Pre 1850 Smiths

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THE HEARTH MONEY ROLLS – 1663 and 1665

In 1663 and 1665 Irish tenants were assessed a tax called the Hearth Money Roll.  Charles I assessed each tenant 2 schillings per hearth.   In the Hearth Money Rolls for Monaghan County the most numerous names are McMahon, McKenna, O’Duffy and O’Connolly.  In ancient times the Irish used close to 10,000 variations of Christian names.  By mid-eighteenth century the Irish did not use more than 100 variations.  The first name contains the number of each surname in the County Monaghan Hearth Money Roll, and the second of each Christian name:

McMahon – 158; McKenna – 121 ; O’Duffy – 111 ; O’Connolly – 80 ; McCabe – 50 ; McWard – 41 ; McArdle – 37 ; McIlmartin – 36 ; O’Byrne – 35 : O’ & McCallan – 34 ; O’Kelly – 34 ; O’Murphy – 33 ; McNaney – 32 ; McTreanor – 30 ; O’ & McGowan – 26 ; O’Boylan – 23 ; McIlcollin – 23 ; O’Finegan – 18 ; O’Cassidy – 18 ; McPhilip – 18 ; O’Hugh – 18 ; McGeough – 17 ; O’Murray – 17 ; O’Conlon – 15 ; O’Keenan – 15 ; McAtee – 15 ; O’Connigan – 15 ; McGonnell – 15 ; McBrady – 14 ; O’Mulligan – 14 ; McQuaid – 13 ; O’Cleryan – 13 ; McCodden – 13 ; Mc & O’Gorman – 13 ; McCarron – 12 ; O’Brennan – 12 ; McEnree – 12 ; McCarney – 12 ; O’Daly – 12 ; O’Coogan – 12 ; McCumiskey – 12 ; O’Flannigan – 11 ; McCarvill – 11 ; O’Quinn – 11 ; McGuirk – 11; O’Mohan – 10 ; O’Beggin – 9 ; O’Monaghan – 9 ; M’Guinness – 9 : O’Markey – 8 ; O’Hoone – 8 ; McEnellow – 8 .

The Christian names run as follows:

Patrick 457, Bryan 193, Hugh 149, Owen 122, Thorlogh 109, Shane 96, James 80, Philip 79, Edmund 75, Art 63, Donnough 61, Thomas 50, Cormack 45, Neil 41, William 33, Pheleme 32, Manus 32, Tague 25, Loughlin 24, Donnell 23, Henry 23, Rorey 22, Connor 22, Toale 15, Cuchonnaght 15, Daniel 15, John 13, Aedle 12, Nicholas 12, Rosse 12, Collough

As you can see the McPhillips and McGowan families have been living in County Monaghan for a long, long time.  Unfortunately, the fire of 1922 destroyed most of this information.  Few records for any Irish County remain.  Although I could not find a list for County Monaghan, I did find a list for County Tipperary which includes many Ryan names.

FREEHOLDERS POLL BOOK

From 1727 to 1793 only Protestants with a freehold worth at least 40 schillings per year had the right to vote.  From 1793 to 1829 both Protestants and Catholics with at least 40 schillings freehold had the right to vote.  In 1829 all forty schilling freeholders lost the vote and only Protestants could vote. 

No McPhillips surname appears on this list for Monaghan County, and only one Smith (William) who lived in Anagh Parish appears on this list.  Only 170 names from County Monaghan appear on the Freeholders Poll Book.  Interesting enough though I did find a number of Greenan voters who had the right to vote but these people were not located in County Monaghan.  This would indicate that either the family was Protestant with some wealth, or wealthy Catholics who had the right to vote between 1793 and 1829. 

CATHOLIC QUALIFICATION ROLL - 1778

A Catholic in penal times was presumed guilty of disloyalty to the authorities unless he could prove himself innocent.  To get in good standing with the British and Protestant Irish authorities, a Catholic could take an oath of loyalty.  This would exempt him from the provisions of the Catholic Relief Acts from 1778 forward.  There is a list of Catholics from County Monaghan who took this oath, but the list includes no surnames for ‘Smith’, ‘McPhillips’ or ‘Greenan’.  Some genealogists use this list to see if their ancestors appeared here and were alive at the time when the oath was given.  Only a small minority of Catholics actually bothered to take the oath, mostly these included shop owners and others who lived in towns across County Monaghan.

FINALLY…

There are other Irish lists out there but most take a census of the Protestant population or landowners.  These ‘censuses’ did not include the low class Catholic population.  Church records such as baptism, communion, marriage and death are now maintained by the National Library in Dublin or the National Archives in Dublin. In some cases one must get the Archbishop’s consent before researching records for certain Counties or Parishes.

Also, there is another census taken in the late seventeenth century called Pender’s Census.  On-line searches for these records have produced nothing so far.  These records are also kept in both the Irish National Archives and PRONI or the National Archives for Northern Ireland.   Consulting the records found in either archive might provide a definitive answer to our Smith ancestry.  However, these searches would take much effort and would be very slow as much of this information is in Latin.  The altar boys in the family can appreciate this.  In addition, it is not clear how clearly indexed these archived records are.

One question that Terry and I have concerns the Smith children in 1850.  Did Catherine leave her children in the care of relatives or were they wards of the state?  The Workhouse in their area was built in 1841 to 1842 and occupied a six acre site.  This building could accommodate 800 inmates, and probably held more people during the famine than originally designed or intended.  This building was declared fit for paupers in 1842 and they admitted their first occupants in December of 1842.  The records currently are kept in the National Archives of Northern Ireland, and I may research this further when I get time

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