Rental of the ‘Inner estate’ [Parsonstown and the immediately outlying townlands], with a half-yearly rental of £4,500.

Thick folio volume titled ‘Parsonstown [ie inner estate]: tenants’ accounts’, [including details of tenures and therefore possessing elements of a leasebook [see Q/16].

Volumes of rough minutes taken from meetings of the Board of Guardians of Parsonstown Union. Contains listings of rates collected across electoral divisions; invoice accounts from the Parsonstown Workhouse and Outdoor Relief; notes on orders and actions in response to reports and correspondence received by the Board of Guardians.

Birr (Parsonstown) Rural District Council No. 1 -
9 Minute books -
BRDC10/1/1: April 1899 - July 1900
BRDC10/1/2: August 1900 - June 1903
BRDC10/1/3: June 1903 - December 1905
BRDC10/1/4: January 1906 - December 1908
BRDC10/1/5: January 1909 - December 1910
BRDC10/1/6: January 1911 - March 1914
BRDC10/1/7: July 1914 - July 1915
BRDC10/1/8: August 1915 - May 1920
BRDC10/1/9: June 1920 - September 1923

4 Financial Minute Books -
BRDC10/2/1: September 1907 - February 1910
BRDC10/2/2: July 1910 - January 1912
BRDC10/2/3: February 1913 - April 1913 and November 1914 - April 1915 (1 volume).
BRDC10/2/4: April 1914 - October 1914 and July 1918 (1 volume).

1 Register -
BRDC10/3: July 1908 - March 1918, Register of cow keepers, dairy men or purveyors of milk within this district.

1 Declaration -
BRDC10/4: June 1914 - May 1923, Councillors declaration of acceptance of office.

1 General Rental -
BRDC10/5/1: 1915 - 1919, Labourers' cottages general rental.

1 Ledger -
BRDC10/5/2: October 1915 - March 1925, Labourers' cottage repair ledger.

Birr (Parsonstown) Rural District Council No. 2 -
5 Minute Books -
BRDC10/6/1: January 1905 - November 1905
BRDC10/6/2: January 1906 - December 1910
BRDC10/6/3: January 1911 - June 1913
BRDC10/6/4: July 1913 - July 1915
BRDC10/6/5: September 1915 - March 1920

4 Financial Minutes -
BRDC10/7/1: April 1899 - July 1900
BRDC10/7/2: August 1900 - January 1905
BRDC10/7/3: April 1905 - July 1911
BRDC10/7/4: October 1926 - September 1928

1 Declaration -
BRDC10/8: June 1914, Councillors declaration of acceptance of office.

1 Register -
BRDC10/9: 1880 - 1971, Register of mortgages, (also Offaly Board of Health and Offaly County Council).

Minutes of Parsonstown Town Commissioners, recording the proceedings and decisions made at monthly meetings, special meetings and financial meetings.

Letters and papers of the 4th Earl about Parsonstown/Birr: the Castle – his youthful recollections of it, extensions to it 1867-72 [see also M/25], a magazine portrait of his way of life there, 1898, and magazine obituaries of him, 1908; an incident which took place on the road between Banagher and Parsonstown and in which the 4th Earl and his party were stopped and temporarily put in gaol by a drunken R.I.C. man, 1868; the Parsonstown Barracks, 1869, 1899 and N.D.; the Parsonstown Town Commission and Commissioners, 1870 and 1885; admissions to the demesne of privileged locals, 1876-1910; and one of the bridges in the Birr Castle demesne, and the Rivers Brosna and Camcor, 1880 and 1896. The correspondents include Gladstone, W.E. Forster and Lords Strathnairn and Roberts. The sub-section also includes a small account book recording local subscriptions to the Parsonstown Defence Association, the Property Defence Association, the legal fund of the Irish Land Committee, and the Field and Rossmore Testimonials, c.1882.

Printed Griffith’s Valuation of the Union of Parsonstown.

Minute books, accounts ledgers, reports, workhouse registers, and ancillary material relating to the creation, administration, and eventual dissolution of Parsonstown Union from its establishment in May 1839 to its dissolution in 1925. The union’s Board of Guardians were responsible for overseeing several functions of local government; primarily the care of the poor, including the setting up, financing and running of the workhouse, the creation of dispensary districts, assisted migration and outdoor relief.

The main set of records are the minute books of the Boards of Guardians, comprising 97 volumes. Other material is financial in nature, such as the financial minute books and repayment of relief account book. Three registers of the Parsonstown (Birr) workhouse survive; 1842-1843, 1849-1850 and loose pages from a 1912 registers. As the Board of Guardians also oversaw the dispensary districts in the union, there is a ledger relating to their activities, as well as a copy of the lease for the Kinnitty dispensary residences.

Parsonstown Union’s area of operation covered 234 square miles from two counties: from Offaly (King’s County) – Banagher, Drumcullen, Eglish, Ferbane, Frankfort, Kilcoleman, Kinnety, Lemanagan, Letter, Lusmagh, Seirkyrans, Parsonstown, Shannon Bridge, Shannon Harbour and Tissarin. From County Tipperary – Aglishcloghane, Ballingarry, Dorha, Lockeen, Lorha and Uskeane.

Rental account book for Labourers' Cottages in the following districts: Derryad, Ferbane, Doon, Gallen, Shannonbridge, Frankford (Kilcormac), Letter, Rathcabban, Moyclare, Kinnitty, Ballycumber, Kilcoleman, Srah, Banagher, Parsonstown (Birr), Seir Kieran, Killylyon.

Folios are arranged by tenant names and record the rental period, the amount of rent, if paid by cash and name of collector. Alphabetical surname index at beginning of volume.

Loose pages of notes copied by 'H.D.' on 14 December 1891 'from particulars made out from old Minute Books for Mr. John Wright for his Directory and history of King's County in November 1889".
Lists holders of the following positions in the workhouse for the 50 years between the opening of the workhouse in 1842 and when the notes were compiled in 1889: chairmen; clerks of the union; masters of the workhouse; Protestant chaplains of the workhouse; Roman Catholic chaplains of the workhouse; the first inmate admitted; financial arrangements; furniture suppliers; meeting houses; and medical officers of the workhouse.