Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History by Joseph Byrne Read Free Book Online Page A

recorded in the 1580s under Perrot. It was not finally abolished in England until 1819.
    baudricke . A belt or girdle.
    bawn . (Ir., bádhún , cattle fort) A fortified cattle enclosure, constructed to ward off the attacks of wolves or cattle-raiders.
    beadle . A mace bearer, parish officer or constable. In the eighteenth century paid and uniformed beadles were employed by the Dublin house of industry to secure vagrants and sturdy beggars and bring them to the house. This duty was discharged at great peril to their own safety for the public sympathised with the beggars and seizures were frequently marked by riots. (Widdess, The Richmond , pp. 12–13.)
    beaker folk . Early Bronze Age people (c. 2000 bc) who used a distinct type of flat-base pottery.
    Beaufort, Daniel Augustus (1739–1821). A London-born Church of Ireland clergyman and scholar, Beaufort was a founding member and librarian of the Royal Irish Academy and was active in the Dublin Society. He was a farmer, an architect and a travel-writer but is remembered primarily for his cartographic work. In all, he produced only three maps: a small map of the country’s river systems (1792), a map of the diocese of Meath (1797) and his astonishing 6-inch ‘Ireland Civil and Ecclesiastical’ which appeared in 1792 and in numerous editions subsequently. (Andrews, Shapes , pp. 214–247.)
    beehive hut . A beehive-shaped, stone building constructed of overlapping stone courses.
    beer, small . A low alcohol beer which was also fed to children where the available water was impure and liable to sicken them.
    beetle . 1: A wooden or metal tool used to pound potatoes for animal feed. Beetles were also used to wash clothes and to break flax before it was scutched 2: A beetling engine bearing a line of wooden beetles was used to pound linen to create a smooth, soft surface on the fabric.
    bellcote, belcote . A belfry constructed like a small house in which the bells are hung.
    Belmore Commission (1897–8). At the request of the commissioners of national education the Belmore Commission was established to investigate the possibility of expanding curricular provision in Irish primary schools which, largely because of the payment-by-results system, had become too dull and mechanistic. Belmore recommended a broader curriculum that would include practical work such as elementary science, drawing and physical drill. The revised curriculum of 1900, which granted greater organisational freedom to schools and incorporated more practical subjects, was heavily influenced by the commission. Its greatest achievement, however, was to undermine the payment-by-results system by declaring such a system to be incompatible with the provision of a rounded educational programme. From 1900 teaching performance was rated by observation and not by pupil examination. (Belmore; Akenson, Irish education , pp. 372– 75; Idem , ‘Pre-university’, pp. 534–5.)
    benchers . The senior governing members of an inn of court. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the benchers of the Society of King’s Inns consisted of the lord chancellor , the judges, the master in chancery, the king’s counsel and the prothonotary of common pleas. See inns of court
    bend . In heraldry, a broad bend from the dexter chief corner to the sinister base. The reverse is known as a bend sinister.
    benefice . An ecclesiastical living. An Anglican clergyman usually held a single parish as his benefice but in many cases two or more parishes were formally united and held by a single individual. Unions were normally effected where the income from a single parish was insufficient to support a clergyman.
    benefit of clergy . The exemption enjoyed by clergy from the jurisdiction of the civil courts in cases of capital felony. From the middle ages a clergyman charged with a felony before a secular court was required to plead his clergy whereupon (if successful) the case was transferred to the