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LIV. — On the " Duties upon Irishmen" in the Kildare Rental 

 Book, as illustrated by the Mac Rannall Agreement. By 

 C W. Russell, D. D. 



[Read June 14,1869.] 



In a Paper " On an Agreement between the Mac Rannalls and Gerald, 

 Ninth Earl of Kildare," read by me on occasion of my exhibiting the 

 original instrument at a late meeting of the Academy, I assumed that 

 the payment therein stipulated was in the nature of a tribute — irregular, 

 it is true, and without authority of law, but nevertheless fixed and per- 

 manent — to be rendered by the Mac Rannalls to the Earl as the ' conside- 

 rations' for protection against molestation from his followers. I further 

 expressed an opinion that a considerable number of the entries in the 

 " Rental Book of Gerald, Ninth Earl of Kildare," represented similar 

 payments of other Irish septs to the Earl, and were originally based upon 

 agreements, now most probably lost or destroyed, of the same tenor with 

 the Mac Rannall Deed. Since it appeared to me that the terms of the 

 Mac Rannall Agreement conveyed this meaning in almost literal words, 

 I did not consider it necessary to enter into any detailed argument 

 in support of my view as to the nature of the stipulated payment. 

 The analogy, however, between that payment and the numerous pay- 

 ments recorded in the Rental Book of the Earl of Kildare under the 

 name of the " Earl's Duties upon Irishmen," calls for a more lengthened 

 examination than was practicable within the limits which I proposed to 

 myself when I exhibited the Mac Rannall Agreement to the Academy ; 

 and as in the course of the interesting discussion which followed the read- 

 ing of the Paper, some question arose as to the nature of those " Duties 

 upon Irishmen," and some doubts were expressed — whether, for in- 

 stance, they really involved a tributary payment, or merely a defensive 

 and offensive alliance; whether the claim was an exceptional one 

 on the part of Gerald, the Ninth Earl, or was common to all the Earls 

 of Kildare; and even whether it involved anything more than the 

 ordinary interchange of gifts between an Irish chief and the members of 

 his sept — I have thought it desirable, with the permission of the Council, 

 to enter somewhat more exactly into an examination of these entries in 

 the Rental Book, in so far, especially, as they may be illustrated by a 

 comparison with the particular instrument on which, as I must consider 

 it to be established, the tribute of the Mac Rannalls was originally 

 based. 



The " Duties upon Irishmen" form a special division of the Rental 

 Book of the Earls of Kildara. In other respects this Rental resembles 

 other similar registries of the same period, containing an account of the 

 Earl's tithes and advowsons, of his farms, and of his fees. In these respects 

 the general characteristics of this valuable historical document do not 

 present any very material contrast with other ancient records of seig- 

 norial and manorial property; but the "Duties upon Irishmen" stand 



