Great insights from petty sources - the Petty Session Court Records

The skeleton of our family history is formed by the dates and names which we find in the major record sources. Birth, marriage and death dates are the basic details on which every personal database is founded. They are the important context from which we can derive other information, and also differentiate between the many Murphys or Ryans who are to be found in Irish records. However, they provide little information on the personalities of our ancestors.

Such insights may however be obtained in the records of the Petty Session courts, which were the lowest courts within Ireland’s judicial system up to the early 20th century. They dealt with minor cases and were presided over by unpaid Justices of the Peace who were usually local land-owners or dignitaries. These judges could make summary judgements on cases and there was no jury. The Sessions were convened daily, weekly or monthly, depending on the volume of cases. The cases generally included misdemeanours such as public disorder or drunkenness, poaching and other minor larceny, straying animals, and also complaints by individuals about non-payment of debts, boundary disputes, quality of purchased goods, and minor assaults. The above depiction of a Petty Session court is from the Illustrated London News. The more serious cases were referred to ‘Quarter Sessions’ where a jury would hear the case. The equivalent Irish courts nowadays are the District Courts and Circuit Courts- see here for a full account.

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Petty Session Courts per county

County No. County No.

Carlow 5 Longford 7

Cavan 15 Louth 10

Clare 19 Mayo 22

Cork 26 Meath 13

Donegal 18 Monaghan 6 The Petty Session court records for each

Dublin 13 Offaly 9 county are available on www.findmypast.ie.

Galway 35 Roscommon 16

Kerry 13 Sligo 11

Kildare 11 Tipperary 15

Kilkenny 14 Waterford 17

Laois 9 Westmeath 11

Leitrim 2 Wexford 10

Limerick 18 Wicklow 12

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For those who might like to seek out the (petty) skeletons in their ancestral cupboards, there is no better place than these records. The original records for the Republic of Ireland are held in the National Archives of Ireland and those for the North of Ireland are in PRONI, but not all court records have survived. The surviving records for the 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland are available on-line from FindMyPast and more (including the Northern Ireland records) will be added as they become available. The number of courts for which records are available in each county are shown in the above Table.

The records date mainly from 1851. Records from 1827 to 1851 were compiled but were not required to be placed in a central archive. Their whereabouts is therefore uncertain. There are no records for Dublin City Petty Sessions (only for the rural areas), for instance, and only for 2 courts in Leitrim. However, Mayo, Cork and Galway have good sets. A very few start in 1834 including Castletownbere (Cork); Bray (Co. Wicklow) and Enniscorthy (Co. Wexford); whereas those for Moate (Co. Westmeath) start in 1828; and for Cavan town in 1830. The records of almost 8 million individuals are fully digitised and can be searched by name, area and by time period on www.findmypast.ie. There is also a ‘keyword’ facility in which addresses or other terms can be added to search criteria.

The details that are the basis of this resource were entered by a court clerk in the ‘Order Book’. This was effectively the daily schedule for the court and shows the person charged, the offence and its date, the aggrieved party (in cases of civil action) and the sentence. The name, address and occupation of the defendant and complainant are stated, and names of witnesses where relevant. They also record the names of police and judges and occasionally other comments.

The examples below show only the core information on the individuals charged in the Petty Sessions. These are reproduced courtesy of www.FindMyPast.ie. Figure 1 refers to Michael Ryan of Ballylahey in Tipperary who was charged in Clonmel court on 19 November 1851 with 'leaving his ass and car on the footpath in the town of Templemore'. For avoidance of doubt, an 'ass and car' in this context is a donkey and cart. He was fined one penny and also one shilling in costs.

Figure 1: Charge against Michael Ryan of Ballylahey, Tipperary in 1851

The second is a charge against Mary Walsh for running what was known as a shebeen, i.e. an unlicenced public house. It reads "That the defendant did unlawfully keep for sale by retail in the house occupied by her at Knockatunna a quantity of intoxicating liquor, on the 2nd of October 1892 she not being duly licensed to sell same". For reasons not stated, she was discharged.

Figure 2: The charge against Mary Walsh for unlawfully selling liquor in Clare in 1892.

The detail of the record varies according to the custom of the individual clerk. A clerk in one court might state that the defendant was involved in an ‘assault’, while another will provide the interesting detail that the defendant went “into complainant's field … threatening to knock out complainant’s brains with a stone”.

The records are alive with the colour of the times. Here we find the names and addresses of the drunks, poachers, vagabonds and debtors, and also of the neighbours who were in dispute about boundaries, straying animals and trade matters. A flavour of the charges: ..... defendant did allow trespass of 16 sheep in turnips; ..... trespass of defendant’s cows in complainant’s cabbages; ..... desertion of children; ..... defendant retains items of muslin given to defendant to embroider; ..... defendant did offer for sale a quantity of butter which was unwholesome and fraudulently prepared; ..... defendant did assault complainant by throwing a bucket of manure at and upon him; ..... defendant did unlawfully leave complainant's service, he being the complainant's duly hired servant.

Figure 3: My great-grandfather's conviction for allowing his pig to wander in Killorglin, Co, Kerry in 1900.

These exemplify the colour which may be added to our ancestry from these records. By example, my great-grandfather was Morgan Cregan (1850-1912), a stone-mason born in Limerick but resident in Killorglin, Co. Kerry. I have all the usual records about him. Birth, marriage, death, obituary, census and even a nice photograph. However, what colour can be added to his life from the details of his minor brushes with the law? He appears on several occasions in the records. In 1889 he is prosecuted for being ‘found on the premises’ of a public house on a Sunday afternoon, it being outside licensing hours. Conveniently, the same page of the records also contains the charges against several others found on the same premises. These, we might reasonably assume, are his local pals. In 1904 he applies for a dog licence while, most interestingly, in 1900 he is prosecuted (see above) for causing a ‘public nuisance in allowing a pig, his property, to wander on the public street’. Colour comes in all shades!

James G Ryan

If you have any research needs, our team of genealogy experts at Ancestor Solutions is happy to assist you. As well as providing family research, we also offer one-to-one consultations and mentoring. Feel free to contact us at hello@ancestorsolutions.ie.