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The concept of common land stems from ancient Gaelic management of land, where certain areas were not owned by individuals but were held for the benefit of the community for grazing cattle or cutting turf or timber.
Villages adjacent to “commons” originated primarily from the Gaelic clachan system, often paired with rundale farming where land was held in common for use by all. These settlements were often located near marginal land or on the edges of lands managed by landlords where tenant farmers maintained traditional, communal grazing rights. The enclosure of these commons by landlords was a major driver of agrarian unrest in the 18th century, with Whiteboys and other secret societies tearing down fences to protect traditional grazing rights.
Commons townland in Quin is marginal land, liable to flooding and so today is devoid of residents, but this was not always the case. As with other townlands, the population here increased immediately following the famine but dropped sharply for each 10-year return thereafter as emigration took a hold of the younger family members.

Coimín – commonage, common land; little hollow, glen

This small townland is located on the right-hand side of the Tulla road after you pass the village picnic benches.

 

It has an area of just 3.44 hectares / 8.49 acres / 0.01 square miles

1819 Freeholders in Commeen

Timothy Considine, Michael Considine.

Landlord: James Butler

Names of Lives or other Tenure: Pat Halloran Snr; Pat Halloran Jnr; Heniher?

1825 Tithe Applotment Book

Land Occupiers in Commons townland:

John Moran, James Corry, Michael McMahon, Patt Halloran, Patt Moylan, William Moylan, Patt Gorman, Michael Rotchford, John Keefe.

1855 Griffiths Valuation

Land Occupiers in Commons townland:
1. Cornelius Halloran
2. John Singleton, James Moylan, Patrick Gorman, Patrick Carmody, Catherine Moran,
3. James Moylan,
4. Michael Carmody, Judith Neill, Sarah McNamara, Michael Lynch, John Kane.

See right-hand map numbers below for 4 land parcels.

Landlord: William Vance

Census records for 1841: Population 22, Households 5

Census records for 1851: Population 31, Households 8

Census records for 1861: Population 8, Households 2

Census records for 1871: Population 6, Households 2

Census records for 1881: Population 4, Households 2

Census records for 1891: Population 7, Households 2

Census records for 1901: Population 4, Households 2

Census records for 1911: Population 2, Households 1

1901 Census Record

Patrick O’Brien (Postman) age 23, sister Mary O’Brien age 25.

Michael & Eliza Neville, ages 52, 50

 

 

1911 Census Record

Michael & Eliza Neville, ages 73, 70

Old age pension

This was introduced in 1908. Followers of the Townland posts may sometimes notice a discrepency in the recorded ages from 1901 to 1911. While it was not always the case, and there is no suggestion that ocurred in the above return, there was an incentive to add on years in order to be eligible to claim the old age pension. This must be borne in mind when researching or tracing relatives through these returns.

National Monuments:

Toberinneenboy CL042-027005- : Ritual site – holy well

Description: On an E-facing slope on the NW bank of the River Rine in an undulating field with some rock outcrop. Named ‘Toberinneenboy’ on the 1840 OS 6-inch map and ‘Toberinneenboy (Site of)’ on the 1922 edition. An overgrown area (diam. c. 4m) around a tree at this location has some rocks at the base but no stone setting is evident and there is no sign of a spring.

INGHEAN BAOITH of Kilnaboy, wells at Kilnaboy, Commons, Glensleade, Quakerstown, Killavella, Dulick in Templemaley, Kiltachy, Kilshanny, Aglish, Moy Ibricane, Magowna, Ballycoree, Shallee (two), Cullaun, Castletown (Clooney), Drumumna and Quin.

 

https://heritage.clareheritage.org/places/holy-wells/toberinneenboy-tobar-inion-bhaoith-locally-known-as-st-finghins-quin

Cahill’s Well

There is nolonger any trace of the well marked on the early OS maps as Cahill’s Well. There is, however, remnants of what may have been a well or spring alongside the wall seperating Commons from the site where St Finghins Church is located. The association of the well with this particular surname is interesting. As can be seen from the above records, there is no mention of a Cahill family having lived there. Might this be a misinterpretation of ‘Cathal’,  or similar, by the OS surveyor? If so, it still will not bring us any closer to the origin of this feature name!

Left: Toberinneenboy/Tober Inghean Baoith where tree is standing in the field.

 

What did the Anglo Normans ever do for us?

We are well aware of the impact of the Anglo-Norman invasion on our history, the undermining of Gaelic society and the replacement of our native structures. Poor old Diarmuid MacMurrough takes a lot of blame for all of this, despite the fact that Henry II in England had already sought and had been given approval by Pope Adrian to invade and civilise us. Henry was just waiting to finish his war in France before sorting us out!

Anyway, in they came, conquered, settled, married and eventually becoming more Irish than even ourselves, ‘níos gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin’! But besides building towns and castles, robbing our women (and probably taking our jobs!), what did the Anglo-Normans do for us – if anything?

Well, for one, they gave us a whole new suite of names, both forename and surname, to choose from.

The Norman influence on Irish surnames

Following the invasion of 1169, a large number of Anglo-French first and last names entered into Ireland. Many, such as Power, Browne, Fleming, Joyce, Burke, Barry, Costello, Nagle, Nugent, D’arcy, Roche and Walsh/Welsh/Wallace, are nowadays considered Irish and are commonly found in Clare. So, too, are those with the Fitz prefix such as Fitzmaurice, Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon and Fitzpatrick which most people would regard as Irish as the shamrock. Fitz, meaning ‘son of’, can be considered the Norman version of Mac (it derives from the Latin/French ‘fils de’, meaning ‘son of’). Burke came from de Burgh, Roche from de Roiste, Power from de Paor.

In 1366, a law was passed that “Every Englishman do use the English language, and be named by an English name, leaving off entirely the manner of naming used by the Irish.” This was introduced to dissuade the settlers from adopting Celtic prefixes or forms of surname. It didn’t have much affect as many settler families added Mac or ‘O’ and Norman names evolved into an Irish form (eg McHenry, McArthur).

In 1465 a law was passed enacting “that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or amongst Englishmen in the County of Dublin, Myeth, Vriell, and Kildare … shall take to him an English Surname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as white, blacke, browne; or arte or science, as smith or carpenter; or office, as cooke, butler ….”

Many of the trades of the early medieval period such as Archer, Butler, Cooper, Carpenter, Draper, Skinner, Tanner found their way into our surnames. Other introductions from this period came from the mercenary soldiers who accompanied the Norman invasion: Walsh (meaning Welsh), Joyce and Fleming (from Flemish mercenaries) are examples.

Incidentally, the Normans usually took their surnames from the place of their family origins. So, D’arcy originates in Arcy in Normandy. De Clare originates in Clare in Suffolk where the Anglo-Norman family were based. While De indicated their place of origin, Le was used to describe them, eg Le Poer meant ‘a poor person’.

De Burgh – Burke – from a placename in Suffolk, France

Le Botilier – Butler – Occupation bottle steward

De Barra – Barry – from an estate in Wales

Le Waleys – Walsh – the Welshmen

De Angulo – Costello/Nangle – from Nangle Pembrokeshire

What of their influence on forenames?

 Many of the Normans forenames introduced here were of a biblical or European saintly origin.

 In 1922, Reverend Patrick Woulfe wrote extensively on the topic of Irish name origins as follows:

In the same manner Norman and English names became current in Irish families during the thirteenth and subsequent centuries. These have now almost completely supplanted the old Gaelic names. The names borne by the Normans and by them introduced into Ireland, were of three kinds :

 (1) names of Scandinavian origin which their ancestors had carried with them to Normandy ;

(2) names of Germanic origin which the Frankish conquerors had brought across the Rhine and which had ousted the old Celtic and Latin names from France ; and

(3) Biblical names and Latin and Greek names of saints,, which the Normans began to adopt about the beginning of the eleventh century.

Together with these came in a few Celtic names from Brittany, a small number of Anglo-Saxon names, some Danish and Norse names from England, and one or two British or Welsh names. These were nearly all very rare and most of them soon died out. Of the Anglo-Saxon names, only two, Edmund and Edward, survived. Alfred has been revived in recent times. At the period of the Invasion, Frankish names were by far the most popular among the Normans, but Biblical and saintly names were coming rapidly into favour.

The following is a list, in order of frequency, of the more common names borne by the early Anglo- Norman invaders, the Biblical and saintly names of Latin and Greek origin being printed in italics :

William, Robert, Richard, John, Walter, Roger, Ralph, Adam, Hugh, Henry, Thomas, Nicholas, Gilbert, Geoffrey, Elias, Peter (Piers), Osbert, Reginald, Jordan, Simon, Alan, Stephen, Philip, David, Arnold, Alexander, Laurence, Baldwin, Herbert, Martin, Maurice, Godfrey, Andrew, Alfred, James, Samson, Turstein, Warin, Ailward, Daniel, Edward, Gregory, Bernard, Benedict, Hamon, Matthias, Michael, Gerard, Gervase, Lambert, Wilkin, Patrick, Edmund, Edwin, Hubert, Ivor, Joseph, Oliver, Mark.

 The following in alphabetical order were rare :

 Abraham, Adelard, Ailmer, Antony, Augustine, Brian, Clement, Constantine, Estmund, Eustace, Everard, Gocelin, Isaac, Leonard, Luke, Matthew, Miles, Milo, Odo, Osbern, Osmund, Pagan, Ponce, Randulf, Redmund, Rodulf, Silvester, Turold, Ulf, Vincent.

 The following names only came in, or at least became popular, at a later period :

Bartholomew, Christopher, Francis, Gerald, George, Paul, Roland, Theobald.

 Women’s names among the Normans were nearly all of the Biblical or saintly class:

 Agnes, Alice, Amelina, Anastasia, Annabella, Catherine, Cecily, Christina, Dorothy, Egidia, Eleanor, Evelyn, Frances, Honora, Isabella, Johanna, Matilda, Margaret, Susanna.

 The name Mary does not seem to have come into use in Ireland before the end of the16th century. Brigid only began to be used about the same period.

 

Extracted from ‘Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall’, Patrick Woulfe 1922

Out with the old, in with the new

The Anglo-Normans also brought with them new animal species such as the rabbit and fallow deer, new foods such as wheat, orchard fruits, mutton and farming practices such as hay-making. They introduced us to continental European religious saints and practices of the Roman Church. European religious orders soon followed such as the Franciscans, Augustinians, Cistercians, Dominicans etc. These replaced the structures of the native Irish Christian Church.

Up to then, the Irish natives did not adopt the name of saints as they considered this to be placing themselves on a par with the saint. Such naming convention was reserved for those of higher status in the monasteries. This was circumvented by use of the prefix Maol or Giolla meaning follower or servant. The Normans changed all of that and it was now acceptable to be called Peter, James, Michael, John, Mary, Brigid or Margaret.

Very few of us to this day do not have either a forename or surname that is not of Norman origin. Eventually, arising from the Gaelic Revival in the late 19th century, new Irish language versions of these forenames appeared such as Séan, Seamus, Peadar, Máire, Bríd, Mícheál, Cathal and many more appeared.

The Irish Church did not condemn the practice of slave-trading by the Irish until the invasion by the Anglo-Normans and the encroachment of the Roman Church. The story of Patrick (Patricius, son of a Roman administrator), which was introduced here after the Norman conquest, presents the native Irish as uncivilised pagan slavers who needed to be brought to heel. So the Normans inadvertently gave us our native saint and a forename for a good chunk of our population for generations following.

Out with the new, in with the old

Children are rarely given these European saint names today. Authentic Gaelic forenames are much more popular. We are nevertheless, unlikely to see the demise of the Anglo-Normans surnames that were introduced here. But all of us Mikes, Jimmies, Johnnys, Paddys, Kittys, Cathys, Maggies and Bridies can thank the Normans for what they brought us!