1843 Registration Act Survey

Irish Registration Act

                       1843                        
   Schedule B., 6 &7 Vic., Cap. 74, Sec 3.

                                    Licence to Keep Arms.

A Survey of the above.

This survey of the above Act has been conducted over a period of thirty years. It has only been possible due to the kindness and support given by a raft of friends, collectors and dealers to
whom are owed a great debt of gratitude.

For those not totally au fait with this law please refer to our earlier blogs of:
 10/9/2015
 21/10/2015
 18/11/2015.

The author has written a number of articles relating to the 1843 Act and further findings will be published through these blogs. However, should you have any specific points you wish to raise you can contact us either through the ramrodantique.co.uk website or by telephone.

The data below firstly details the prefixes for each county or borough and then adds the highest licence number found for the given county. For example if we consider the first entry for Antrim we can see the prefix for this county being "AN". Then we have recorded the highest licence number found in that county i.e., 9007. This meaning that this licence was the nine thousand and seventh licence issued in this county. It must be remembered that other higher numbers will exist. The last figure "39" is the total number of licences this survey has found for this county or borough.

Highest licence numbers found per county/borough and total number of samples found
per area.
                        Highest 

Area               Licence No.                  Total found            

Antrim             AN 9007                           43

Armagh            AR 9161                           47                                  

Carlow             CW 3724                          22         

Cavan               CN 8620                           14                                   

Clare                CL 3283                           16  

Drogheda         DR 205                               3                 

East Cork         EC 3675                            65                    

West Cork        WC 3052                          21                                    

Cork Borough   CB 3087                           24                                 

Donegal            DL 7573                           21                             

Down               DN 15074                         75                

Dublin County  DU 10712                         122                             

Dublin City      DC 8801                           131

Fermanagh        F 8417                               31                                      

Galway             G 3576                              18

Kerry                KE 951                              4

Kildare              KD 4436                           22 

Kilkenny            KK 2484                            9

Kilkenny Boro'   KB 420                             3

Kings County     KS 1724                            23

Leitrim               LE 1559                            5

Limerick            LK 3846                            17

Limerick Boro'   LB 665                              4

Londonderry       LY 10127                          50

Longford            LD 1578                            6

Louth                 LH 1746                            46

Mayo                  MA 2108                          15

Meath                 ME 5503                          31

Monaghan           MN 6923                          25

Queens               Q 4565                              10

Roscommon         R 2345                             20

Sligo                    S 7284                              7

North Tipperary    NT 3373                           11

South Tipperary    ST 3779                            23

Tyrone                 TY 12284                         59               

Waterford             WA 1339                         5

Waterford Boro'    WB 445                           13

Westmeath            WM 3413                        17

Wexford               WX 7543                          45

Wicklow              WI 2658                            34 

40 Areas                190.860 licences             1157        Average per County/Boro' 4771.

The above indicates a total of 190.860 licences having been issued between 1843-1845.
This number is not a finite figure as many others will exist with higher numbers.
Certain weapons registered would have been worn out, broken or destroyed.

Interestingly the six counties; Antrim, Armagh, Down, Tyrone, Londonderry and Fermanagh
contribute over a quarter of the licences found in this survey (26.4%)  This being an average of 10,678 licences issued per county. Whereas the other 34 areas would muster only an average of 3729 licences.

Future blogs will look at other interesting facts and figures such as the number of blunderbusses
and duelling pistols registered.

Dave Stroud. ramrodantiques.co.uk