I[ f@ reiffne antiquarian anb - Cavan Library Service

present paper. For purposes of comparison, however, I refer tothis source as Rawlinson MS.In mediaeval times the prevailing land denomination in Co.Cavan was the Poll, a unit which is mentioned frequently in thevarious Inqzrisifiom ; in Monaghan, Fermanagh, and elsewhere,it was called the Tate. The Poll was a unit of variable extentdepending on the nature and fertility of the soil ; hence it wasnot a fixed standard. In the Slate Papers of I610 the Poll isdefined as a unit of 25 acres. An earlier document of 1571 specifiesit as containing 30 acres arable with 20 acres pasture and mountain.In 1601 another authority sets it down as equivalent to60 acres arable. The unprofitable land, bog, wood, marsh,mountain, etc., was included with the arable land, but was definitelyexcluded for survey purposes. Different surveyors mightnot be unanimous in their opinions as to what constituted arable,or unarable, land. Everything would depend on the particularlocality. In Co. Cavan, according to Rawlinson MS., a Poll wasa parcel of 24 acres of arable land, and this may be accepted as itsdefinition in the 1609 Inquisition. In the King's Project for thePlantation of Ulster, reprinted in Harris' Hibernica (p, 117), aPoll is defined as 24 acres which agrees, substantially, with theestimate given in Rawlinson.In Co. Fermanagh the Tale contained 30 acres : in Co. Armaghit was reckoned as 100. The Poll, or Tate, was commonly knownas the Ballyboe-b~~te b6, i.e. cow land ; it was supposed to beable to support about twenty cows. The Ballyboe enters largelyinto our placenames. Sixteen Ballyboes comprised the Ballybetb~ i ~IACAI$ ~ e i.e. the townland of the victualler. The Ballybetwas the principal land unit within the Tuath or Tricha Ctd,the " Cantred " or "District." The Tm'cha Ce'd usually comprisedthirty Ballybets. According to the calculations of Dr.Reeves the extent of a Ballybet would have been about 1000acres (Reeves and Hardinge, Memoir on MSS. Maj$ed TownlandSurveys in Ireland, Trans. Royal Irish Academy, Vol. XXIV).But this estimate is based on the assumption that the measurementswere absolute, including both arable and unarable land.We know that this was not the case and that the unarable landwas not included for the purpose of survey, a fact which invalidatesthe conclusions of Dr. Reeves., Poll, Tate, and Ballyboe, are synonymous terms, but the acreagewas in every case dependent on local factors and varied with thecircumstances in the particular county. Owing to the exclusionof the unprofitable land from the surveys it is now scarcely possible,with any degree of certainty, to equate these ancient landmeasures with those of the present day. In certain districtswhere there was an absence of waste and unprofitable lands approximaterelations may be established. It is generally recognisedthat at the time of the Plantation of Ulster the variable