People, Place and Power – The Grand Jury System in Ireland

42 Contained within the 309 presentments are the names and often the addresses of more than 350 individual officials or contractors: Giles Dixon was county treasurer, Daniel Finucane the conservator, George Comyn the Clerk of the Peace, Thomas Bennis the interpreter. Many individuals secured multiple contracts for repairs including John Ormsby Vandeleur, one of the grand jurors, who was to organize 1,088 perches of road repairs amounting to more than £225. There was good profit to be made on such contracts. One commentator condemned corruption on the Clare Grand Jury. A few public-spirited and honest grand jurors have attempted to stem this torrent of peculation, but the consequence has been, that they have been threatened with an opposition to every thing they proposed, and the disgraceful expedient was resorted to, of polling every thing they asked for. One gentleman returned the overplus of a presentment [the unspent funds]; he was laughed at by his brother jurors; such is the morality of the county of Clare. 48 Funding approved presentments The duty of collecting the money fell to the cess collector, often the high-constable of the barony, aided by his sub- constables (Fig. 18). Collection required the preparation of a barony cess book, few of these have survived. A summer 1895 cess book for Granard Barony, County Longford, available in Longford County Archives, lists, by townland, the rateable valuation and the cess charge against all landholders in the barony (Fig. 19). Many of the names in the Granard cess list can be readily identified in the 1901 census, but it should be borne in mind that the cess was payable on property valuation and is not an indication of residency.