Description of Tenement and Area

This is an extremely terse description of the property being valued. “House” covers all buildings used permanently as dwellings, as well as public buildings; “Office” is used describe factories, mills and farm outbuildings such as a stable, turf shed, cow barn, corn shed, or piggery.

From a genealogical perspective, the most important aspect of this column is whether or not it includes a house. Because the aim of the Valuation was to record economic occupation, it is perfectly possible for one individual to appear multiple times: if John Kelly is renting a field in Ballymore, another field in Ballybeg and a house and land in Ballymuck, he will appear in the occupiers column for all three places. However, the description column will record “Land” in Ballymore and Ballybeg, and “House and Land” in Ballymuck. It is a fair assumption that the family home is in Ballymuck. It is extremely important to keep this in mind: since the database name search is only for names, and not types of property, it is all too easy to assume that a search has shown three John Kellys, rather than the same one three times.