Burren 2.57

The Barony of Burren is a geographical division of County Clare, Ireland, that in turn is divided into civil parishes. It covers a large part of the Burren.Legal contextBaronies were created after the Norman invasion of Ireland as divisions of counties and were used the administration of justice and the raising of revenue. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they have been administratively obsolete since 1898. However, they continue to be used in land registration and in specification, such as in planning permissions. In many cases, a barony corresponds to an earlier Gaelic túath which had submitted to the Crown.LandscapeThe Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland 1845 describes the barony as follows:HistoryThe district was once called Cean-gan, which means "the external promontory". Ptolemy wrote this name as Gan-ganii. Later it was called Hy-Loch-Lean, which means "the district on the waters of the sea". The present name of Burren means a distant part of a country. In 1841 the population of the barony was 12,786 in 2,056 houses, mostly engaged in agriculture.