41 



who might be elected for the time being, and from time to time, mo- 

 narch of Ireland. We can appreciate such supremacy as essential to 

 provide for unity of action in aifairs of state, equally affecting the ge- 

 neral interest ; and if this be so, the attaching Meath to the supreme 

 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, although lying so distant from Armagh diocese 

 proper, is quite intelligible. I am sustained in this view of Meath ter- 

 ritory, by an ancient MS. preserved in the British Museum, entitled, 

 an abbreviate of the getting of Ireland and of the decaye of the same," 

 compiled by Laurence E'owel, Dean of Lichfield, who died in 1576, 

 which states, " that the chief of the kings, called the monarch, kept the 

 county of Methe with himself ad mensam^ i. e. for the maintenance of his 

 more honorable diet." 



Tour of these kingdoms continue unchanged in name, though not in 

 outline, Meath having merged in Leinster ; and at some unascertained 

 periods, after the conquest of 1172, England, imitating Eoman imperial 

 precedent, named them provinces. 



The kingdoms were divided into cantreds, of which there was a 

 gross total of 184 ; and these cantreds, being subjected to some changes, 

 were anglicised into baronies or hundreds, and are now represented by 

 the increased ordnance survey number of 267, which includes cities, 

 counties of cities, and towns. 



The cantreds were composed of towns, also called betaghtowns, after 

 a ratio of thirty to each, producing a resulting total of 5,520 betagh- 

 towns in the kingdom. This particular territorial division has disap- 

 peared, and nothing resembling it remains, and I am unable to state 

 when or under what circumstances the extinction took place. 



The towns or betaghtowns were divided into plowlands, otherwise 

 caUed ballyboes, carucates, or quarters, at a ratio of eight to each town, 

 producing by arithmetical computation a gross total for the entire king- 

 dom of 44,160 ; and each of these plowlands was estimated to contain 

 120 acres of arable land, over and above pasture, hills, rivers, woods, 

 wastes, and bogs. It was at tliis point of the territorial divisional scale 

 that the Irish standard of measure, if such it can be called, governing 

 the plowland and all superior divisions, was fixed. 



These 44,160 plowlands are now represented by something beyond 

 60,000 townlands, as same are delineated upon the Ordnance Survey, 

 a most valuable, elegant, and nearly perfect picture of our native land, 

 and which does such infinite credit to the corps of Eoyal Engineers, who 

 produced and have charge of it. The excess of the number of town- 

 lands over plowlands is, as I apprehend, easily accounted for. So long 

 as proprietorship was regulated by the ancient stringent laws of ances- 

 tral descent and entail, the names, number, and bounds of betaghtowns 

 remained unaffected ; but necessity frequently found opportunity to 

 break through and evade these laws, and by degrees forced into the mar- 

 ket, if I may so express myself, a very considerable portion of the sur- 

 face of the country. This created new proprietors, who not unfre- 

 quently attached new names to their lands ; and as time and changes 



R. I. A, PEOC. VOL. Tin. G 



