Francis and Anne Leonard Armstrong’s Farmhouse in Derreens, County Sligo

July 24, 2016

Armstrong Farmhouse on the old Nicholson Estate in Derreens, County Sligo, 2014. Image courtesy of Leonard descendent William Coleman.

Over the past couple of years, two different relatives – one in Ireland and one in the US – have identified this house in Derreens Townland as the home of Francis and Anne Leonard Armstrong.

Francis (c1820-1901) and Anne (c1820-1917) were Catholic tenant farmers near Tubbercurry in County Sligo. Until recently, my cousin Marie and I had assumed this was the house where they raised their nine children, one of whom was our great-great grandfather John Francis Armstrong (1845-1893).

But then I came across the Cloonacool Parish baptismal records for Francis and Anne’s two youngest children.

Catherine “Kitty” Armstrong was christened on September 24, 1860, and Anne Armstrong was christened on July 12, 1863. In both instances, Francis and Anne were listed as residents of the Townland of Kilcummin rather than Derreens.

Kilcummin and Derreens Townlands sit next to one another in the Barony of Leyny, Civil Parish of Achonry in County Sligo. Francis and Anne are buried in Kilcummin Cemetery in Kilcummin Townland.

The Armstrong Cottage in Kilcummin, 1857

There are no extant census records for County Sligo before 1901, but there are records from Griffith’s Valuation, an assessment of properties for taxation that was undertaken from 1847-1864.

Properties in Kilcummin and Derreens were assessed by Griffith’s Valuation in 1857. At that time, Francis was renting a total of fifty-eight acres of land: forty acres from Edward J. Cooper in Kilcummin and eighteen acres from Edward Nicholson in Derreens.

Two of the lots in Kilcummin had houses on them. The one valued at one (old English) pound would have been the family home. The other was valued at five shillings or a quarter of a pound.

A herd’s house assessed at five shillings was the only structure listed on Francis’ leases in Derreens.

The Armstrong House in Dereens

In 1876, Edward Nicholson died and the Nicholson Estate was put up for sale. According to the records of the Landed Estates Court Rentals, Francis Armstrong was renting twenty-two acres of land in Derreens under a thirty-one year lease signed in 1849. The annual rent on the lease was four pounds two shillings.

The Landed Estates Court Rental records also show that Francis was subleasing twenty-one acres of land on the Nicholson Estate from James Gray. The rent on this lease was ten pounds.

The two-story Armstrong farmhouse is located on the lot in Derreens that Francis subleased from James Gray. In Griffith’s Valuation in 1857, the only building on this parcel was a herd’s house assessed at ten shillings. This means the two-story house would have been constructed some time after 1857.

The sale advertisements for the Nicholson Estate do not mention houses and other structures on the tenements. With that in mind, there’s no way to know whether or not the house existed in 1876 except by tracking down updated assessment books for Griffith’s Valuation. (Currently, only the original valuation is available online.)

We do have reason to believe, however, that Francis and Anne were living on the Nicholson Estate in Derreens when it was sold.

We also have reason to believe that, after the estate was sold in the summer of 1876, Francis and Anne moved to the Townland of Tullyvellia. They were still living in Tullyvellia at the time of the 1901 Irish census.

By the 1911 census, Anne was widowed and living back in Derreens with her three unmarried children: James, Mary, and Annie.

Of the sixteen houses listed in Derreens in the 1911 census, only James Armstrong’s residence had a roof of “slate, iron, or tiles”. The others all had roofs made of “thatch, wood, or other perishable material”.

Jame’s house was also the only one with more than three windows across the front. His had six. These features closely match those of the two-story house pictured above.

Updated Valuation Books

Our next goal is to locate the updated valuation books on microfilm to see if we can find out when the two-story house was built. If you have any information or questions about the Armstrong house in Derreens, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Update: In November of 2016, I was able to obtain some of the updated valuation information for Derreens and Tullyvellia on microfilm from the Church of LDS. Unfortunately, the information was incomplete and there was no information on the two-story house in Derreens. –Tulie

References

Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI. (2015, July). Retrieved July 12, 2016, from National Library of Ireland: http://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0127

Census of Ireland 1901/1911 and Census fragments and substitutes 1821-1851. (2007). Retrieved July 11, 2016, from The National Archives of Ireland: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie

Landed Estates Court Rentals 1850-1885. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2016, from Find My Past: http://www.findmypast.com

Fitzsimmons, F. (2016, March 3). An Expert’s Guide to Griffith’s Valuation. Retrieved July 2016, from Find My Past: https://blog.findmypast.com/an-expert-guide-to-the-griffiths-valuation-1639727438.html

Griffith’s Valuation 1847-1864. (2003). Retrieved July 11, 2016, from Ask About Ireland: http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation

“Sligo Prison General Register: 1875-1879”. Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924. Retrieved July 2016, from Find My Past: http://www.findmypast.com

“Sligo Prison General Register: 1883-1890”. Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924. Retrieved July 2016, from Find My Past: http://www.findmypast.com