (This one happens to be for Co Antrim but the same system was used across Ireland). A series of books covers each electoral district. Each book lasted about 10 years. Changes were made in different coloured ink. Each colour representing a different year. The years are usually noted in the extreme right hand column. (The clerks only visited every couple of years and the dates can often be out by a year or two). 

Thanks for the information Elwyn!  It turns out that familysearch.org has microfilmed the Revision books for Mayo. They have a look-up service which will make scans of a particular microfilm or book. They kindly scanned in the entire 4 pages of records for Moyhastin.  Unfortunately the microfilm was done in black and white so the scans do not show the colored entries like your example does.  I was able to figure it out though.  The only thing I was puzzled about was the final entry for many of the names.  It lists the Irish Land Commision in the column headed "Immediate Lessors".  I'm guessing that the government bought up the land?  Will have to research that to understand what happened. 

Thanks again for your help Elwyn!

Lorrie,

Put simply, the landlords sold their land to the Land Commission and the Land Commission sold the land to the tenants on a long-term loan with low interest rates. The major Land Act for this was the Wyndham Act of 1903 where millions of pounds were made available for the scheme. There were other Land Acts from the 1870s, but the 1903 one was the most important. You will notice the term LAP in the revision books, which means Land Act Purchase. Where there were no tenants on land (the landlord used the land) the land was distributed by the Congested District Boards, with advice from a local committee. 

This is a simplified summary of a complex issue!

Best wishes, Kieran 

Lorrie,

For a detailed description of how the various land laws worked throughout the 1900s, read Dr William Roulston's book "Researching farming ancestors in Ireland."  Chapter 9 is devoted to farmers and land reform and explains how the Land Commission and other bodies worked, what records of those transactions survive, and where they are kept.

Thanks for the excellent and useful summary of info on the Land Commision Kieran!  And thanks to Elwyn for the book recommendation.  I ordered it from Amazon and am looking forward to reading it.  It looks like it will be a great resource for info about not only the Land Commission but farm records as well. 

Thanks to all the volunteers on this message board!  You folks are so nice to help us out!

Lorie