County Kerry Civil Parishes

County Kerry Civil Parishes (Rootsweb.Ancestry)

There is still a lot of confusion regarding Kerry Civil Parishes and County Kerry Townlands

Kerry Civil Parishes

There are 87 Civil Parishes in County Kerry.  These were the original Civil Parishes of the Church of Ireland as the Established Church. They have their origins in old Gaelic territorial divisions. They were adopted by the Anglo-Norman Lordship of Ireland and then by the Elizabethan Kingdom of Ireland, and were formalised as land divisions at the time of the Plantations of Ireland. These are the parishes you will need if searching the Tithe Applotments or Griffiths Valuations.  A good link here is to the John Grenhams Irish Times list of Kerry Civil Parishes  They no longer correspond to the boundaries of Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland parishes, which are generally larger.

Each Civil Parish is comprised of a number of different townlands.

Kerry Townlands

This is the smallest unit of land and could vary from 10 to thousands of acres.  It is the basic address used by rural people.    2,756 townlands in County Kerry.   Click on any of the Kerry Civil Parishes listed and you will see a list of townlands within that parish.