481 
Leitrim. Another passage* in the same collection makes mention of a 
grant of land to St. Patrick or the see of Armagh, in Drum-lias, now 
the parish of Drumlease, in the county of Leitrim, in which the boun- 
daries are most circumstantially recited, and indicate a well-ascertained 
and accurately-named territorial demarcation at so early a date, and in . 
a region which to this day is wild, and thinly peopled. 
Three centuries later, we find the community of Kells granting for 
the support of pilgrims a tract in Leyny called Ardcamma, consisting of 
the sub-denominations ‘“‘ Baile O’Heerin, with its mill and land, and 
Baile O’Cowgan, with its land and mill.’’+ 
The earliest record, however, which enables us to form a comparative 
estimate of the ancient subdivisions of land in Ireland, is King Maurice 
MacLoughlin’s charter to Newry, about the year 1158. In this-record 
twenty denominations of land are recited by name.{ During the period 
which elapsed between that date and the reign of Edward VI., either 
considerable additions were made to the original grant, or these twenty 
denominations had been subdivided ; for in an inquisition of 1549 we find 
the possessions of the abbey described as consisting of 47 carrucates at 
the time of dissolution. But during the last three centuries little or no 
change seems to have taken place in the numerical arrangement; for the 
townlands which now constitute the parish and barony of Newry are 
exactly 47 in number. 
Other charters of the twelfth century have recitals which might 
afford an interesting comparison with the present equivalents. That of 
St. Mary’s Abbey of Monasteranenagh, of the year 1200, sets out the 
names of a hundred denominations.§ All the old monasteries presented 
in their post-dissolution inquisitions a much fuller list of lands than in 
their foundation charters, partly owing to accessional endowment, but 
principally to the subdivision of their possessions. 
In districts where the English settled, the process of disintegration 
was carried on according as property became subdivided. Thus, in the 
parish of Swords, county of Dublin, out of 46 townlands, 35 have English 
names, some of which derived their origin from foreign settlers in the 
* Book of Armagh, fol. 17 ab. 
+ The record, of a date between 1128 and 1140, is entered in the Book of Kells. See 
Miscellany of the Irish Archeol. Society, p. 128; Ordnance Memoir of Templemore, p. 
210. 
t They are given, together with their identifications as far as ascertainable, in the 
Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down and Connor, p. 117. 
§ King John’s confirmation charter to the Cistercian house of §. Mary of Magio was 
unknown to Arckdall. It is a very valuable topographical record, and is printed from 
the original in the Tower of London, by T. Duffus Hardy, in his ‘‘ Rotuli Chartarum in 
Turri Londinensi asservati” (London, 1837), p. 78 a. The site was anciently called Aenach 
Cairbre, or Aenach Beg; hence, prefixing the words Mainister-an, and dropping the second 
term, it became Mainister-an- Aensigh ; from the latter half of which another name, 
Nenay or Nenagh, was formed. It took the name Magio from that part of the Maigh or 
Maigue, now called the Camoge, upon which the monastery is situate, though the former 
name is now confined to the main river into which the Camoge flows. 
R. I. A. PROC.—VOL. VII. 3X 
