Post publication records

The 1852 act envisaged annual revisions to the valuations, to record any changes in occupier, lessor, size of holding, or value. In practice, revisions were relatively rare until well into the 1860s. From about then until the 1970s, a system of hand-written amendments, coded by colour for each year, was employed, with a new manuscript book created when the number of alterations threatened legibility. These are the “Cancelled Land Books”, still available at the Valuation Office itself, currently based in the Irish Life Centre, Abbey Street , Dublin 1, but due for decentralisation to Youghal, Co. Cork , in the future.

The Books can be very useful in pinpointing a possible date of death or emigration, or in identifying a living relative. A large majority of those who were in occupation of a holding by the 1890s, when the Land Acts began to subsidise the purchase of the land by its tenant-farmers, have descendants or relatives still living in the same area. The Cancelled Land Books for Northern Ireland are now in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.


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