betagh

English

Etymology

From Irish biatach, from Middle Irish bíatach (“providing food”), ultimately from bíad (“food”).

Noun

betagh (plural betaghs)

1. (Ireland, historical) A tenant that provides food for a household. On Anglo-Norman manors, these workers were servile to their lords.
   • 1999, Brendan Smith, Colonisation and Conquest in Medieval Ireland: The English in Louth, 1170-1330, Cambridge University Press, page 79:

     Their unfree status meant not only unfavourable tenurial conditions for the betaghs but also incapacity to plead on their own behalf in the king's courts where they were represented instead by their lord.