Here are the results for the letter b

BAILEY
A flat defended area at the foot of mottes, for the protection of soldiers and livestock.

BAILIWICK
A bailiwick is the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and may also apply to a territory in which the sheriff's functions were exercised by a privately appointed bailiff under a royal or imperial writ.

BALLLY
A Town

BALLYBOE
iterally a cow's town or land. A measure of land used in pre plantation Ulster. It was a reflection of the quality of the land, rather than a standard unit, and so sizes varied considerably over the province. In many cases, it formed the basis for the modern townland.

BALLYNERY
It would appear there was no such derivation of Ballynery but, within the area, several other points of interest have also taken their names from the old Irish references. For example, Lough Gullion is the former Loch G-Cuillinn, or Holly Lake, while the (Bann came from Ban-dea, female God. Goddess river names, as a class, are very ancient and demand highly expert study. The early Celtic people called some rivers by names of Goddesses.

BANNS
A religious tradition by which engaged couples had to announce their intention to marry. This announcement allowed anyone in the congregation to voice their protest. The marriage banns normally took place a few weeks before the actual marriage date. In many churches, they banns were read aloud on three successive Sundays.

BANSHEE
In Irish folklore, a banshee is a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to family members to foretell the death of one of their own. This term came to English from the Old Irish term ben side meaning “woman of the fairy mound.” In this context, a mound is the raised earth over a grave. Irish legend says only families of high rank and pure Irish blood hear the shrill keen of the banshee.

BAPTISMAL CERTIFICATE
A formal document normally kept by a church of baptisms that occurred in their congregation. It typically contains the names of the individuals baptized, the date of baptism, where it took place, the clergyman's name, and possibly the names of sponsors and place of residence.

BARONY
A territorial division next in order of size to the county, each county comprising from five to twenty baronies according to its extent. They were created, like the counties, in the centuries after the Norman Invasion, and were analogous to the hundreds into which the counties of England were divided. In early use they were also called cantreds. Some early baronies were later subdivided into half baronies with the same standing as full baronies.

BAWN
A fortified enclosure.

BEAG or BEG
Small

BEETLER
Operated the Beetling Machine, used for embossing textiles. The Beetling Machine was also used to give a Shiny effect to cloth as the pressure of the wooden rollers during the squeezing (mangling) of the Cotton Cloth added lustre

BELTANE
A pagan celebration of spring, traditionally held on May 1, when the spirits of the Otherworld were active.

BEQUEATH
Term appearing in a will meaning to leave or give property as specified therein to another person or organization.

BIDDY
Female servant

BILLS OF EXCHANGE
Notes that entitled the holder to payment on a certain date. Usually these bills were issued in anticipation of future revenues (such as treasure shipments) and they could be transferred by endorsement.

BIRTH RECORDS
A birth record contains information about the birth of an individual. On a birth record, you can usually find the mother's full maiden name and the father's full name, the name of the baby, the date of the birth, and county where the birth took place. Many birth records include other information, such as the birthplaces of the baby's parents, the addresses of the parents, the number of children that the parents have, and the race of the parents, and the parents occupations.

See the Lurgan Births Index HERE for an example.


BLACK LUNG
Disease from breathing coal dust

BLACKWORKER
Embroidered blackwork using black silks on, commonly, white fabric.

Blarney
An impressionistic term for flattering, cloying speech which is supposed to be typical of the Irish. The term is known in this sense since the time of Elizabethan I (who is reputed to have used the term in this sense). The term derives from a stone on the top side of Blarney Castle near Cork city which is supposed to give the person who kisses it the gift of the gab.

BLUESHIRTS
A fringe political group in the 1930s pursuing fascist ideals, later merged into Fine Gael.

BODHRÁN
[BOW-run] An Irish handheld drum beaten with a stick.

BOG
A quagmire. The ground is not quite muddy, but usually moist or damp. Old grassy vegetation has stacked up and composted on itself for centuries. Grass continues to grow on top of this peat. Special shovels are used to cut this turf into log-sized bricks, which are dried and used for fuel.

BOGTROTTER
A derogatory term for farmers and for the Irish in general.

BOND
A written promise by a borrower to pay a lender a fixed sum of interest for a prescribed period of time and to repay the principal on a stated date.

BONDAGER
Bonded female farm worker

BONE MOULD TURNER
Made the moulds for button making

BOOKS OF GREEN WAX
The Books of Green Wax were the records that each sheriff in his bailiwick was required to maintain of all casual revenues collected during the year.

BOOKS OF NIHILS
The Books of Nihils were the records of revenues in arrears which were subject to judicial process for recovery.

BOREEN
A small country road, barely a path.

BOTHACH
[BO-thah] lowest group on Celtic class system with no property rights: criminals, unskilled laborers, and indebted farmers.

BOULAY
A custom in which the younger people would migrate with their cattle to summer pastures high in the mountains.

BOYCOTT
The boycott took its name from when an unpopular landlord's agent, Charles Boycott, was ostracised by the local community. Boycotting was also applied to tenants who wanted to pay their rent, and to the police, as well as shops and other businesses who traded with boycotted people. The boycotts were often extremely effective, since they were unquestionably lawful under the common law, non-violent, and effectively punitive: since nobody is forced to join a boycott, it was a voluntary act, through private agreement, and consequently there was no common law remedy against it, since the right to not engage in commerce, socialization, or friendship is implicit in the right to engage in commerce, socialization, or friendship. Those who broke a boycott, and their families, however, could expect to be subject to social and informal sanctions for breaking a boycott, such as shunning, ostracism, or extension of the boycott to them.

BREHON
The terms Brehon Law and Brehon System refer to the Gaelic legal system in force before the Norman invasion; this system was not completely superseded until the seventeenth century.

BRIDEWELL
Prison or House of Correction.

BRIDEWELL KEEPER
Person in charge of a lock-up or jail

BROGGER
Wool merchant

Brogue
A term stemming from the Irish word either for shoe or a knot in the tongue. Its actual origin cannot be ascertained anymore. The label was already known to Shakespeare and has been used indiscriminately in the past four centuries for any strongly local accent of Irish English. Occasionally the term is used outside of Ireland as in Ocracoke Brogue to refer to the local accent of offshore islands in North Carolina.
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