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Trinity College, Dublin, Provost and Fellows (Connacht)
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In 1837 Samuel Lewis recorded that at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries Queen Elizabeth I granted part of the possessions of the Abbey of Cong to the Provost and Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, which was established in 1592. On 7 May 1669 Reverend Thomas Steele, Provost, was granted 5,447 acres in the baronies of Ross and Ballynahinch, county Galway, estimated to produce an income of £300 per annum. Parts of the estate covered the region stretching from Cong to the coast at Leenane and included at least 16 townlands in the parishes of Cong and Ross, barony of Ross, county Galway. At the time of Griffith's Valuation the different townlands were let to head tenants such as William Booth, Sir Ralph Sadlier, the Lynchs of Petersburg, Courtney Kenny of Ballinrobe, Robert Fair of Bushfield, Michael Higgins, Anthony Coyne and Peter King. The Provost and Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, also held a number of townlands in the parish of Omey, barony of Ballynahinch, county Galway, which were let to Redmond Joyce and other Joyces at the time of Griffith's Valuation. The amount of the acreage belonging to the Provost and Fellows was not given in the Landowners' return published in 1876 and Hussey de Burgh states that a correct return had not been received before the publication of his book in 1878. The Return of Proprietors, also published in 1876, however, states that the estate amounted to over 7000 acres in county Galway. In the introductory chapter to his book on the Trinity College estates Robert MacCarthy distinguishes between the Provost's estates and the College's estates. He writes that a large quantity of estate papers removed from the stables of the Provost's house were destroyed in the 1950s.
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