Dossier 35 - Leases of Crinkle, a barony of Ballybritt

Box of leases of Crinkle, alias Crinkhill, barony of Ballybritt, on the outskirts of Birr, and many of them therefore including holdings in the town. The Crinkle leases also contain an above-average number of integral maps, some of
them rather handsome. Included under Crinkle are the sub-denominations of Whiteford and Birr View, the latter of which is described in a lease of 1797 as ‘the spot of ground whereon the viewing-house for the quality is placed to see the races of Birr’. Crinkle was also the site of the Birr Military Barracks, and a lease of 1831 is from the 2nd Earl of Rosse to the Ordnance Department. A number of the leases are dated 1763 (the earliest date in the box), which would suggest that a substantial middleman’s lease, perhaps of the whole townland, fell in in that year. The box also includes papers relating to the sale of a fee farm grant of the Military Road (purchased by Michael O’Dwyer) and to the sale of the Old Schoolhouse (purchased by John and Sophia Hogan).