The Gribbins of Down
22nd Feb. 2023
I trace my own family back to Banbridge, a small town in the centre of County Down, and my great-great grandfather married Lizzie O’Neill there in 1851. That is as far back as I have been able to take my own family, since compulsory birth registration only began in 1840 and before that you have to rely on church records, which were few and far between for poor Catholics. However, in my book I have a detailed chapter about the wider Gribbin tribe in County Down. I used whatever sources I could find, but there is not a lot to go on until we get to the nineteenth century. There are no poll tax records or hearth money rolls for County Down, so getting any information about seventeenth century Gribbins is practically impossible. From the eighteenth century there are freehold records, but these only apply to the individuals who had fairly comfortable livings – their land had to cost them forty shillings minimum in rental per annum. In the nineteenth century, the most useful records are those of the Griffith’s Valuations, but these are nowhere near as comprehensive, accurate and detailed as the 1901 census (earlier census records were accidentally destroyed in 1922).
Gribbins of Down Settlement Patterns
By analysing census data, Griffith’s Valuation, the freeholders records and a number of other sources, such as newspapers, it’s possible to establish a pattern of settlement for the Gribbins of County Down for the nineteenth century and it’s reasonable to assume that this pattern was not too different to that of the eighteenth century. Any further back and data is simply too scanty to make any assumptions. Although Gribbins were spread fairly widely, if thinly, over the county (except for the Ards peninsula, where they had no presence at all), there were particular areas where they were thicker on the ground. One is in an area which includes the small towns of Banbridge and Dromore, another is in the Downpatrick/Ballynahinch area and a third is in the Bangor area. However, the densest settlement area is in south Down, in the general vicinity of the Mourne Mountains. In fact, there is a distinct line of settlement one can trace from Newcastle in the east across the north-facing slopes of the Mournes to Newry in the west, and straddling what was the main coach road from Downpatrick to Newry.
A Mountain Fastness
These south Down Gribbins were mainly Catholics and mainly small farmers. They were also fairly poor, most of them holding small farms of between two and ten acres. It looks very much as if these were native Irish who had retreated into the less-favoured hill country after defeat in the various wars of the seventeenth centuries. This retreat was also a sort of mountain fastness where Gaelic culture endured longer than in the lowlands and urban centres. The Gribbins of south Down would have spoken Irish and retained Gaelic and old Catholic customs well into the nineteenth century and indeed this is borne out by one of the most interesting Gribbin stories of the county, that of Eoin Ó Gribín.
Eoin Ó Gribín, Gaelic Scribe
Eoin was an educated man, probably a hedge-school master, who flourished at the end of the eighteenth century and lived in the townland of Ballymagreehan, just west of Castlewellan. He has left two manuscripts full of Gaelic script; these contain a catechism, an order of the mass, some poetry and several copies of ancient Irish tales. They are not neat copies and look very much as if they served as something like textbooks for his teaching. They give a flavour of the Irish Catholic mindset of the period – displaying commitment to, and fervour for, the Catholic church, affection and perhaps nostalgia for the old ways, and a degree of resentment for what was lost to Protestant planters.
PUBLICATION!
My book (published 15th Nov. 2023) gives as much detail as I have been able to unearth about Eoin (or John, as he writes his name in English). The book is currently being processed by a designer and I am working through it chapter by chapter, doing final corrections and compiling an index. I hope that it will be ready for a launch some time in April. Watch this space!