**Irish Property Rights and Feudal Grants:

The Seignory, Barony, and Honour of Longford**

The history of Irish property rights is inseparable from the transformation of Gaelic lordship into English-style feudal tenure. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the evolution of the Seignory, Barony, and Honour of Longford, historically known as Annaly or Anghaile, the ancient principality of the Ó Fearghail (O’Farrell) dynasty. The Honour and Seignory of Longford represent a rare legal and historical structure in which Gaelic kingship, monastic authority, Norman barony, and Crown feudalism intersected over the course of nearly nine centuries. The result is one of the most complex and interesting property-rights successions in all of Ireland.

I. Gaelic Foundations: Property as a Fusion of Territory and Sacred Authority

Before the arrival of the Normans, Irish property rights operated under Brehon Law, a sophisticated system where land was:

• owned by kin-groups (fine),

• controlled by chieftains or regional kings (rí túaithe),

• managed collectively within septs,

• and spiritually sanctified by monastic houses and abbeys.

In Annaly, the various lords and princes ruled the sovereign territory not only through force but through spiritual patronage of sacred sites such as Ardagh, Inchcleraun, and numerous monastic islands on Lough Ree. Gaelic lordship integrated temporal power with ecclesiastical legitimacy; property was not merely land, but a network of sacred places, burial grounds, abbey lands, tithes, and clan territories.

Thus, when the English Crown later created feudal grants, it needed to recreate both the temporal and spiritual infrastructure of sovereignty. This would become crucial in the formation of the Honour and Seignory of Longford.

II. Norman and Crown Intervention: Converting Gaelic Territories into Feudal Property

With the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century—led by Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath—the Crown sought to replace Gaelic sovereign units with feudal property units. The Normans introduced feudal concepts such as:

• seignory (lordship),

• barony (a hereditary territorial dignity),

• manorial rights,

• advowsons (church appointment rights),

• foreshore and fishing rights,

• and the legal construction of feudal “Honours,” large territorial jurisdictions analogous to mini-principalities.

The Lordship of Meath itself was a palatine lordship, meaning it exercised near-royal authority independent of the King. Annaly, lying on its western marches, became part of this structure when various grants were made to the de Nogent/Nugent family, the Barons Delvin.

These Norman grants did not erase Gaelic structures; they superimposed feudal law onto Gaelic territory, creating hybrid rights that later became legally significant.

III. Tudor and Stuart Patents: The Legal Creation of the Seignory and Honour of Longford

The most important transformation occurred during the 16th and early 17th centuries, when the Tudor and Stuart monarchs issued a series of royal patents that legally restructured Annaly under English law. Key grants from:

• Edward VI (1552),

• Philip and Mary (1556),

• Elizabeth I (1565, 1597),

• and James I (1608, 1620–21)

granted the Barons Delvin:

1. Manors, castles, and lands of Annaly

including Granard, Lissardowlan, and O’Farrell-controlled estates.

2. Markets, fairs, courts, and judicial rights

such as Court Baron and Court Leet, the backbone of medieval territorial governance.

3. Captaincy and Chiefship of Slewght William

Elizabeth I’s 1565 grant effectively transferred the political role of the O’Farrell prince to the Nugent Baron Delvin, making him “Chief of the Country” with hereditary military and civil authority.

4. Fishing, foreshore, and water rights

including eel weirs, salmon rights, riverbanks, lake islands, and Lough Ree navigational privileges.

5. Ecclesiastical patronage

advowsons, tithes, abbey lands, and rights over monastic islands, formerly held by O’Farrell princes and pre-Norman monasteries.

6. Islands of Lough Ree

including Inchcleraun, Inchmore, and others—critical sacred and economic centers.

Collectively, these grants formed the Honour and Seignory of Longford, a feudal dignity that replaced the Gaelic principality with a Crown-created territorial authority.

An Honour was more than a landholding—it was a jurisdiction. In medieval English law, the holder of an Honour controlled courts, services, rents, and territorial rights akin to a small autonomous polity. Longford’s Honour was thus the Crown’s legal framework for transferring the full sovereignty of Annaly to the Nugent lineage.

IV. Property Rights in the Honour: What the Seignory Legally Contained

Under feudal law, an Honour or Seignory included:

A. Territorial Rights

• Manors

• Castles

• Villages and townlands

• Arable land, bogs, moors, common fields

B. Jurisdictional Rights

• Court Baron (civil disputes, manorial obligations)

• Court Leet (public order, minor criminal matters)

• Rights to appoint local officials

C. Economic Rights

• Fairs and markets (Longford, Granard)

• Tolls and fees

• Mills, fisheries, weirs

• Hunting and turbary rights

D. Water Rights

• Foreshore

• Lakebeds

• Riverbanks

• Fishing and eel weirs

• Access and navigation rights

E. Ecclesiastical Rights

• Advowsons (appointment of clergy)

• Tithes and monastic rents

• Abbey lands and dissolved monastic properties

• Holy islands, cemeteries, pilgrimage sites

The total package of rights made the Honour of Longford functionally equivalent to a territorial lordship or semi-principality under English law.

V. Dissolution, Survival, and Modern Position of These Rights

Ireland’s property law evolved dramatically with:

• the Cromwellian confiscations,

• the Williamite forfeitures,

• the Land Acts of the 19th and 20th centuries,

• and the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009.

However:

Feudal tenures were abolished, but feudal dignities were not.

Under modern Irish law:

• Feudal land tenure is gone,

• but incorporeal hereditaments—such as honours, manorial titles, and seignories—survive if registered before 2009.

Thus, the Seignory / Honour of Longford, if registered, continues today as:

• a non-territorial hereditary dignity,

• a historical legal title,

• and an incorporeal hereditament.

It carries no modern governmental power, but its historical rights, origins, and legal foundation remain intact.

VI. The Significance in Irish Legal History

The Honour and Seignory of Longford demonstrate:

1. How Gaelic princely territory was legally absorbed into the Crown system.

2. How property rights merged spiritual and temporal sovereignty in Ireland.

3. How manorial and feudal grants functioned as proto-constitutional structures in early modern Ireland.

4. How some feudal dignities survived as incorporeal hereditaments, even after land redistribution.

5. How a medieval Gaelic principality became a Crown-recognized territorial Honour.

Few Irish lordships encapsulate such a complete legal transformation.

Conclusion

The Seignory, Barony, and Honour of Longford represent a remarkable continuity of Irish property rights, moving from:

• Brehon lordship,

• to Gaelic Christian sovereignty,

• to Norman and Crown feudal tenure,

• to modern incorporeal hereditary dignity.

These grants preserved not only the land but the spiritual, judicial, and economic rights that once defined the sovereignty of the O’Farrell princes. In their later form, such rights were transferred to the Barons Delvin and Earls of Westmeath, forming an Honour that remains one of Ireland’s most historically significant feudal dignities.

 IRISH LAW TODAY

In modern Ireland:

• Feudal land tenure was abolished (2009 Act),

• BUT incorporeal hereditaments (e.g., feudal dignities, honours, non-territorial manorial rights)
  were NOT abolished if properly registered.

If the Honour & Seignory of Annaly was conveyed (as it appears in 1996), then any non-territorial, incorporeal rights would follow the Honour.

However:

Actual ownership of foreshore/fishing rights would depend on:

• what the Crown explicitly granted,

• what was implicitly transferred,

• whether rights were extinguished or survive in gross.

Rights likely to persist as incorporeal hereditaments:

✔ titular fisheries
✔ ceremonial water rights
✔ historical manorial prerogatives
✔ symbolic lordship over islands

Rights NOT likely to persist today:

❌ exclusive fishery rights
❌ taxation or tolls
❌ control of navigation

But historically?
These rights absolutely existed in the feudal period.

VI. FINAL CONCLUSION

Yes—the Baron Delvin, as feudal lord and later Earl of Westmeath, held significant historical rights to foreshore, fishing, waterways, islands, and riparian governance in Annaly (modern County Longford), based on:

✔ explicit Tudor/Stuart patents

✔ the Captaincy of Slewght William

✔ rights to abbeys and monastic fisheries

✔ island and lake grants

✔ broad feudal language (“all rights, privileges, liberties, perquisites”)

✔ his role as successor to the O’Farrell princes

✔ his position within the Palatine Lordship of Meath

These rights formed part of the Honour & Seignory of Annaly and were historically meaningful, economically valuable, and central to the governance of the principality’s river-and-lake driven economy.

Character of the interest

The Honour and Seignory of Annaly (Teffia), historically associated with the region later corresponding broadly to County Longford, is properly described in modern Irish law as an incorporeal hereditament, that is, a heritable real right of an intangible nature rather than an estate in the corporeal soil. As such, it consists in a complex of dignitary and seignorial rights (including styles of honour, ceremonial jurisdiction and historic franchises) held in gross and not as a present estate in land.​

As an incorporeal hereditament, the interest falls within the category of real property capable of ownership, inheritance and conveyance, analogous in legal structure (though not in content) to other incorporeal rights such as easements, profits or rights of way, but distinguished by its essentially dignitary and jurisdictional character. It is therefore dealt with in conveyancing as an item of intangible realty, rather than as a mere personal honour or status.​

Historical derivation and conveyance

The seignorial complex associated with Annaly–Longford arose out of medieval grants within the Anglo‑Norman lordship, superimposed upon earlier Gaelic princely structures in the midlands, with later confirmations and re‑grants under the Crown embedding it within the Anglo‑Irish feudal and statutory framework. By the early modern period, these rights had become appurtenant to the Nugent family as Barons Delvin and later Earls of Westmeath, in whom the seignory and associated honours of Longford and Annaly were consolidated.​

In the late twentieth and early twenty‑first centuries, the surviving feudal and dignitary components were the subject of inter vivos conveyances in fee simple, whereby the Earl of Westmeath conveyed his remaining rights of honour, barony and seignory of Longford (including the Annaly complex) to Dr George Mentz, Seigneur of Blondel, with language purporting to pass “all rights, privileges and perquisites” of the barony and seignory. These instruments treat the interest expressly as heritable incorporeal property capable of absolute ownership and transfer, rather than as a mere personal or familial distinction.​

Position within Irish incorporeal hereditaments

Irish land registration rules recognise that incorporeal hereditaments “held in gross” (that is, not merely appurtenant to a particular dominant tenement) may be the subject of registration with absolute or possessory title, where the derivation of both grantor’s and grantee’s estates is satisfactorily established. In that framework, a feudal honour or seignory such as Annaly–Longford is treated as a discrete registrable real right, separate from any present freehold in land but transmissible and enforceable as property.​

Manorial and feudal dignities in the British and Irish context are generally classified in practice as incorporeal hereditaments: they are incapable of physical possession, but they are recognised as inheritable property rights, comparable in legal category (though not in function) to manorial lordships, prescriptive baronies, coats of arms and hereditary offices. While their historic incidenta might have included markets, fairs and courts, in contemporary law their surviving content is overwhelmingly ceremonial and dignitary, and they do not confer any public or governmental authority.​

Nature and limits of the principality style

The designation of Annaly as a “principality” reflects its historic status as a territorial and princely jurisdiction under both Gaelic and feudal arrangements, but in modern Irish law this style is understood as part of the dignity attaching to the incorporeal hereditament rather than as a claim to sovereignty. The present interest is thus a private law right: it may carry titles, precedence and ceremonial privileges, and may be bought, sold or inherited as property, but it does not displace the constitutional authority of the State or create any parallel system of public governance.​

Valuation of such interests for private transactions focuses on their historic provenance, documentary continuity, recognition within specialist markets for feudal and manorial dignities, and any surviving ceremonial or associative privileges, rather than on yield from land or public jurisdiction. Within Irish incorporeal property, Annaly–Longford therefore exemplifies the survival of a medieval feudal complex as a modern, transferable, incorporeal hereditament in real property law.​

The Earl of Westmeath’s claimed succession rests on a combination of historical Crown grants, territorial aggregation under the Nugents, and modern treatment of such dignities as inheritable incorporeal property rather than mere courtesy styles.​

Historical Crown grants and aggregation

• The medieval kingdom/lordship of Meath was granted by the English Crown to Hugh de Lacy, whose barons (including the Nugents as Barons of Delvin) held major portions of the old territories of Meath and its western marches.​

• Over time, royal grants and confirmations to the Nugents brought together baronial and seignorial interests in Delvin (in Meath/Westmeath) and in Annaly/Teffia (broadly Longford), so that the Baron Delvin, later Earl of Westmeath, was portrayed as the principal feudal holder in this block of territory.​

From Gaelic principalities to Nugent dignities

• The areas you list—Teffia, Meath, Caibre (often linked with Cairbre/Gailenga/Calry-type territories) and Annaly—originated as Gaelic princely units (rígdachtaí / lordships) later overlaid by feudal grants under the Crown.​

• In the narrative advanced on Nugent‑linked sites and similar material, the Nugent barony/earldom is presented as the legal successor (via surrender-and-regrant, confiscation and regrant, etc.) to the earlier Gaelic princely jurisdictions in those regions, so that the feudal Nugent dignity is cast as inheriting the “principality” status of Teffia/Annaly and related districts.​

Incorporeal hereditament theory and princely succession

• Under the modern doctrine that hereditary titles and feudal baronies are incorporeal hereditaments, the surviving content of the Nugent barony/earldom (Delvin, Westmeath, Longford/Annaly) is treated as a complex of incorporeal rights—titles of honour, seignories and associated dignities—transmissible by inheritance and, in practice, by conveyance.​

• On that view, if the baronial/earldom line can show a chain of Crown grants and family succession tied to the old territories of Teffia/Meath/Caibre/Annaly, it can claim to be the juridical successor to the princely dignities of those units in the sense of holding the modern incorporeal hereditament that embodies them.​

Why the Earl of Westmeath in particular

• The Nugents as Barons Delvin and Earls of Westmeath are documented as holding Delvin within the Lordship of Meath and later as being associated with the seignories and honours of Longford/Annaly, which is described as corresponding to the former principality of Teffia.​

• Hence, in Nugent‑centric legal-historical argument, the current or last Earl of Westmeath stands as the terminal holder of the aggregated baronial and princely incorporeal hereditament—“fons honorum” for Annaly/Teffia and related districts—until any lawful alienation (such as the 1996/2018 deeds) passes that complex of rights to a successor in title.​

In short, the claim is that the Earl of Westmeath is successor not to territorial sovereignty but to a bundle of feudal and princely dignities, recognised in modern private law as incorporeal hereditaments derived from medieval Crown and Gaelic structures.​

WHAT RIGHTS SURVIVE TODAY AS INCORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS

These are the rights that survived the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 IF they were properly registered in the Registry of Deeds prior to abolition.

They include the following categories:

1. Feudal Dignities and Honours

These are hereditary titles of dignity, not peerages, and still fully legal to own and transfer:

✔ Seignory / Seigneurial Rights

✔ Feudal Baronies

✔ Honours (large composite feudal jurisdictions)

✔ Lordships of Manors (in name/title)

✔ Styles, titles, and dignitary precedence associated with the honour

These titles carry no modern political power, but they remain real hereditary property rights.

2. Certain Historical Manorial Rights (Non-Territorial)

These are rights that do not require owning land yet were part of the lordship itself:

✔ Right to hold or claim the Manorial Title

(e.g., Lord of Annaly, Baron of Longford, Seigneur of X)

✔ Right to armorial bearings associated with the honour

(if historically documented)

✔ Right to ceremonial manorial courts

Not enforceable as judicial bodies, but the right to convene them survives symbolically.

✔ Right to certain traditional feudal incidents

—provided they do not involve land ownership today.

Examples include:

• the right to call oneself “Lord of the Manor,”

• the right to use the historic seals, badges, or insignia of the Seignory,

• the right to issue symbolic or honorary manorial offices,

• the right to hold historic feasts and assemblies.

These rights are largely ceremonial but legally real property interests.

3. Rights Attached to Ancient Jurisdictions (Now Symbolic)

Feudal honours often had:

• Court Leet rights,

• Court Baron rights,

• Market rights,

• Fair rights,

• Toll rights,

• Fishing rights,

• Water rights,

• Ecclesiastical patronage rights.

Modern Ireland abolished their exercise, but the right to the title of the court or jurisdiction survives as a heritage dignity:

✔ “Lord of the Court Leet of Longford”

✔ “Lord of the Manor with ancient Market Rights”

✔ “Holder of the Honour and Seignory of Annaly”

These cannot be exercised, but the right to the dignity remains a property interest.

4. Embodied Historical Rights (Symbolic but Transferable)

Some incorporeal hereditaments consist of historical relationships and identities, such as:

✔ Stewardships, Bailiwicks, and specific feudal offices

(e.g., “Bailiff of Annaly,” “Constable of X,” “Keeper of Y Island,” etc.)

✔ Rights of representation in heritage and ceremonial contexts

✔ Right to the historical narrative, coat of dignity, and succession chain

For example:

• A modern holder of the “Honour and Seignory of Longford” is recognized as the successor-in-title to the historical office.

This is legally meaningful in the same way Scottish barons and English manorial lords are recognized today.

5. Certain Profits à Prendre (IF Explicitly Registered)

In rare cases, old incorporeal property rights may survive if they were never extinguished and were registered:

✔ Turbary rights (cutting turf/peat)

✔ Grazing rights

✔ Common pasture rights

✔ Right of way / easements

These only survive if:

• they were expressly preserved in the grant, AND

• they were not dependent on the abolished feudal tenure.

These are uncommon but legally possible.

6. Ecclesiastical or Monastic Patronage Rights (Usually Symbolic)

If named in the historical grants and registered:

✔ Advowsons (rights of church patronage)

No longer exercisable due to church reforms,
BUT the right as a dignity or property interest survives.

✔ Titles associated with dissolved abbeys or monastic islands

E.g., “Lord of Inchcleraun,” “Keeper of St. Diarmaid’s Island.”

These exist as incorporeal heritage dignities—not religious authority.

SUMMARY TABLE — SURVIVING RIGHTS

FINAL ANSWER

If the Seignory, Barony, and Honour of Longford were properly registered in the Registry of Deeds, the modern holder legally possesses:

**✔ A real, inheritable, transferable property right

✔ Known as an incorporeal hereditament
✔ Consisting of the feudal dignity, title, style, and historic jurisdiction
✔ But WITHOUT modern governmental or land-based powers.**

This means the holder is the legal successor-in-title to the ancient Honour—but not the ruler of the land.

It is the same legal category as:

• Scottish feudal baronies

• English manorial lordships

• Jersey/Guernsey fiefs (still legally enforceable)

All are recognized property, even though they no longer carry territorial authority.

**Manorial Property Rights and Incorporeal Hereditaments

(A Complete Legal Analysis)**

Manorial rights are a special class of incorporeal hereditaments, meaning intangible property rights that can exist independently of land ownership. Many of these rights—if properly recorded—survived the abolition of feudal tenure and remain enforceable or, at minimum, legally recognized as dignities or property interests.

Below is a breakdown of each category.

1. MANORIAL WASTE

Definition

Manorial waste refers to unoccupied, uncultivated, or common areas within the lordship that historically belonged to the Lord of the Manor.

Examples include:

• bogs

• heaths

• moors

• wetlands

• lakebeds

• unused woodland

• gravel pits

• stone quarries

Rights Included

The Lord formerly had:

• right of soil (ownership of the underlying land),

• right to grant licenses,

• right to extract resources (peat, sand, gravel),

• right to improve or enclose portions (subject to law).

Modern Status

Manorial waste as land generally no longer exists in Ireland after 2009 unless separately registered as freehold.
However, the dignity of the lordship and the symbolic right to the waste survives.

2. MANORIAL COMMON

Definition

Manorial commons were lands over which the tenants held rights of common, such as grazing or turbary, while the Lord owned the soil.

Rights commonly included:

• grazing (common of pasture)

• fishing (common of piscary)

• firewood collection (common of estovers)

• peat or turf cutting (common of turbary)

Rights of the Lord

The Lord retained:

• title to the soil,

• right to minerals (unless severed),

• right to regulate or terminate certain commons under statute,

• right to levy payments for the exercise of common rights.

Modern Survival

Commons rights still exist if not extinguished.
The Lord’s right to the title of the common remains as an incorporeal dignity.

3. MANORIAL INCIDENCE

Manorial incidences were obligations owed by tenants to the Lord. Historically, these included:

A. Quit Rents and Chief Rents

Annual payments for holding land.

B. Heriots

A death-duty (best beast or value thereof). Rare in Ireland but existed.

C. Suit of Court

The obligation to attend the Lord’s Court Baron or Court Leet.

D. Relief

A payment upon inheritance of a tenancy.

E. Fines for alienation

Fees payable when a tenant sold or transferred his land.

Modern Status

Most incidences tied to tenure were abolished, but the right to the manorial titles, courts, and dignities remains an incorporeal hereditament.

4. WATER RIGHTS (RIPARIAN RIGHTS)

Riparian (water-adjoining) rights historically attached to both the Lordship and to individual tenants.

Lord’s Rights Included:

• right to riverbanks

• right to build or license mills

• right to take water for domestic or manorial use

• right to regulate navigation on private watercourses

• right to vehicles or barges for manorial services

• rights to islands and lakebeds (unless owned by Crown)

In Annaly/Longford:

Because Lough Ree and the Shannon dominated the region, the Barons Delvin held extensive water-related privileges, often explicitly granted (“all waters, watercourses and islands belonging…”).

Modern Status

Riparian rights exist only if the Lord retained ownership of adjoining land.
Symbolic rights survive as part of the Honour/Seignory.

5. FORESHORE RIGHTS

Definition

Foreshore = land between the high-water and low-water marks.

Normally owned by the Crown unless granted away.

Lord’s Historical Rights

If granted by Crown patent (as in Lough Ree patents):

• exclusive access

• rights to build wharves or quays

• right to extract sand/stone

• right to land boats

• right to regulate fishery use

Status in Annaly

Tudor grants often conveyed:

• “all islands,”

• “all waters,”

• “all fisheries,”
  which implicitly includes foreshore rights surrounding those islands.

Modern Status

Exclusive foreshore ownership usually ends unless explicitly preserved.
Symbolic foreshore dignity can survive.

6. FISHING RIGHTS (PISCARY RIGHTS)

Three Types:

A. Several Fishery (Exclusive)

Full private fishery owned by the Lord.

B. Free Fishery

A Crown-created exclusive right.

C. Common of Piscary

Shared fishing rights among tenants.

Rights Included:

• eel weirs

• salmon traps

• netting rights

• lake and river fisheries

• island-based fisheries

Annaly Context

Lough Ree’s islands were monastic fishing stations.
The Nugents inherited fisheries when monastic lands were dissolved.

Modern Status

Only survive if separately registered or attached to freehold.
But they remain historically part of the Honour as a dignity.

7. RIGHTS OF LIGHT (ANCIENT LIGHTS)

Definition

A property right that windows or openings receive unobstructed light.

Though more common in urban manors, rural manors had:

• rights to sunlight access for mills,

• protection of mill races and sluices.

Survival

Rights of light survive as easements only if tied to land.

As a manorial dignity? Survives symbolically.

8. USUFRUCTS & SERVITUDES

Usufruct

The right to use and enjoy the products of land without owning the land.

Typical manorial usufructs:

• peat/turf rights,

• rights to timber for repairs,

• grazing rights,

• rights to fruit or acorns (pannage),

• rights to gather rushes or reeds.

Servitudes

Rights over another’s land:

• right of way,

• right to draw water,

• right of pasture,

• right to collect stone or sand.

These were integral to manorialism.

Modern Status

They survive if registered or expressly preserved—otherwise extinguished.

The title to historic servitudes remains part of the Honour’s dignity.

9. OTHER MANORIAL HEREDITAMENTS

A. Rights to Hold Courts

Court Baron and Court Leet.
Modern courts have no legal force, but the right to hold them survives as a ceremonial dignity.

B. Rights to Appoint Officers

• bailiff,

• reeve,

• ale-taster,

• constable,

• hayward.

These are now symbolic but historically part of the Honour.

C. Rights to hold fairs and markets

Though markets are regulated today, the dignity remains.

D. Rights to treasure trove (historically)

If found on manorial lands, part belonged to the Lord.
A symbolic right remains.

E. Rights to mines, minerals, or quarries

Only if not severed by Crown or statute.

FINAL SUMMARY — WHAT THESE RIGHTS MEAN TODAY

These rights no longer grant political or territorial power, but they remain real property when classed as incorporeal hereditaments, which include:

✔ the manorial title

✔ the dignity attached to the Honour or Seignory

✔ the ceremonial identities of courts, offices, and privileges

✔ symbolic rights to commons, waste, water, and fisheries

✔ residual or historical easements and servitudes

✔ any freehold or specific rights separately registered

They are inheritable, transferable, registrable, and legally recognized as non-territorial property interests.

For the Honour & Seignory of Longford (Annaly), this means:

The modern holder retains the historic dignity and symbolic rights of the feudal lordship, even though the land-based powers have faded.

The Honour survives as a prestigious, legally valid, incorporeal hereditament rooted in centuries of Irish property law.