Tipperary’s Families: Being the Hearth Money Records For 1665-6-7. Introduction by Rev. Thomas Fennelly (Bishop of Cashel). Dublin: James Duffy, 1911. Pp 205. Green cloth boards, title lettered in gilt to upper cover & spine. A very good copy. Autographed letter signed from the author loosely inserted along with newspaper cutting featuring the author’s obituary (dated February 9th, 1918). Main abstract arranged by barony and parish, with index of surnames at end. Hearth Money Rolls were a tax levied in Ireland based on the number of hearths in each house. In his preface Laffan states “The following pages contain the munster roll of the inhabitants of Tipperary and of the Barony of Slieveardagh five years after the restoration of Charles II, and thirteen years after the surrender of the last organised Irish force. The Hearth Money Tax was introduced soon after the return of Charles II. as it afforded a convenient instrument for extracting the last farthing from a defeated race.” Rev. Fennelly remarks in his introduction “These lists were drawn up less than twenty years after the slaughter connected with the Cromwellian war, and the clearance effected by the Cromwellian Settlement, and the wonder is that any Irish names appear on them. But, singular to relate, the vast majority of the names are those of the native Irish. The Irish inhabitants except a few of the labouring class, were ordered to depart to Connaught, where possessions were assigned to them in lieu of those from which they were expelled, and their former holdings were parcelled out amongst the Cromwellian soldiers and adventurers. The lists will be found interesting to the general public, as showing the parish or townland in which the different families were then located. The book is worth being preserved in every Tipperary household, and I have great pleasure in heartily recommending it.”