Quitrent Mountain - Norris and Gardner

Hi,

I don't have any photos, nor am I a descendant, but I did find this information on Roots Ireland:

Marriage - 23 Jan 1845, RC parish of Kildorrery, William Norris & Catherine Gardner, witnesses - Cornelius Norris & Michael Gardner

Their children: William (1 Nov 1846), John (1 Oct 1848), Cornelius (7 Apr 1852), Richard (29 Sep 1854), Thomas (1 Mar 1857), Catherine (18 Mar 1860), Patrick (15 Mar 1863), Ellen (30 May 1869), Michael (29 Jun 1872), James (5 Jan 1875).

The address for all was Quitrent, Kildorrery. 

Regards,

The numbers you refer to are not part of any postal address. They were the census enumerator’s private numbering system, used to ensure every property had been recorded. They normally varied from census to census as it would usually be a different enumerator 10 years later who would not necessarily follow the same route as his predecessor.  Plus the number of properties may have changed over the preceding 10 years. Those numbering records were not retained. In rural Ireland most homes do not have house numbers. Your name and townland were normally sufficient to identify you and get a letter delivered. The postman knew where everyone lived.

Looking at Griffiths Valuation I see 3 Norris properties in the townland, out of a total of around 40 homes.

https://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=nameSearch

Plot 4Da was a house occupied by Thomas Norris on James Noonan’s 100 acre farm,

Plot 20a was a 67 acre farm occupied by Maurice Norris

Plot 28b was a house and small garden occupied by William Norris on Michael Gardner’s 2 acre holding.

You can see plots 4 and 20 on the Griffiths Valuation maps. Plot 28b is not shown. Plot 4d does not appear to contain any inhabited buildings any longer (it’s located at the very end of a lane). Plot 20 puzzles me. It’s supposed to be a 67 acre farm but what is shown on the Griffiths map is much smaller than that so I don’t think the map accurately matches the Griffiths records.

What is shown as plot 20 does not contain any inhabited building. There might be some ruins there - it’s hard to tell from the satellite image. Access is by a path from the road end leading into the woods. It does not look well used.  Griffiths was compiled in 1852 but the maps were drawn up about 20 years later. It appears that over the 20 years some changes occurred to the plot boundaries making it hard to be certain about the location of some  today. You may have to make local enquiries to see if anyone there today can identify the former Norris properties. I would doubt that anyone will have photographs of the properties when they were still inhabited but you never know.

You can get a little information from the supplementary pages on each census. So for example, taking William Norris in house 10 in 1901, the house had stone or brick walls and a roof made from thatch (or similar short life material). There were 2 rooms and 2 windows at the front. 3 outbuildings - a cow house, a piggery and a fowl house. He was a farmer, not a labourer.