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TITHE APPLOTMENT BOOKS 1823 - 1837:

Tithe was a tax on all agricultural land (originally a tenth of the produce) excepting only church lands and glebes and urban areas and it was paid by leaseholders and occupiers of all religious denominations to the clergy of the Established Church of Ireland. There was growing resentment against this tax, particularly in the period of distress after 1815 and the government was forced to give way and introduce a Tithe Composition Act 1823 which replaced payment in kind by payment in cash by landlords.

In order to effect this change, all the agricultural land in the country, which was liable to pay the tithe had to be surveyed and apploted or valued. During the period 1823 to 1837 a Tithe Applotment Survey was made in each civil parish for the whole of Ireland to determine the value of tithe payable by different landlords. The material was arranged by civil parish and townland in volumes known as TITHE APPLOTMENT BOOKS.

In some parishes more than one survey was taken, while in others the manuscript has not survived.

These books, compiled between 1823 and 1837, are now deposited in the National Archives of Ireland, Dublin and the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland.

In PRONI there are tithe books for all but 31 of the 273 parishes then surveyed in NI. These tithe books give the names of the landholders, the area of their farm subject to tithe, sometimes the quality of the land and an overall valuation, areas not subject to tithe and the landlords' names.

Donaghmore 1815 & 1826