Readers receive step-by-step guidance as to how to conduct their research and are alerted to some of the problems they might encounter in working with particular collections. Possible avenues for research are suggested and relevant secondary works are also recommended."--Jacket.

This book is designed to provide those interested in the history of landed estates and Irish big houses, with practical advice regarding the availability of primary sources, their strengths and weaknesses. It examines the vast array of sources available for the study of big houses, other than estate papers, such as published and unpublished auction catalogues, photographs, oral archives and architectural drawings, and provides an overview of the history of landed estates and big houses in Ireland from 1800 to the present day.

This is a history of Ireland's big houses from the post-famine years until the 1950s.

What was a mark? Livery of seisin? Letters patent? This remarkable Dictionary of Irish Local History will be able to tell you. Entries are fully cross-referenced and come replete with full biographical paraphernalia to enable readers to engage in further reading. Primarily intended for local historians, but the interconnectedness of the local and wider worlds is recognised by the inclusion of a range of entries relating to national institutions, religion, archaeology, education, land issues, lay associations and political movements. It is an indispensable work, which will enable local historians to make better sense of the evidence for the past.

Records of the Office of Public Works more than 30 years old have been transferred to the National Archives, Dublin. The types of public works records are described, then listed with call numbers.

This guide introduces researchers to the archives of the Valuation Office, first set up under an Act of 1826 with the purpose of establishing a systematic valuation of property for taxation purposes. The Valuation Office was one of the great administrative enterprises of 19th-century Ireland and, with modifications, it carries out the same functions almost 200 years later. This is an invaluable source of information about properties, providing a continuous record of the names of owners and tenants, as well as data on the property. This guide provides an overview of the archives of the Valuation Office, which are held between the Valuation Office and the National Archives.

This book brings together leading researchers of British and Irish rural history to consider the role of the land agent, or estate manager, in the modern period. Land agents were an influential and powerful cadre of men, who managed both the day-to-day running and the overall policy direction of landed estates. As such, they occupy a controversial place in academic historiography as well as popular memory in rural Britain and Ireland. Reviled in social history narratives and fictional accounts, the land agent was one of the most powerful tools in the armoury of the British and Irish landed classes and their territorial, political and social dominance. By unpacking the nature and processes of their power, 'The Land Agent' explores who these men were and what was the wider significance of their roles, thus uncovering a neglected history of British rural society.