Irish inquisitions post-mortem and on attainder

Date: 1276 to 1700
Location: Ireland
Surnames/tags: Irish_Roots Ireland

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 What is available 3 Wardships, liveries, etc 4 Other information on these people and places

Introduction

Inquisitions were documents compiled for the Court of Chancery recording the rights and privileges of the crown over lands. Inquisitions post mortem were held after the death of a tenant in chief and inquisitions on attainder were held after the confiscation of lands from those condemned for rebelling against the crown. Irish inquisitions started in 1276 and continued (with gaps) up until the 1650s, with a few continuing in Ireland until 1700, after their abolition in England. The information included in the inquisitions included details of

• the person who had died or been attainted
• their lands
• their widows, heirs, pre-deceased wives and others entitled to jointures or annuities from or portions of the estate
• those to whom land had been leased or mortgaged

Inquisitions on attainder appear at flashpoints in Irish history, with the greatest frequency during the Nine Years War (1590s) and the Cromwellian protectorate (1650s). (For more detail see this article in HistoryIreland magazine or the introduction to either of the volumes listed below.)

What is available

The inquisitions were destroyed along with everything else in the Four Courts Fire, but calendars of them were prepared by the Irish Records Commission in the 1820s as Inquisitionium in officio Rotulorum Cancellaria Hibernia. The volumes for Leinster and Ulster were published at the time, but those for Munster and Connaught were not. Fortunately, the drafts prepared for the Commission have just been made available on line by Beyond 2022 - Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury so that all four volumes are now available for the first time.

The two published volumes are available here

• Vol 1 Leinster (1826)
• Vol 2 Ulster (1829)

Vol 2 starts with the division of Ulster into counties and ‘surveys’ allocating land in various counties to freeholders under Elizabeth and James and concludes with appendices on escheated lands in Ulster and instructions from James I/VI on its plantation.

The draft volumes for Munster and Connaught (held by the Royal Irish Academy under ref RIA OS EI) are available on the virtual record treasury, split into several volumes by county, with individual index entries for each inquisition.

You can find them by using the treasury's browse function and navigating to RIA OS EI or by using this search where you may be able to enter additional key words to narrow the search down.

Be warned: most of the inquisitions are in Latin mixed with Norman French and heavily summarised in a way which may make them hard to follow.

Summary lists of inquisitions preserved in the Rolls Office and the Chief Remembrancer's Office were published in the supplement to the 8th report of the Irish Records Commissioners].

The Irish Records Commission also produced transcripts in English of deeds and wills cited the inquisitions, but, with one exception, these have never been published. References to these records appear in the Irish virtual record treasury under ref NAI RC 5, but the documents themselves have not been added. The exception is the transcripts for Dublin published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission, but not available free on line.

Wardships, liveries, etc

The result of an inquisition was often to give livery or feudal tenure of the lands of the deceased to the heir. If the heir was not yet of age wardship would be awarded to someone else until he (almost always male) came of age. Wardships and liveries were confirmed by Royal Proclamation. John Lodge made copies of the proclamations for wardships and liveries from the court rolls. These have recently been made available on Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury under references NAI LODGE/18 and NAI LODGE/19. These proclamations (all in English) can be a very useful supplement to the inquisitions. You can find them by browsing the record treasury hierarchy to the volumes concerned. Or you can search them here and here adding an appropriate key word.

Other information on these people and places

Since the inquisitions often made determinations about land, another place to look for information about the people and places is in John Lodge's abstracts of items relating to land in the court rolls. These have also newly been made available in searchable form in the virtual records treasury. They can be seen in this search. They are in English.

For example, volume II of the inquisitions above (Ulster) includes a summary of an inquisition dated 1 May 1631 relating to Sir Pierce Crosby (also see his wikipedia entry). The inquisition states that he had received 3000 acres in the barony of Omagh co Tyrone in letters patent and had, contrary to the conditions of the grant, demised several balliboes of land ... unto the meer Irish. These lands were again forfeit to the King (a rare inquisition in English).

An entry in the court rolls dated July 1630 records the letters patent by which he had received the grant - less than a year previously. In a further entry dated 2 August 1638 these lands were granted to Sir William Ussher (wrongly stated to be Sir Walter Ussher in the transcript). The various Cromwellian surveys summarised by TCD show that he still owned the land in 1641 and 1670. (Click on any of the Townlands in the map highlighted with a crimson circle.)

See also Early modern Irish sources.