It wouldn't be wise to hold back hot Irish discoveries, hoping
to get more before writing an article. Usually there is nothing more
to find, due to the destruction of the Record Office in Dublin on Fri
30 June 1922. Hence, with nothing much to hope for here is another
scoop, just found by me, Harry Hollingsworth, your editor.
HENRY HOLLINGSWORTH (my own birth name) has been found in the
Subsidy Rolls for the Liberties of Donore, County Dublin, in the years
1665, 1666 and 1668! (Mormon film roll 258503, Tenison Groves collec-
tion, Record Office, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Box 12, section
15036.) Mr Groves copied these rolls completely way back at the turn
of the century - by hand. After the originals were destroyed in 1922,
he typed them out and they now represent the only copies of these
records known to exist. (Groves should be canonized! He really is
the Saint of Irish Records!)
Below, I will copy these sections completely, first, for yours
and my own future reference, and second, as a tribute to Tenison
Grove's methods. As a professional genealogist, all he really had
to do was to copy out only the surnames be was assigned to. Instead,
he copied out whole documents, some huge ones. If one of us had hir-
ed Tenison Arthur Groves to research the Ho11ingsworths, you may be
sure he would have copied every document he got his hands on. My own
impossible lineage would possibly be possible, instead of impossibly
impossible, had Groves researched it.
In the 1665 Subsidy, the name is entered as "Hen Hollywoorth."
The 1666 roll (which was the first item I encountered) lists the name
as Henry Hollingsworth. It was a distinct jolt to see that name in
that locality. The 1668 entry had to be searched for more carefully.
It is "Hen Hollings!" The name is coupled with another assessee:
Willm. Kelly and they were put down for � 1.10 (one pound, ten shill
ings). The 1663 Hearthmoney tax roll for Donore is on page or sect-
ion 15042 on film 258504, but the man is not listed. Nor is he on
the Subsidies for 1663, or one marked "166_," the usual way of noting
an undated roll, though near in time to the dated ones. There are no
records later than the 1668 roll, so I can't guess when his residence
in the Liberties of Donore terminated.
Several of Henry Hollingsworth's neighbor's include one Bethel
Dobar (Dobarr) (which reminds me of Slingsby Bethel of London, the
second high sheriff along with Henry Cornish), widow Reynye or Reyney
Thomas Vinton (Vynton) and Thomas Brookes. One Philip Cooley's name
also persists in the same section of the rolls. These people probab-
ly were not peasants by any means, for the subsidies usually were put
on the gentry, since the peasants of that time could hardly cough up
a farthing, let alone a Pound Sterling. These were the years of the
Restoration of the Monarchy under King Charles II., with the Puritan
beast, Cromwell, deservedly dead and buried, then exhumed and hanged
in chains for his treason and regicide against the King's father.
Then, too, the plague was raging in London, quelled only by the aw-
ful Great Fire of 1666. The subsidies were not levied for this set of
circumstances, though they may have been extended on their account.
This man could easily be the father of Valentine, the Henry
Hollinworth of 1630-32, Ballyvickcrannell, Co Armagh. History proves
all the Protestants around Portadown had to flee their homes or face
a horrible death at O'Neill's bloody hands. We have no way to tell