Galway County Council, Rates Section, Valuation Lists

General valuations lists created by Galway County Council for the various Rural District areas, namely Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, & Glennamaddy, Gort, Loughrea and part of Mountbellew, Oughterard, and Portumna and Tuam.  Generally with separate volumes for each electoral division within the Rural District area, showing the ratable value of property.  The General Valuation is based on Griffith's Valuation or the Tenement Valuation.  The lists contain handwritten entries on a pre-printed form for townlands in each electoral district within the rural districts. Volumes for the earlier years are bound together, and in some instances two or more electoral districts are bound in the same volume. For instances several electoral districts in the rural district of Oughterard were bound together with districts in the Clifden area.

Details include townland name, barony, parish and Poor Law Union, and for each property the occupier name, owner's name, description of tenement or property, acreage of holding (in acres, roots and perches), rateable annual valuation and reference to its position on a OS valuation map.  Also includes abstract of valuation for the various townlands.  Changes, corrections and revisions to the details are colour coded (different colour pen used for different years), therefore changes in occupier are recorded over a 80 year period for all properties.

Place names are generally given as they appear in the records, though the spelling for some townlands may have changed between the early 1900s and 1988.

Some townlands are indicated as xx 'eighter', which  comes from the Irish word “iochtar” meaning lower, and others as xx 'oughter', derived from the Irish word “uachtar”, meaning upper.