Did Tipperary used to be two counties?

Peregrinus

panchosanza wrote: »

I don't disagree with that, but your technical definition of "administrative county" was wrong: "county boroughs" were not "administrative counties", though the two were similar.

No, county boroughs were administrative counties.

mansize

tabbey wrote: »

After independence, the state could not tolerate the names Kingstown, Queenstown, Kings County and Queen's County, and they were scrapped without much thought of what should replace them.

Q County became Leix, then Laoghaise, finally Laois.

K County for some reason I could never understand, became Offaly. It was a most inappropriate title, as the baronies of East Offaly and West Offaly are both entirely in County Kildare.

Nobody will change it now, but for the sake of historical researchers, the powers that were in 1922, should have chosen any name but Offaly.

Well it's our name now! Kildare can fup off

mansize

tabbey wrote: »

After independence, the state could not tolerate the names Kingstown, Queenstown, Kings County and Queen's County, and they were scrapped without much thought of what should replace them.

Q County became Leix, then Laoghaise, finally Laois.

K County for some reason I could never understand, became Offaly. It was a most inappropriate title, as the baronies of East Offaly and West Offaly are both entirely in County Kildare.

Nobody will change it now, but for the sake of historical researchers, the powers that were in 1922, should have chosen any name but Offaly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Uí_Failghe

Snickers Man

tabbey wrote: »

Larger counties were traditionally divided into ridings.

Most people just think of Yorkshire, which had three ridings - East, West and North prior to 1974 local government reorganisation.

Many people forget that Cork, Galway and Tipperary were historically divided into ridings;

Cork - East and West.
Galway - East and West.
Tipperary - North and South.

Riding is a corruption of the old Norse Thryding which means a third.

Yorkshire is indeed divided, historically, into three ridings. But Galway, Cork and Tipperary only have two "thirds" each.

Always thought people from around there had a bit missing......

laoch na mona

panchosanza wrote: »

Belfast borough was originally in County Antrim; the River Lagan is the boundary with County Down. The borough was extended across the river in 1896.

feargale wrote: »

It has taken from both counties.

2/3rds of Belfast is west of the Lagan ie in Antrim, on a purely anecdotal note I've never met a down GAA supporter from Belfast

panchosanza

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, county boroughs were administrative counties.

Interesting, thanks! The law isn't definitive on this: the 1898 act doesn't define "administrative county" and the wording "in this Act referred to as an administrative county" suggests it's a temporary label of convenience rather than a permanent addition to the legal lexicon. Others acts seem to exclude county boroughs e.g. Mental Treatment Act, 1945 sec.14(2) "any area so changed shall consist of an administrative county, two or more administrative counties, a county borough, a county borough and an administrative county, or a county borough and two or more administrative counties." A reference to "the administrative county of Cork" is, strictly speaking, ambiguous if the county borough of Cork is also an administrative county.

The Local Government Act, 2001 Schedule 2 seems to recognise this inconsistency by requiring that the construction of “administrative county” in older statutes should be "County and where the other enactment concerned so requires, also includes a reference to a city".

(Sorry I'm too new to post URLs)

Peregrinus

Which is pretty much my point. The whole concept of "county" in local governement legislation is a pretty slippery one. S. 21 of the 1898 Act states flatly that each Second Schedule borough is an administrative county (whereas it is merely "called" a county borough), whereas later legislation seems to specify county boroughs separately from administrative counties which, in light of s.21, seems unnecessary. But that very vagueness tells us that we shouldn't be looking to local government legislation to answer questions about counties generally. We had counties before the Local Government Act 1989 s. 21 was enacted; we had counties after it was repeled (in 2001). What we mean by "county" isn't exhaustively answered by looking at the local government legislation. (In fact, the local government legislation doesn't even offer a clear answer, never mind a definitive one.)

dubhthach

tabbey wrote: »

After independence, the state could not tolerate the names Kingstown, Queenstown, Kings County and Queen's County, and they were scrapped without much thought of what should replace them.

Q County became Leix, then Laoghaise, finally Laois.

K County for some reason I could never understand, became Offaly. It was a most inappropriate title, as the baronies of East Offaly and West Offaly are both entirely in County Kildare.

Nobody will change it now, but for the sake of historical researchers, the powers that were in 1922, should have chosen any name but Offaly.

Bit more complicated than that, the baronies of Offaly in Kildare only reflect the parts of the pre-existing Kingdom of the Uí(bh) Failghe (Uíbh = plural dative of Uí -- dative is now obsolete in modern irish) that was taken by the Cambro-Norman's.

The rump of the Kingdom persisted until the 1550's (if anything it expanded during the 14th/15th centuries with raiding), this rump makes up the modern eastern part of Offaly and was core of original "Kings County" (thence Daingean/Philipstown been center of plantation), the rest came from detaching part of "Westmeath" and northern part of Munster kingdom of Éile.

Basically from Tullamore to the Shannon had formed part of southern Uí Néill overkingdom of Miḋe (Meath), spilt between the Fir Chell branch of the Cenél Fiachach (descended supposedly from Fiachach son of bould Niall Noígiallach) and their subject people the Delbna.



The Cenél Fiachach having spilt in two in later medieval period



Map source:
https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/bitstream/handle/10379/5224/ASSEMBLY_PLACES_%26_COLLECTIVE_IDENTITIES_FitzPatrick_.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

tabbey

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, county boroughs were administrative counties.

County Borough Councils had the same status as County Councils.

On documents relating to Dublin city, for example, you will often see it described as " the County of the City of Dublin".

I assume it was the same in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Belfast and L/Derry.
Galway only became a county borough in 1985, by which time choice of phrases had been modernised.

dubhthach

tabbey wrote: »

County Borough Councils had the same status as County Councils.

On documents relating to Dublin city, for example, you will often see it described as " the County of the City of Dublin".

I assume it was the same in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Belfast and L/Derry.
Galway only became a county borough in 1985, by which time choice of phrases had been modernised.

Galway had a "County of a town" up until 1840, when the Corporation was abolished by the British. The city had been in decline since the early 18th century at this stage.

Hardiman's history of Galway published in 1820 is specifically called:
"The History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway"

Basically the "Barony of Galway" is equivalent to the old "County of the Town", of course the Barony in turn is based on the pre-existing Gaelic Irish Tríocha-Cét subdivison of Clann Fergaile

Galway "regained" corporation/county-borough status in 1985.

Rosita

I have examined police reports from the colonial period and there are divisions of Cork and maybe Galway (if memory serves) into 'Ridings' though they were not as definitive as Tipperary where you'd have had separate police organisations with two County Inspectors. For some reason Tipperary took that division forward into the local administration for the new state. Curiously it was one Dail constituency from the foundation of the state until the 1948 election when it was split into Tipperary North & Tipperary South, before being reunited again for the 2011 election. That there wasn't two Dail constituencies as per the County Councils seems counter-intuitive.

Technically it was two counties back in the day as a county - as I understand it - is a County Council administrative region. By this logic of course Dublin would be four or five different counties e.g. Fingal (which has a hurling team in the National League I think). And of course any county with a city of a certain size would have a separate local administration for that urban area too.

4ensic15

Rosita wrote: »

Curiously it was one Dail constituency from the foundation of the state until the 1948 election when it was split into Tipperary North & Tipperary South, before being reunited again for the 2011 election. That there wasn't two Dail constituencies as per the County Councils seems counter-intuitive.

Laois-Offaly, Carlow Kilkenny and Longford-Westmeath and Cavan Monaghan are longstanding examples of two geographic counties being combined to make one dail constituency. Dail constituencies are created to maintain an average number of voters per Dail seat and the guidelines are simply that county boundaries be respected as far as possible. Leitrim on the other hand has frequently been partitioned into 2 or 3 with portions added to other counties for the purpose of dail elections. There is no significance whatsoever in the fact that the ridings in Tipperary were never mapped onto dail constituencies.

tabbey

In the first couple of decades of independence, constituencies were generally larger, six, seven, eight or nine seaters.
This meant a greater degree of proportionality.
For this reason, many constituencies were multi county.

Rosita

4ensic15 wrote: »

There is no significance whatsoever in the fact that the ridings in Tipperary were never mapped onto dail constituencies.

Never said there was any significance to it but it is worth noting that it happened later when the county was split in two electorally. It seems that it might have been obvious to do so at the foundation of the state since they were already split administratively. Was it significant that they weren't? I suppose only those privy to the deliberations of those who set up the early constituencies could really say.

Not sure your comparisons with Carlow-Kilkenny & Cavan-Monaghan stack up with Tipperary since it generally (until the present time) has its borders respected by Dáil constituencies. The only difference was the splitting of the county.

Incidentally Cavan-Monaghan is not particularly long standing as it didn't come into being until the 1970s. Prior to that they were separate constituencies. In the early decades of the state Carlow-Kildare was a constituency with Kilkenny on its won.

grogi

RobbingBandit wrote: »

Yeah its weird but wikipedia is not the greatest source by any means. I don't think it was literally two counties more two separate duristictions for voting purposes but then again it might be worth further exploration,

There is a great feature of Wikiepdia...

If you know something better, there is called EDIT button...

VirginiaB

Odd there were only two. A riding has Viking origins and the division was, I believe, into three parts. Yorkshire is an example of a county divided into ridings.
Interesting that Griffith's lists Tip, North Tip and South Tip separately.