Reading Griffith's Valuation office books vs printed version--question(s) specifically concerning Kilnaughtin parish

The responses on this message board that I received for my first question were so knowledgeable and helpful, that I'm imposing on you once again.

Having recently been able to find scans of office books for the Griffith's Valuation, I've found information that encourages me and yet  raises more questions.  I've tried to find answers in already-published material on the web before imposing on individuals, and though I've learned more about how to read the office books, what I've found so far hasn't answered all of my questions.  So, I'll begin—though first I need to apologize for the length of this message: I have at least 3 interrelated questions and I don’t know how to ask them without providing you with what I perceive as necessary context; I’m also following old—perhaps outdated—conventions and putting full names of people in upper case.

Re: my great-great grandfather THOMAS MAHONY, who was almost certainly from the southern tip of Kilnaughtin civil parish and who emigrated to the US with his wife, JOHANNA NASH MAHONY, in June 1851--in the Griffith's house book is the entry in the first attached jpg ("Original Griffith's handwritten entry . . ."  I wish the message board software allowed me to insert the image directly into the text of my message).

The image shows that this entry for the townland of West Tarmon, whose valuation date was 6 Aug 1847, was originally in the name of THOMAS MAHONY.  At some point between that valuation date and October 1851, the date of the published valuation for Kilnaughtin, Thomas's name was scratched out in the house book and the name of MARY MAHONY was substituted (and the published Griffith's lists Mary).  I also noticed that in the original handwriting in the house book, widowed women were identified as "Widow [Lastname]"; however, possibly at the same time that Mary's name was substituted, I saw handwriting with the same lighter pencil lead or ink substituting the widows' first names for the original "Widow."  So, I don't know whether MARY MAHONY was the widowed mother of THOMAS MAHONY or his wife--and let me clarify this as best as I can: I learned that my great-great-grandfather Thomas (who was married to Johanna and migrated to the US in 1851) had an uncle THOMAS MAHONY, who shows up in the 1850 US census in the same Indiana county in which Thomas and Johanna settled; Johanna's deposition in her US Civil War pension case stated that her husband had worked with his uncle THOMAS MAHONY building a road in that Indiana county.  I don't know when or whether the uncle Thomas returned to Kerry; I haven't yet found him in any further US censuses.

So, one of the questions that arises--and perhaps it's a question that is unanswerable--is whether the THOMAS MAHONY who lived in West Tarmon in 1847 was my great-great-grandfather or his uncle.  If his uncle, though, where had my great-great-grandfather's parents lived? There were no other Mahonys in that area in either the office books or the printed Griffith's. And I know that he grew up near JOHANNA NASH, because in her deposition in the US Civil War pension case, she said that they'd grown up in the same neighborhood. And the townland immediately northwest of West Tarmon is Dooncaha, where THOMAS NASH (which I know is the name of Johanna's father) was listed in Griffith's.  (The sacramental records for neither Tarbert nor Newtownsandes RC parish begin before the mid 1850s, and neither contains any death records. And I don't have any death record for my great-grandfather Thomas, because he disappeared into the ether in 1868, probably due to PTSD following his Civil War experiences, which--according to Johanna's deposition--greatly changed him. So, I have no idea of where he ended up and where he died.)

What I *did* learn from the house book entry is that--assuming my great-great-grandfather had been the THOMAS MAHONY living in West Tarmon in 1847--he wasn't living in one of the worst impoverished conditions. His house was a category 3 house--not a barely habitable mud hut but, according to https://timeline.ie/griffiths-valuation-house-books/, one of the "Thatched houses having stone walls, with mud or puddle mortar; dry stone walls pointed, or mud walls of the best kind" that were apparently in category 3. And its C+ grade identified it as a building older than 25 years old and "old but in good repair."

Now, here's a question I have about the dimensions used in the valuations (perhaps the first answerable question I’ve asked)--I'll label it . . .

QUESTION #1:  Were the dimensions in Griffith's measured in feet or in meters?  

The West Tarmon house was 44 (ft or m) in length, 16.6 (ft or m) in breadth, and 7 (ft or m) in height.  Obviously, the unit of measurement makes a big difference: was the house 44 ft long or 144 ft long? Was it 7 ft high or 23 ft high?

Here's perhaps my second answerable question-- 

QUESTION #2: When a couple married in 19th c Ireland, were they more likely to move in with the groom's or the bride's family if they didn’t live by themselves? Or might it depend on which family had more room?  

BTW, THOMAS MAHONY & JOHANNA NASH were married in Feb 1847--6 months before the West Tarmon Griffith's house book valuation date. Here are the data for THOMAS NASH, Johanna's father, in the Dooncaha house book, which also had a valuation date of 6 Aug 1847--as you can see, the house is smaller, although it was also a 3C+:   Length= 29.6 (ft or m)   Breadth = 16 (f or m)  Height = 5.6 (ft or m). While the Mahony West Tarmon house was at least originally assessed 1£, 4 s, 0 d, the THOMAS NASH Dooncaha house was assessed 0£, 12 s, 8 d.

To complicate matters re: my questions (sorry!), apparently in 1847 THOMAS NASH was also listed as the renter of a second house in Dooncaha; his names was later crossed out and JAMES NASH written in. This one was rated higher--3A- and was 29 (ft or m) in length, 16 (ft or m) in breadth, and 5.6 (ft or m) in height. It was originally assessed 0£, 18 s, 2 d, with 2 s, 6 d deducted for a reason I can't decipher, for a total assessment of 0£, 15 s, 8d.

My third question concerns the damn numbers that are supposed to correspond to a map (ah, but which map?), but which differ are different in the house books and the published Griffith's . So,

Question 3: how do the identifying numbers in the house books correspond to the numbers in the published Griffith's?

The Tarmon West Mahony house was listed as #13 in the house book (under the name of THOMAS MAHONY, which was changed to MARY MAHONY, with no change in house number in the book), but as #18 in the published Griffith's--and MARY MAHONY was listed as sharing rental of #18 with JOHN SHANAHAN; she was listed with an italicized lower-case a, and he with an italicized lower-case b (in the house book, Shanahan was added later,at the bottom of the page, in lighter pencil/ink, as renting 13 1/2, in a house with different dimensions).

And in the Dooncaha house book, THOMAS NASH was listed as #33, and THOMAS NASH-changed to-JAMES NASH was listed as #27. But in the published Griffith's, THOMAS NASH was listed as #17c and JAMES NASH was #12.

Unfortunately, I need to complicate things further.  The Dooncaha house book didn’t appear to list any landlord; however, the Dooncaha field book did (I’m also including an image of the field book page). In the latter, THOMAS NASH was listed as #5, additional number 2, showing his immediate lessor to be MICHAEL KENNEDY. Kennedy was listed as #5, 1, with his immediate lessor being DANIEL MAHONY [ESQ—illegible—but in the published Griffith’s he’s listed as Esq.]; I highly doubt that DANIEL MAHONY, ESQ, was a near relation to my Mahonys.  Although the lessors didn’t change between the field book and published version, at least for the property on which THOMAS NASH was living, the numbers for the property did.  (I didn’t find JAMES NASH on any other pages of the field book for Dooncaha.)

Here’s my final question:

Question 4:  What does “college land” refer to in the context of Griffith’s?

The sideways notation on the Dooncaha field book page reads, in part, ““Dooncaha is College land – all held under middleman [middlemen?].” I assume that “college land” means that the land is worked—or sort of held by—all of the nearby farmers in common, but I might be incorrect.

Thank you for the time and effort in sharing your knowledge and brain power (and for your patience with this long, long message)!

Connie Ostrowski