The Skehana & District Heritage Group is delighted to lend its support to the Ballyglunin Railway Restoration Project committee when they sponsor a presentation by Jimmy Laffey, a member of our group, titled Griffiths Valuation of Tenements. While it will be general in content the presentation will detail the administrative structures of the time for the civil parishes of Killererin, Kilmoylan and Abbeyknockmoy, examine the detail contained in the valuations, advise on how they can be accessed using examples from local townlands. In addition early maps of the locality will be on display as indeed will the original Griffiths Valuation for the entire Tuam Poor Law Union. Information hand-outs will be available for all attendees.
The aim of the valuation was to produce a uniform guide to the relative value of land throughout the whole country. The project required Griffith and a team of valuers to determine the value of every piece of land and property
in Ireland enabling every occupier’s tax due to be assessed. The information they collated covered all of Ireland and was compiled into over 300 volumes and published over a period of 17 years.
This is extremely important to persons wishing to trace their family history and generate family trees primarily because much of the detail of our census information up to 1901 has been lost. The information contained in the valuation contains detailed data on each plot including the occupier’s name, the immediate lessor’s name, land or property description, acerage, rateable valuations of land and buildings and these are accompanied by very detailed maps showing the locations of properties and buildings in the mid-1800s.