>. 'P M. FACTS EESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CHUPiCH IN IRELAND. BY THE EEY. ALFRED T. LEE, LL.D., D.C.L. HECTOK op AHOGHILL, and rural dean, diocese of CONNOR, CHAPLAIN TO HIS EXCELLEN: THE LORD LIEUTENANT, AND HONORARY SECRETARY TO THE CHURCH INSTITUTION . FOR THE PROVINCE OF ARMAGH. " In Ireland not only is there a vast proportion of the propertj^ but also a vast proportion of members of the learned, professions, and of others whose importance cannot be denied, who are attached to the Protestant Church, and iy whom any thing that could ])e considered as at all tending to overturn the JEstahlished Church would he looTced upon as placing them in a state of political inferiority to their fellow-countrymen. And besides this, we must recollect that the Act of Union made the Irish Church Establishment a part of the Church Establishment of Eng- land. From these considerations. Sir, I cannot but come to the conclusion that any measure involving the destruction of that Church would iuA'olve a breach in the Act of Union; endangering the integrity of the empire in the first place, and in the second place, considering how many years have elapsed since the Act of Union has passed into the law of the land, probably occasioning such a rent in the whole ecclesiastical constitution of these realms, that I thinic the Church of Tlngland would suffer deeply from such a measure." — Speech of Eael Russell, Hay 14, 1838 (Hansard, 3rd Series, Vol. XLII., p. 1178). SIXTY-FOURTH THOUSAND. THIS EDITION CONTAINS, AN ABSTRACT OF THE REPORT OF THE IRISH CHURCH COMMISSIONERS (1868). EIVINGTONS, HODGES, SMITH, AND FOSTEE, DUBLIN. 1S6S. Frice Twopence. CONTENTS. PAGE Abstract of tlie Report of the Established Church (Ireland) Commissioners . 3 Summaiy of Tables I. — XXVIII. published in the Eeport of the Com- missioners ............ 6 I, The Established Church is the old Catholic Church of Ireland . . 10 II. The Established Church in Ireland the rightful Possessor of the Tithes of Ireland H III. The Church of England and the Church of Ireland Ecclesiastically one before the Act of Union 12 IV. The Temporalities of the Church in Ii'eland placed on the same footing as those of the Church in England by the Act of Union . . .13 V. The attack on the Church in Ireland is virtually an attack on the Church in England also ......... 14 VI. The Church in Ireland has not lost ground in that Country since the Census of 1834 15 Protestant Dissenters in Ireland have decreased since 1834, not in- creased, as stated by the Census Commissioners of 1861 . . 16 VII. Difference between a Benefice and a Parish in Ireland . . . .17 VIII. Difference between the Gross and Church Population of Parishes . . 18 IX. Necessity of maintaining the Parochial System 19 X. Present Revenues of the Church in Ireland 20 XI. Effect of the Church Temporalities Act 21 XII. The Established Church in Ireland a great benefit to the Country . 22 XIII. Present Position of the Church in Ireland 23 XIV. Irish Difficulties originally political, not religious . . . .24 XV. Abolition, not Reform, the object of the present attack . . .24 Conclusion 25 The Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland on the Established Church in 1826 and 1864 26 A Roman Catholic definition of " The Root of the Irish Evil" ... 27 Appendix (A).— Increase of Clergy, &c., from 1730 to 1863 . . . .28 Appendix (B). — Remarkable Eras in Irish Church History . . . .28 Appendix (C).— Glebe Lands in Ireland 29 Appendix (D).— Roman Catholic Church in Ireland— Number of Protestants andRomanCatholicsin the United Kingdom . . .30 Appendix (E).— Summary of the Position of Established Church in Ireland (1868) 31 ABSTRACT OF THE EEPORT OF THE ESTABLISHED CHUECH (IRELAND) COMMISSIONERS (1868). This Report, which has just been issued, is of the highest importance at this crisis. It contains much valuable and accurate information respecting the actual position and revenues of the Church in Ireland. Now that so much misrepresentation is abroad respecting the Irish Church, it is most satisfactory to have this authoritative statement of the actual facts of the case to appeal to. The Report will be found to present, without exaggeration or defect, a clear and distinct yiew of the actual amount and present application of Irish Church revenues, together with certain recommendations for removing exist- ing anomalies by the re-distribution of revenue and re-adjustment of parochial arrangements. We shall first give a short summary of this Report and its vSche- dules, and then subjoin an abstract of the valuable Tables which are published with it. The principal recommendations of the Commissioners are as follows : — 1. The further reduction of the Irish Dioceses from twelve to eight, by uniting — 1. Meath to Dublin. 2. Kilmore to Ai^magh. 3. Waterford and Lismore to Ossory. 4. Killaloe, Kilfenora, Cashel, and Emly to Limerick. 5. Elphin, Ardagh, Clonfert, and Kilmacduagh to Tuam (which will then include all the Province of Connaught and the County of Longford). 6. Ardfert and Aghadoe to Cork. 7. Derry and Raphoe 1 , . , , oT-k A r^ ?to remam as at present. 8. Down and Connor j ^ The Archbishop of Armagh to have in future £6,000 a year. The Archbishop of Dublin £5,000 ; or, if reduced to a Bishopric, £4,500. Every other Bishop £3,000 a year, with an additional allowance of £500 for such of the Bishops as each year attend Parliament. 2. The Cathedral Establishments (at present thirty) to be reduced to eight (viz, Armagh, Down, Derry, Tuam, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, and St. Patrick's Dublin). These Deans to have £1,000 a year clear of all deductions. Rectories of Armagh and Tuam to be A 2 4 ABSTRACT OF THE REPORT OF THE united to their respective Deaneries. All other existing corpora- tions of Deans and Chapters to be dissolved (Sect. 21 — 30). 3. The Archdeacons (at present thirty-three in number) to be re- duced to seventeen. Two for each consolidated Diocese, with three for that of Armagh, &c. The Archdeacons to be allowed £100 each from the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ; to be no longer connected with any particular benefice ; and their ap- jwintment to he dependent on the Episcop)al Incumhency of the See, the new Bishop to re-appoint the Archdeacon whom he finds in office, or to appoint another, as he may think fit. 4. A re-arrangement of benefices to meet the exigencies of the Church population, and a more equitable adjustment of income to services. The benefices in Ireland are 1,518. Many of these ecclesiastical l)arishes contain several civil parishes grouped together. There are 2,428 civil parishes included in the 1,518 Irish benefices. The Census of 1861, greatly to the disadvantage of the Church in the eyes of the people, gives the population according to civil parishes. In this Report the same results are arranged and classified accord- ing to the ecclesiastical parishes or benefices. " There can be little doubt," say the Commissioners (sec. 38), " that a re-adjust- ment of parochial arrangements and endowTuents, based upon a consideration of the circumstances j^roper to be taken into account, such as area. Church population, and Church accommodation, is most desirable." (Sect. 39 — 43 contain suggestions for such re- arrangement.) The Ecclesiastical Commissioners to be emj)Owered to divide, unite, or alter the existing benefices. 5. All benefices in Royal or Ecclesiastical patronage (those in lay patronage to be included, if consent of patron can be obtained,) to be suspended where the Church population does not exceed forty. These benefices number 199 out of the 1,518 in Ireland. In each case provision is to be made for such spiritual duties as are re- quisite. All parishes where Divine Service has not been per- formed during twelve months, to be likewise suspended. 6. An additional ad valorem tax to be imposed on all benefices above £300 a year, in which the Church population does not amount to 100. 7. The payment of the expenses of providing the Elements for the Holy Communion and for salaries of parish clerks by the Eccle- siastical Commissioners, to be discontinued. 8. The expenses of maintaining Ecclesiastical Courts to be defrayed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ; and the Clergy to be relieved from paying visitation fees. 9. The time for repayment of building loans from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to be extended. 1 0. The estates of the capitular bodies and of the further suppressed Bishoprics to be vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who shall apply them at their discretion to the augmentation of inade- quately endowed benefices ; and with a view to the more effective management of Church property, the constitution of the Ecclesi- astical Commissioners' Board to be improved and its powers enlarged. ESTABLISHED CHURCH (iRELAND) COMMISSIONERS. 5 IL Increased facilities to be given for leasing glebe lands. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners to grant leases, and the owners of land liable to pay Tithe rent-charge to be emj^owered to redeem their liability. 12. Provision to be made for preventing ecclesiastical persons in- cumbering their official incomes ; and more summary powers of enforcing residence to be given to the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts. The Schedules annexed to the Report give the fullest informa- tion respecting the revenues of the Bishops and Clergy, and the acreage. Church population, and amount of charge due for building the glebe houses in each parish. Schedules I. 11. III. IV. contain a tabulated return of the revenues of the Archbishops and Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Minor Cor- porations and Cathedral Dignitaries. Schedule V. contains a similar return of gross and net revenues of each benefice, showing whether it is a Rectory, Vicarage, Per- petual Curacy, or Union, its acreage, in whom the patronage is vested, the Church population, the Churches within its limits, and the amount of charge for building or repairing the glebe houses at present due. Schedules VI. to XV. inclusive, contain a like return of the revenues administered by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners fcr Church purposes. Schedule XVL contains the Church population of some extra- parochial districts and parishes which have been omitted from Sche- dule V. Such is a brief account of the contents of the Report. We doubt not that many of its recommendations will be approved of by those who desire to see every reasonable objection to the present condition of the Irish Church removed ; whilst others, such as the still fur- ther reduction of the already maimed Bishoprics of the Church in Ireland, and the wholesale destruction of Cathedral Establishments, will be vigorously and, we trust, successfully opposed. To propose to commit the County of Longford and the whole of Connaught — the most difficult of access and the least provided with railway accommo- dation of all the Provinces of Ireland — to the supposed supervision of one Bishop, who is to have the spiritual oversight of no less than seven Dioceses (Tuam, Killaloe, Elphin, Ardagh, Achonry, Clonfert, and Kilmacduagh), is a suggestion which, when examined into, carries its own refutation with it. No Bishop, however active and energetic, could adequately superintend such an enormous district ; and the , attempt to do so by any man whose physical energies were in any degree failing, would soon result in his being unfit for any active work whatever. If the Irish Church is to maintain its position in the presence of a powerful and well-organized opponent, such as the Church of Rome is in L:-eland, its Bishoprics must be increased, and not diminished ; whilst the incomes which these Bishops are to re- ceive must be determined by the funds which the Church has at its command. Some of the smaller Cathedral establishments, also, might 6 SUMMARY OF THE TABLES PUBLISHED IN THE REPORT with advantage be removed ; but to destroy at one fell blow twenty- five out of the thirty-three Deans and Chapters, is a treatment far too incisive and drastic to be healthful to the patient to whom it is proposed to be applied. There are also other exceptions which may be taken to the recom- mendations of the Report which need not be mentioned here. Its chief value undoubtedly is that it supplies us with an authoritative and accurate account of the actual state of the Church in Ireland, and thus provides materials for future judicious and equitable legis- lation respecting it. Sept. 26, 1868. SUMMARY OF THE TABLES PUBLISHED IN THE REPORT OF THE IRISH CHURCH COMMISSIONERS. Table I. Annual Revenues of Archbishops and Bishops, exclusive of see houses, and of land in occupation of Bishops . . . ^ £74,524 7 10 Net income, after all deductions .... 58,031 9 Table IL Annual Revenues of Deans and Chapters . . 10,749 4 10 Table III. Annual Revenues of Minor Corporations . . 10,176 Table IV. Annual Revenues of Cathedral Dignitaries from lands, &c 10,648 Table V, Gross and net Annual Tithe Rent-charge and Rental of Glebe Lands let to tenants in the several benefices in Ireland. ProvinrP Gross Rent Net Rent ^/leh'eluiTlet Net value Prownce. ^^^^„^^ Charge. to tenants! ^^ '^^"<'- Armagh . £162,888 9 £147,477 3 8 £57,344 17 1 £53,204 10 8 Dublin . 204,408 3 6 181,610 14 2 9,754 1 5 8,960 1 5 £367,296 12 6 £329,087 17 10 £67,098 18 6 £62,164 12 1 TofaZ.—Gross Tithe Rent-charge, and rent of Glebe Lands . £434,395 11 Net „ „ . 391,252 9 11 Table YL Revenues of Benefices other than Tithe Rent-charge, or lands let to tenants, or in occupation of Incumbents, &c. From Government Stock .... £2,398 5 11 „ other sources 1,530 2 £4,928 7 11 OF THE IRISH CHURCH COMMISSIONIERS. 7 Table VII. Annual Eevenues of Ecclesiastical Commissioners (exclusive of revenue derived from taxation of Ecclesiastical persons or property). Erom Lands let to Tenants . „ Tithe E'ent-charge „ Dividends on Government Stock „ Interest on Mortgages „ Koyalty from Mine at Knockmalion £54,239 18,260 3,291 2,776 1,988 £80,554 Table VIII. Annual Eevenues of Established Church in Ireland (exclusive of value of houses of residence and lands in occupation of Ecclesiastical persons) after deducting poor-rates^ expenses of collection, and quit- rents. From Lands let to Tenants . . .- £204,932 19 7 „ Tithe Eent-charge . . .- . 364,224 16 11 „ other sources 12,674 14 £581,832 10 Table IX. Value of See Houses and Lands^ in occupation of Archbishops and Bishops, according to valuation for poor-rates, &c. Value of Houses and Lands in occupation . £4,719 12 3 Head-rent, Poor-rates, &c. . . . . 1,003 16 3 Net value £3,715 16 Building' Charges diie 'on the Bishops' Palaces . . £32,954 Table X. Value of Eesidence Houses of Cathedral Dignitaries not being Glebe Houses of Benefices, viz. : — Deans of Armagh, St. Patrick Dublin, and Cork, and Archdeacon of Lismore . . £292 Building Charge on St. Patrick's Deanery House 600 Table XI. Value of Glebe Houses and Glebe Lands in the occupation of the Beneficed Clergy, according to value for poor-rates (given in the Eeport in Dioceses), with annual charges affecting the same and the amount of building charges due. Value of Glebe Houses and Lands . . £45,226 19 4 Annual Charges on same .... 17,083 1 9 Net value £28,143 17 7 Building Charges due on same . . . £198,704 6 11 Table XII. Aggregate net Value of Houses of Eesidence and Lands in occu- pation of Bishops, Dignitaries, and Beneficed Clergy, with Building Charges due on respect of same. Net Value. Building Charge, Of Bishops ..... £3,715 15 9 £32,954 „ Dignitaries .... 292 10 600' „ Beneficed Clergy . . . 28,143 17 7 198,704 £32,152 3 4 £232,258 8 SUMMARY OF THE TABLES PUBLISHED IN THE REPORT Table XIII. "Net Annual Produce and Value of Entire Propert}'- of the Established Church in Ireland, including houses of residence and lands in occupation of Ecclesiastical persons. From all sources except Houses of Eesidence and Lands in occupation Annual Value of Houses of Eesidence and Lands in occupation .... £581,832 32,152 £613,984 Tables XIV. XV. XVI. relate to Eents of Land under Grants in Pei-petuity or held on Leases. Table XVII. gives the Area and Church Population of every Diocese. (See Appendix E, p. 31.) Table XVIII. shows Church Population and Number of Benefices having Incumbents in each Diocese. (See Appendix E, p. 31.) Table XIX. Benefices with Incumbents having a Parish attached Chapelries without a Parish or District Sinecure Eectories Total of Benefices 1,518 In addition, there are ninety Parishes suspended and invested in Eccle- siastical Commissioners, and sixty -four Parishes, Appropriate or Im- propriate, without Vicar or Perpetual Curate endowed. Table XX. shows (1) Number of Civil Parishes ; (2) Benefices with Incum- bents ; (3) Suspended Parishes ; (4) Appropriate Parishes without Incumbents ; (5) Acreable Extent ; (6) Members of Established Church ; (7) net Income of Clergy in each Diocese (for all which see Appendix E. p. 31). Table XXI. gives the Twelve United Dioceses, with (1) Number of Bene- fices in each Diocese ; (2) Number of Members of Established Church ; (3) Net Income of the Bishops (for which see Appendix E. p. 31). Table XXII. Benefices having Incumbents (including Perpetual Curates), classified according to their net Eevenues. Above £1,100 a year net . 1,000 and under £1,100 900 1,000 800 900 700 800 600 700 500 600 400 500 300 400 200 300 100 200 under 100 Benefices. none 7 3 9 17 23 53 107 225 356 421 297 OF THE IRISH CHURCH COMMISSIONERS. Table XXIII. Benefices having Incumbents, classified according to tbeir Church Population, Having 5,000 Church population and upwards 2,000 and under 5,000 . ,000 J, 2,000 . 750 M 1,000 . 500 750 . 200 ,j 500 . 100 200 . 40 100 . 30 40 . 20 >) 30 . under 20 . Benefices. 4 63 110 100 122 336 254 287 59 48 92 Table XXIV. classifies the Suspended, Appropriate and Impropriate Parishes without Incumbents endowed, and extra Parochial Districts, according to Church Population. Table XXV. gives number of Benefices in Royal, Lay, or Ecclesiastical Patronage, as follows : — Ecclesiastical Lay and Ecclesiastical in turns . Lay (including Trustees and T. C. D.) Royal, Lay, and Ecclesiastical in turns Royal and Lay in turns Royal and Ecclesiastical in turns In Royal Patronage .... One Benefice in Cloyne, Patronage contested 988 20 309 1 5 47 146 1 Table XXVI. shows the net Incomes of the Capitular Bodies available for the purposes of maintaining the Cathedral and Choral Services. In all the Irish Dioceses this amounts to . £19,546 Table XXVII. classifies net Annual Revenues derived b}'- Deans and other Cathedral Dignitaries, including Prebendaries, from property belonging to their offices, and not forming part of the Endowment of any Benefice, but including any House of Residence not a Glebe House. 9 5 11 12 19 36 Table XXVIII. Showing average net Income of Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and application of same (for this see p. 21). Above £600 a year . 300 and not exceeding £600 . 200 300 . 100 200 . 60 100 . 20 50 . under 20 . A 3 THE CHUECH IN IRELAND. Tup: importance of an accnrate knowledge of the true condition of the Church in Ireland at the present time will be allowed by all. For several sessions a parliamentary attack has been impending over her. Of late, the Koman Catholic Bishops of Ireland have formed a National Association, one of the avowed purposes of which is the abolition of the Church Establishment ; and we are assured from time to time by those who seek for its destruction that it is the true cause of the political difficulties that exist in that country. The following brief narrative has therefore been put together in the belief that there are many who will be glad to become acquainted with some of the principal facts respecting the Church in Ireland, which they have no leisure to investigate for themselves. I. — The Established Church is the old Catholic Church of Ireland. The Church in Ireland is the only religious hodj in that country which can rightly claim to be the true successor of the Church of St. Patrick. It was more than 700 years after Christianity was first established in Ireland before the supremacy of the Pope was fully exercised there ^ St. Patrick landed in Ireland a.d. 432, but the Papal supremacy was 'jirst formally acknowledged in the Synod of Kells, A.D. 1152. At the time of the Reformation the continuity of Episcopal succession was not broken ; the bishoj)s then in possession of the Irish sees continued to exercise their function in the Refonned Church, and thus the regular and ancient succession of bishops from St. Patrick has descended continually in the Church in Ireland to the present day. The ecclesiastical ancestors of the present Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland were not consecrated by Bishops of Ireland. They were not of Irish creation ; they derive their orders from Italy and Spain, and not from tlie Irish Church ^. The present Roman Catholic hierai'chy in Ireland is therefore a new episcopate introduced frotn abroad, and set up in that country in the 16th century in opposition to its ancient and lawful episcopate, and has no connexion with the Church founded by St. Patrick ^ The Established ^ King's Irish Church History, i^p. 579—581, and Appendix, pp. 23, 24. ^2 See Wordsworth's History of Irish Church, p. 227; Pahner on the Church, ii. 567; King's Irish Church History, p. 903; also especially E. P. Shirley's Original Letters on the Church of Ireland, pp. vii. and viii. _^ An attempt has recently been made by Dr. Brady and some others to controvert this statement ; but, after a careful investigation of the whole question, I see no THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. U Church, therefore, is not a new Church introduced into Ireland from England in the 16tli century, as is commonly, but most erroneously, believed, but is the only old Catholic Church of Ireland. II. — The Established Church in Ireland the rightful Possessor of the Tithes of Ireland. All property in Ireland is the creation of some English King ; and the first property so created was that of the Church. Since the synod of Cashel, a.d. 1172, by which tithes were first authorized in Ireland, every foot of Irish territory has been again and again forfeited to the Crown. The title of the present landlords of Ireland to their property, when traced to its original source, is the bounty of the Crown of England ; and when they received their estates it was with a reservation of the original grant to the Church. Tithes, therefore, were never part of any lay property NOW IN EXISTENCE. The Churcli is paid by the tithe rent-charge, which v/as a commutation for the tithes on terms that are very beneficial to the landowner. The late lamented Sir G. Cornewall Lewis will be an unexceptionable witness on this subject. *' This grievance is commonly stated to be that the Roman Catholics are compelled to contribute by the payment of tithes to the support of a Church from the creed of which they difier. Now, in fact, the Roman Catholics, although they may pay the tithe, contribute nothing, inasmuch as in Ireland tithe is in the nature, not of a tax, but of a reserved rent, ivhich never belonged either to the landlord or the tenant ^" Moreover, the Churcli of Ireland, when it submitted to the Pope, in A.D. 1172, was invested by Henry II. with certain temporalities. The same Church of Ireland, on renouncing the Papal Supremacy, was confirmed in its temporalities by Henry VIII. If the investiture was valid, there is no reason to object to the reinvestiture. As regards the glebe lands of Ireland, many of them (e:j^clusive of those in Ulster) were granted to the clergy of the Church of Ireland for ever by the native princes and lords of Ireland during their primitive independence of all foreign supremacy. They ivere never granted for the benefit of the Church of Rome'^. She claimed no reason for altering in any way the statement of the text. For fuller information see Archdeacon Stopford's " Unity of the Anglican Church," and the author's " Irish Episcopal Succession, in reply to Mr. Froude and Dr. Brady." And also an article of great research on Mr. Froude's recent statements respecting the Irish Bishops, in the Contemporary Revieio, for April, 1867, by Mr. Richard Nugent. 1 The Irish Church Question, p. 351, ed. 1836. 2 A great portion of the lands now held by the Bishop of Meath were granted to Kieran of Clonmacnoise (now united to Meath) in the sixth century, nearly six centuries before Rome had any jurisdiction in Ireland. (Archdeacon Stopford's Reply to Serjeant Shee, p. 95.) And the Archdeacon remai-ks, infra, 97, "no pro- perty to which the Church of Rome could show an original title has passed into the hands of the Church at the Reformation." The property of the monasteries of modern foundation — i. e. since the twelfth century — is not possessed by the Irish Church, but by lay impropriators, who now receive over £81,000 a year from this source. A 4 12 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE jurisdiction in Ireland till many centuries after the time when these grants began to he made^ ; and by far the most valuable of them, Avhich lie in the North, were original grants from the Crown to the Jte formed Chwrh at the plantation of Ulster in 1609 ^ In that year a Royal Commission Avas issued, in which it was ordered tliat the Commissioners " shoukl assign to the incumbent of each jjarish a glebe, after the rate of threescore acres for every thousand acres within the parishes, in the most convenient places or nearest the churches, and for the more certainty to give such glebe a certain name whereby it may be known ; and to take orders, that there be a proviso in the Letters Patent for forming the glebes to restrain alienations thereof." — ("Concise View of the Irish Society," p. 14, ed. 1822.) It will thus be seen who have the legal right to the tithe rent-charge and glebes of Ireland. III. — The Church of England and the Church of Ireland Ecclesias- tically one BEFORE the Act of Union. The Synod of Cashel, held a.d. 1172, was " a plenary Council, both national and ecclesiastical," and was held for the express pur- pose of "bringing the Irish Church into exact conformity with the English*." Its seventh Canon enacted, that "all divine matters shall in future, in all parts of Ireland, be regulated after the model of Holy Church, in accordance with the observance of the Anglican Church." Romanism thus began to be fully developed in Ireland, and " the Sariim Ritual " came into common use there, although a long series of years elapsed before the ancient Irish clergy could be induced altogether to submit to its decrees*. At the time of the Reformation, the Church of Ireland received " the Book of Common Prayer," and in the public documents of that period, e.g., the Injunctions of Edward VI., A.D. 1547, "the Church of England and Ireland" is spoken of \ In a bidding prayer, included in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, in 1559, a like expression is used ; and the title of the 1st of the Irish Canons of 1634 (which accepted verbatim et literatim the English Articles) is " Of the agreement of the Church of England and Ireland, in the possession of the same Christian religion ;" and the Canon itself declares their agreement, " in the confession of the ^ King's Irish Church Histor}^ pp. 1058, 1059. 2 See page 21. Autrira and Do^Yn were not included amongst the escheated counties. 3 Gerald. Canih. Expug. Hibern. i. 33 j Wilkins, Concil. i. 471; Cox, Hib. Angl. i. 22 — 21'. It will thus bo seen that the Anglican faith was introduced into Ireland centuries before the Reformation. •1 It is a remarkable fact, that in the Council of Constance held in a.d. 1414, the English Church was declared to be entitled to vote as a separate National Church, on the ground that the English and Irish were one National Church. And it is worthy of observation, that in all committees, &c., of the Council, the Anglican Church was represented by "Patrick, Eisho]) of Cork." Labbe and Cossart's Concilia Generalia, vol. xii.'. Col. 1727, cd. 1672, as quoted by Archdeacon Stopford— Reply to Serjeant Shoe, p. 99. 5 Sparrow's Collections, p. 48. OP THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 13 same Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments." Since 1634, the Articles of the Church in Ireland have been the same as those of the Church, in England. The Liturgy has been the same since the Reformation. Their Canons diifer in some minor points; but this no more prevents the provinces of the Irish Church being in perfect union with those of the English, than the difference of the Canons of the province of York in former times prevented its being considered one Church with the province of Canterbury. IV. — The Temporalities of the Church in Ireland j^^c^ced on the same footing as those of the Church in England hy the Act of Union. The words of the 5th Article of the Act of Union are as follows : — " That the Churches of England and Ireland, as now hy latv esta- blished, be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called ' The United Church of England and Ireland,' and that the doc- trine, worship, discipline and government of the said United Church shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law established for the Church of England ; and that the continu- ance and preservation of the said United Church as the Established Church of England and Ireland shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the Union.^^ To attack the Established Church in Ireland, then, is to attack the Established Church in England, for the legal status of both branches of the United Church is exactly the same ; and, as Sir Robert Peel said in the House of Commons \ " an attack upon the Established Church in Ireland is but a necessary preliminary to an attack on the Established Church in this country The endowments of Ireland cannot be dealt with alone ; if you wish to deal with the revenues of the Irish Church you must enter into a wider field and deal with all endowments given by the State." Moreover, it should be remembered that the Act of Union would never have been passed by a Parliament exclusively Protestant, unless the honour of England had been first pledged to the maintenance of the Established Church in Ireland. What said Lord Castlereagh, the mouthpiece of the Go- vernment at the time of the Union ? — " One State, one Legislature, one Church, these are the leading features of the system, and without identity with Great Britain in these three great points of connexion, we can never hope for any real and permanent security. The Church, in particular, while we remain a separate country, will ever be liable to be impeached on local grounds. When it shall once be completely incorporated with the Church of England, it will be p)laced upon such ^ It is important to observe that an EstaLlisliod Clmreli and an Endowed Church, thoiTgh often confounded, are not synonymous terms. The Established Church of England and Ireland has certain legal rights which a simply Undoived Church would not possess. Moreover, whilst the Irish Clergy are supported by their own property, the endowment annually paid to the Presbyterian Ministers in Ireland, commonly called the Reg'mm Donum, is voted each year by the House of Commons, and is paid out of the annual revenue of the country. It amounted in 1867 to 41,478Z. 3^. 6d. l4 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE a Strong and natural foundation as to he above every apprehension and fear from adverse interest, and from all the fretting and irri- tating circumstances connected with our colonial situation. As soon as the Church Establishments of the two kingdoms shall be incor- porated into one Church, the Protestant will feel himself at once identified with the population and property of the Empire, and the Establishment will be placed on its natural basis." — (See Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 425.) Therefore it was that in the 5th Article of the Act of Union, the continuance and jDreservation of the Esta- blished Church was declared " to be an essential and fundamental jiart of the Unions And if we do away with an essential and fun- damental part of the Act of Union, what will that which remains be worth ? V. — The attach on the Church in Ireland is virtually an attach on the Church in England also. t. The upholders of the Voluntary System know well that if they can insert the thin edge of the wedge in any part of the Established Church, they will have gained a great step towards destroying the whole. Their motto is " Divide et impera." They think the weak point of the Established Church at present is the Church in Ireland, and therefore it is against it that their attacks are first directed. If they succeed in persuading the Legislature that because the members of the Church in particular parishes in Ireland are in a numerical minority, therefore the Established Church should be abolished, how unanswerable an argument will they have when they come to deal with J^ngland and Wales ! There is no argument that can be ad- duced against Ireland that cannot be brought with greater force against Wales. The benefices in Wales are about 1,000. The population of each benefice on an average is about 1,300 ; of these about 400 belong to the Established Church, and 900 to the Dis- senters ; and if the Church in Ireland is to have her revenues redis- tributed or confiscated because she is not the Church of the majority, the same principle must in all justice in due season be applied to the Church in the Principality. Besides, whilst in Ireland there are only 740 benefices (of which 57 are suspended or disappropriated, &c., so that 683 would be the truer number), in which there are less than 200 members of the Church', in England and Wales there are 4,149 parishes where the gross population (Churchmen aiid Dis- senters) is less than 200, of which 1,864 (a far larger number than all the benefices in Ireland) contain fewer than 100 inhabitants^. Of both branches of the United Church, then, it may be said — *' Quo res cunque cadent, uuuiii et commuue periclum, Una salus ambobus erit." ^ Irish Church Commissioners' Report, p. xxxi, and p. 556. - Sec Report of Committee of Council on Education, for 1863-4, pp. xxv— xxvi. OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAJ^D. 15 VI. — The Church in Ireland has not lost ground in that Country since the Census of 1834. The returns of the Census Commissioners in 1834 and 1861, as regards the religious population, were as follows : — 1834. 18G1. Decrease. In- crease. Per Cent. Established Churcli . . .") including : Methodists ... .J Roman Catholics Presbyterian .... and other Protestant Dissenters Corrected return of Protestant "1 Dissenters (see below) . .J 853,160 6,436,060 643,058 21,822 693,3571 45,399/ 4,505,265 523,291 76,661 114,404 1,930,795 119,767 54,839 13-4 30-4 18-6 251-3 7,954,100 21,882 5,798,967 1 • 16,990 2,164,966 4,892 54,839 22'4 The whole population of the country has thus decreased, in 27 years, 27*1 per cent., or more than a fourth, or one per cent, per annum. All the religious bodies therefore have necessarily decreased, but by no means in the same proportion. The Roman Catholics in this period lost nearly a third of their whole number ; the Presbyterian body between a fifth and a sixth, whilst the Church lost only between a seventh and an eighth. Nor should this important fact be lost sight of, — viz. : That in twenty-one out of the thirty-two Irish dioceses the proportion per cent, of the members of the Established Church to the general population has risen since 1834 — has remained stationary in two — and, notwithstanding the large total decrease of population, has fallen only in nine. This shows that in spite of many adverse circumstances the Established Church has been quietly making its way m all j)arts of the country". (See Census Report for 1861, p. 33.) In 1834 the Methodists were reckoned with the Church, in 1861 they were reckoned separately. This is overlooked in many of the calculations founded on the late census : and the Church is said to have decreased by 159,803 ; whereas the absolute decrease, as shown above, is only 114,404, whilst, in the same period, there is a relative increase of two per cent. ^ This number includes 393 Jews living in Ireland in 1861. 2 During the same period the Roman Catholic population diminislied in every Diocese in Ireland, except two — viz., Dublin and Connor (see Thom's Official Irish Directory, for 1866, p. 768). In a country Rural Deanery in a northern Diocese, with which the author is well acquainted, the Rural Dean at his last inspection found that, out of the nine parishes in the Rural Deanery, in three new Churches were being built, and in three others, that the churches were about to be enlarged, a pretty conclusive proof of the increase of Church population in those parts. 16 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE Protestant Dissenters in Ireland have decreased since 1834, not in' creased, as stated hy the Census Commissioners 0/I86I. Much has been said of the increase of Protestant Dissenters in Ire- land (exclusive of the Presbyterians) since 1834, which the Census Commissioners of 1861 (Report, page 28) have stated to be at the rate of 251*3 per cent. This is utterly fallacious, as is clearly shown by the Archbishop of Armagh in his Charge of 1864 (pages 17, 18, and 31). The truth is, there has been an absolute decrease of 4,892 *' other Dissenters" since 1834. The return of the Census Commissioners is as follows : — 1834. 1861. Increase. Other Protestant Dissenters . . 21,822 76,661 54,839. Rate per cent. 251*3. This total of 76,661 is formed as follows (Report, p. 6) : — Methodists ' 45,399 Independents 4,532 Baptists 4,237 Society of Friends 3,695 Other Persuasions 14,695 Unascertained 4,103 76,661 In 1834, as stated above, the Methodists were enumerated as members of the Established Church ; in 1861 they are classed as "other Dissenters." Thus, in the return of 1861, the Methodists are classed as if they had all sprung into existence since 1834, and their existence at that time is entirely ignored. In addition to this, 4,103 persons, whose religion was "unascertained," are classed as " other Persuasions ;" and 156, who are clearly members of the Esta- blished Church, are enumerated as Dissenters. The correction of these mistakes reduces this increase of " other Protestant Dissenters " from 54,839 to 5,181 ; but, in addition to this, in 1861 various sub- divisions of Presbyterians, returned as such by this enumeration, were transferred by the Census Commissioners to " other Persua- sions," these having been included amongst Presbyterians in 1834 ; and so also were the Unitarians, amounting to 3,800 ; and as the Primate justly remarks in his Charge (p. 18), from which these calculations are taken, " in a comparative table of two different periods, they cannot be attached to a class different fi'om the one under which they were reckoned. They are not Dissenters coming into existence since 1834, but only Presbyterians differently classed." If, therefore, we deduct these 10,073 Presbyterians, we shall find that, so far from there having been an increase of " other Protestant Dissenters" since 1834, there has been an actual decrease of 4,892. After this, we hope we shall hear no more of the large increase of Protestant dissent in Ireland within the last thirty years. OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 17 VII. — Difference between a Benefice and a Parish in Ireland. The Census Commissioners of 1861, in their Report, page 21, mention three classes of parishes in Ireland. 1. The parish of the Established Church. 2. The Civil parish. 3. The Roman Catholic parishes — very often differing from both. The Census Commissioners have adopted the second classification in their reports \ and the results of the Census thus appear in the most disadvantageous light possible as regards the Established Church. In Ireland a parish is not conterminous with a benefice. A bene- fice is often a union of several parishes under one incumbent". Thus, whilst there are 2,428 civil parishes in Ireland, there are only 1,518 benefices ; from which it follows, that there are 910 more civil parishes in Ireland than benefices. (See Irish Church Commissioners' Report, page x.) If we remember this important fact, the statement (Table ix. Census Report, 1861, p. 36) of which we have lately heard so much, viz., that there are 199 parishes in Ireland without any Church population, loses all its significance ; for whilst it may be perfectly true that there are some portions of benefices (called in the Report civil parishes) in this state, there is but a single benefice in all Ireland to be found ^, and that one peculiarly cir- cumstanced, in which there are not several members of the Esta- blished Church. These civil parishes arose in several ways — in many cases from the consolidation of separate chapelries — and since 1662 all the acts by the Lord Lieutenant in council have provided that parishes united by certain statutes should be one ^Kirish. Several Acts of Parliament state that in some parts of the country parishes are " so small, that five or six lie together within a mile or two." (See Dr. Hume's Analysis of the Census, p. 62.) There are certain benefices in the Irish Church, in number less than a thirteenth part of the whole, in which the Church popula- tion is very small, numbering from twenty-five downwards. These ^ Irelimd is divided into 2,428 districts or civil parishes, for facilitating the collection of county rates ; some of these districts have for more than two centuries ceased to be parishes in the ecclesiastical sense of tlie term, and many of them are of very small area ; e. g., the parish of St. Doologes, in Ferns, is only forty yards square. For other instances, see Archbishop of Armagh's Charge of 1864, p. 14. 2 E. g. — the union of Listowell, diocese of Ardfert, contains ten parishes under one incumbent, net income £236 ; Kilcolgan, diocese of Kilmacduagh, ten parishes, net income £302 ; Donanaughta, diocese of Clonfert, seven parishes, net income £267. Thus, in three unions, we find twenty-seven parishes, total income £805, or on an average £29 25. for each parish. Other similar instances may be found in the Irish Church Commissioners' Eeport, from which this is taken. 3 Mansiieldtown, diocese of Armagh, net value £217 11^. lid. per annum. Irish Church Keport, p. 128. There is a church, however, in which Divine service is performed, and a congregation attends from the adjoining parish, which is con* veniently situated for that purpose. (See Primate's Charge, 1864, p. 29). 18 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE j)anshes arc situated in all parts of the country, being found in every diocese, except Down and Connor, and Derry and Eaplioe. They average about three and a half to each of the thirty -tivo dioceses into which Ireland is divided. These are the parishes which form the stock-in-trade of the opponents of the Irish Church. Upon them their chief assault is based. They are brought before us again and again in j)amphlet after pamphlet, in speech after speech, in lead- ing articles, in quarterlies, in monthly and fortnightly magazines. Sinecures, pluralities, non-residence, have passed away — no attacks can be made on these points. Therefore these parishes are con- tinually kept before the public eye. These benefices number altoge- ther 114^ The average proportion of net income of each Incumbent, without making any allowance for Curates, is £164 6s. \0d. Now, if the Irish Church is to be maintained in the remote districts as an Establishment at all, on what smaller pittance than this could a Clergyman exist ? If the Churchmen of these parishes are not to be left without any spiritual ministrations whatever, on what more economic system could the Clergy be maintained ? We may be told that in places where the Church population is small the parish should be annexed to the neighbouring one, and a Curate should be placed in care of it. But surely no Curate could be expected to undertake the sole charge of a widely-scattered district as most of these parishes are, and to visit which effectually a horse is a necessity, on less than £150 a year ? And what do the Clergy of these much-abused parishes now receive ? — on an average £164 6s. 10c?. per annum. So that the net gain by the j^roposed reform is £14 Qs. \0d. per parish, a goodly sum indeed ! And to gain this the foundations of all Church property are to be rooted up ; and we are told that because of this "monstrous abuse" large reforms are imperatively demanded in the Irish Church. VIII. — Differences between the Gross and Church Popidation of Parishes. It is customary in England, when speaking of the population of a parish, to mention the gross population as under the charge of the Incumbent, including Dissenters of all denominations ; but when speaking of Ireland, the same person speaks of the Church popula- tion of the parish only. This gives a most unfair estimate of the parocliial work of an Irish Clergyman, as in many parts of the country, and especially in the north, the very poor of other denomi- nations would often be left without any spiritual ministrations, were it not for the exertions of the Incumbent. All the inhabitants of the parish are considered by the Irish Clergy to be their parishioners as much as by the Clergy in England. _ ^ See Arcluleacon Hincks' Synoptical Table of the Irish Church, 1866. Only nineteen of these jiarishos are in the Province of Armagh ; the remaining ninety- five are in the Province of Dublin. OP THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 19 IX. — Necessity of maintaining the Parochial System, It is essential to the maintenance of the Established Church in Ireland that the principle on which the parochial system is based should be preserved in all its integrity. Surrender this, and the Church of Rome obtains an easy and permanent triumph \ Therefore one of the chief objects of her opponents is to disconnect the Church from the parochial system, and make her clergy merely the ministers of particular congregations ^ It may seem paradoxical, hut in many parishes in Ireland the smaller and the more ividely scattered the Church population, the more necessary it is to maintain the parochicd system there. However small the Church population of a parish may be, as long as the parochial system is preserved, there is always a nucleus of church- manship and loyalty in the parish, to which accretions can be con- tinually made. Remove the Church and the Clergyman, and in many cases the Church landlords will soon follow, and the inevitable result will be that in a few years the parish will become religiously and politically Romish ; for without the ministrations of the Church large tracts of country would be left without a Protestant place of worship or a Protestant Clergyman ^ The few Protestants left could not provide ministrations of the Church for themselves and their families, and they must soon be absorbed in the Romanism by which they are surrounded. In the three provinces of Munster, Connaught, and Leinster (including Dublin) the whole Protestant population not belonging to the Establislied Church does not exceed 40,000 ; whilst all the Presbyterians in these three provinces only number 19,456^ At present the only spiritual ministrations which many Protestant Dissenters scattered throughout these provinces receive is from the Clergy of the Established Church ; and if they were removed, the voluntary system would be totally unable to supply their place, and the Church of Rome woukl be virtually left in nndisturbed possession of the greater part of the country. Apart, then, from the question of truth and error, sound policy would dictate that the Established Church should be maintained in all its integrity, even in districts 1 Let it never be forgotten that the Church of Eome has a powerful Diocesan and Parochial System in Ireland which overspreads the whole country. (See Ap- j)endix D.) 2 " In the circumstances of Ireland, where the great population do not belong to the Established Church, the congregational is the right, ^proper, and fitting system. (Speech of Mr. Bernal Osborne in House of Commons, June 26, 1863.) If such a system was adopted, large tracts of the country would be at once deprived of the ministrations of the Reformed faith. 3 " To sweep away the Protestant Establishment would, in most cases, increase absenteeism, by compelling the Protestant families who desired to attend the rites of their own Church to seek them in England. In many parishes of the poorer districts in Ireland, it tvould remove the only resident gentleman, and the lest friend of the poor when in loant or sicJcness." (The Irish Difficulty, by an Irish Peer, 1867, p. 83.) ^ See Census Report, 1861, p. 10. If Dublin is excluded, the Protestant popu- lation of the three provinces not belonging to the Established Church does not exceed 29,000. 20 FACTS BESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE where the Church poj^ulation is at present but small ; for, in the words of Mr. Spencer Perceval, " The example of the Clergy of the Established Church in Ireland is of more force than all the penal laws in Christendom." X. — Present Mevenues of the Church in Ireland. The actual Revenues of the Irish Church have been so long a matter of dispute amongst various writers and speakers, that it is most satisfactory at length to have an authoritative statement on this point, to which all must be content to submit. The annual net Ee venue of the Irish Church, including that of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is £581,000 derived as follows (Irish Church Commissioners' Report, 1868, pp. vi and xxv) : — From Tithe Rent-charge . . . . . . £364,000 „ Rent received from Land .... 204,000 „ Government Stock 13,000 £581,000 Of this, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners receive . £113,000 And the Capitular Bodies 19,000 £132,000 Thus leaving for the Bishops and Clergy . . £449,000 The net income of the Bishops is . . . . 58,031 The net income of the Parochial Clergy . . . £390,969 So that the average net income of the 1,518 Beneficed Clergy is about £258 a year each. Nor should the following facts be forgotten : — The actual rent- charge of Ireland (gross value) is £364,224 a year^; for eight- ninths of this, Protestant landlords are responsible, and only a ninth comes to the Clergy through Roman Catholic landlords. The whole is a sum less than the annual income of at least one English noble- man, and considerably less, as Sir Robert Peel lately remarked, than the cost of one of our ironclads. This tithe rent-charge is a composition for tithe, and is of the nature of a reserved rent, ivhich never belonged either to landlord or teiiant^. By the Act of 1838 the landlord, indeed, is bound to pay the rent- charge to the Incumbent, but for bearing this responsibility the hand- some allowance of £25 per cent, is made to him, so that when this Act came into operation the Clergy in future only received £75 for every £100 of their former income. The tithe rent-charge therefore is paid neither by Protestants nor Roman Catholics, but is the produce of property which has always belonged to the Church since its first esta- blishment in Irelaiul. Moreover, the Church in Ireland owes a considerable portion of ^ Irish Church Commissiouors' Report, p. xxxv. The whole of the tithe rent- charge possessed by ecclesiastical persons is less than a hundredth part of the produce of the soil. ^ See Sir G. C. Lewis's testimony to this, at page 11. OF THE CHUECH IN IRELAND. 21 her present endowments to the exertions and munificence of her Bishops since the Reformation. Dr. Hook, in his Life of Archbishop Bramhall (Eccles. Biog. vol. iii. p. 52), relates that in four years that indefatigable Primate recovered about £40,000 a year to the Church, which had been wasted or impropriated. Primate Boulter^ left £30,000 for the augmentation of small benefices and for the purchase of glebes for the Clergy. This now amounts to the capital sum of £89,682 75. 3d. (Irish Church Commissioners' Report, p. 602). Pri- mate Robinson left a smaller sum for the same purpose. Both funds are still available. It has already been noticed that most of the glebe-lands in Ulster have been specially granted to the Church since the Reformation ^. The average net annual income of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners, communihus annis, arises from the following sources (Report, p. 564) :— See Estates, after deducting poor-rates . . . £58,631 Suspended Benefices 20,652 Charge on See of Armagh 4,450 Charge on See of Derry 6,080 Tax on Bishoprics and Benefices .... 18,175 Interest on Perpetuity Mortgages .... 1,033 Interest on Glebe-house Mortgage Loans . . . 1,743 Dividends on Insurance Fund, Consols . . . 542 Dividends on Perpetuity Fund, Consols . . . 2,325 Kent of Premises at rear of House .... 31 £113,662 Their average net expenditure is divided into the following heads (Report, p. xxxiii) : — Parochial requisites — as Parish Clerks . . . £37,258 Ministers' Money and Salaries to Dublin Curates, &c. 20,201 Repairs of and keeping in order the Churches . . 24,000 Expenses of the Establishment of the Commissioners — Salaries, Agency, &c 13,000 Local Charges connected with some of the Lands . 383 Salary to Auditor of Registrar's Accounts . . . 250 Augmentation of Small Benefices .... 7,886 Balance for Building and Enlarging Churches . . 10,690 £113,662 Out of this income, as will be seen, the salaries of clerk and sexton, church requisites, grants for the repairs and building of churches, &c. have to be provided ; so that the greater part of the Eccle- siastical Commissioners' fund goes in relief of the Laity, and not for the use of the Clergy, these items being formerly paid by Church Cess. XI. — Effect of the Church Temporalities Act. By this Act all sinecures, excei:)t those in private patronage, were abolished. On their next avoidance two archbishoprics were reduced 1 He died in 1742, and Primate Robinson in 1794. 2 See p, 12. 22 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE to the rank of bishoprics, ten bishoprics were suspended, and the sees annexed to other existing dioceses. A tax, payable to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and varying from 2 J to 15 per cent., was placed on the incomes of the Clergy, whilst their former incomes were sub- sequently (by the Tithe Act of 1838) reduced by 25. per cent. Vestry cess or Church rates, amounting to about £60,000 a year, was. abolished ; and the expenses formerly paid by means of it, such as repairs of churches, salaries of clerk and sexton, &c., were placed upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The result has been that the Bishops and Clergy of Ireland receive now £240,000 per annum less than they did in 1834 ; and in 1854, the Church's revenues were further diminished by £13,128 a year (Report, p. 565); Ministers' money (hitherto paid by the inhabitants of other towns) being ordered, by 17 & 18 Vict. c. 11, to be paid in future out of the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. XII. — The Estahlished Church in Ireland a great benefit to the Country, The memorable words of the great Lord Plunket on this subject should be borne in mind by all who are now seeking to undermine its influence. He said^, — " He had no hesitation in stating that he considered it (the Esta- blished Church) the great bond of union between the two countries ; and if ever that unfortunate moment should arrive when they should rashly lay their hands on the property of the Church, to rob it of its rights, that would seal the doom and separate the connexion between the two countries." To this testimony of an experienced and far-sighted statesman, let that of a Roman Catholic layman, the late Anthony Richard Blake, well acquainted with Irish interests, and delivered by him on oath before a Parliamentary Committee, be added : — " The Protestant Church," said he, " is rooted in the constitution ; it is established by the fundamental laws of the realm ; it is rendered, as far as the most solemn acts of the legislature can render any insti- tution, fundamental and perpetual ; it is so declared by the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. / think it coidd not now he disturbed ivithout danger to the general securities we j^ossess for liberty, property, and order — without danger to all the blessings we derive from being under a lawful government and a free constitution. Feeling thus, the very conscience which dictates to me a determined adherence to the Roman Catholic religion would dictate to me a determined resistance to any attempt to subvert the Protestant Establishment, or wresting from the Church the possessions which the law has given it ^." We will only add the following remarkable declaration of Dr. 1 Quoted by Sir Hiigli (now Lord) Cairns in dclj.itc, June 29, 1863. 2 O'Sullivau and Phelan's Digest of Evidence before Committees of both Houses of Parliament, 182 1-25, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217. OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 23; Slevin, a Roman Catholic Professor at Maynooth, given in evidence before the Commissioners of Education in 1826 : — "I consider that the present possessors of Church property in Ireland, of whatever description they may be, have a just title to it. They have been hond fide possessors of it for all the time required by any law for prescription : even according to the pretensions of the Church of Rome, which require 100 years ;" and even an opponent will respect the testimony of Lord Macaulay when he says, " This principle of prescription is essential to the institution of property itself, and if you take it away it is not some or a few evils that must follow, — not some or a few evils, but general confusion." (Speech on Dissenters' Chapel Bill ^) XIII. —Present Position of the Church in Ireland. The Established Church in Ireland now is the same Church as that which has existed there for fourteen centuries. In the 12th century it was first formally established by the State, in the 16th century it reformed itself; no new Church was introduced in Ireland at the Reformation, that was done by the Roman Catholics in the succeeding century. The Bishops of the Irish Church before the Reformation became the Bishops of the Irish Church after the Reformation ; they enjoyed the same revenues, they discharged the same or similar duties. The Church that now j^ossesses the tithes and glebe-lands of Ireland is the same body corporate as possessed them before the Reformation. According to the law both of Church and State, the continuity of succession has never been brolcen. The Bishops of the Church in Ireland now are the only legitimate suc- cessors of the Irish Bishops before the Reformation, and therefore the Clergy of the Church in Ireland now are the only legitimate and rightful possessors of its property ; moreover, the revenues they enjoy are not sufficient for the work they have to do. To give every bene- ficed clergyman in Ireland only £300 a year would require £60,000 to be added to the present yearly revenue of the Church. It is true that the members of the Established Church are in a minority, but they are such a minority as comprehends the great majority of those upon whom the present and future welfare of every country must depend ^ A very great proportion of the nobility, gentry, landed proprietors, and members of the learned professions, and of the skilled artisans, belong to the Established Church ; and 90 per cent, of the land of Ireland is the property of Protestants (see Dr. Hume's Analysis of the Census of 1861, p. ^^ — 59). The disestablishment of such a Church, bound up with the dearest interests of such classes 1 But now (March, 1867), Bishop Moriarty of Kerry (Letter to his Clergy, p. 26) boldly and openly uses language such as this : " We acknowledge no pre- scription in this case. The Church does not allow a statute of limitation to bar our claim. The title of the Protestant Church has not even a colour of validity. Our right is in abeyance, but it is unimpaired." 2 " If ever there was a case in which a minority should be weighed after it is counted, it is this." (Right Hon. Sir Jos. Napier's Letter to Lord Monteagle, p. 41.) 24 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE of the community, could not be accomplished without a revolution. The foundations of the Established Church are coeval with those of the Constitution itself, and the destruction of the one would soon lead, in Ireland at least, to the subversion of the other ; and is it not especially significant that the most earnest supporters of the right of universal suffrage are also the most active and noisy opponents of the Irish Church ^ ? Surely, it will be a sad day for our country, in more ways than one, if ever great principles like these are left to be decided by merely numerical majorities. XIV. — Irish Difficulties originally Political, not Religious. The dislike to England, which has for so many centuries rankled in the native Irish heart, was not at first created by difference in religion ; nor would it he in any way softened if the Church in Ireland luere disestablished to-morrow. It originated more than ten centuries ago, when the Church of the English Pale was more thoroughly Ultramontane than the Church of the aboriginal Irish. (See Todd's St. Patrick, p. 242.) It arose from political, not religious differences : it is jDcrpetuated through them ^. The following testimony to the state of Ireland in the times of Edward III., from the pen of Thomas Moore, himself a Roman Catholic, cannot be too carefully pondered over at this time : — " Much of the opposition thus shown to the Government by the Irish Clergy proceeded doubtless from political differences within the Church itself; as even at that period, ivhen all ivere of one faith, the Church of the Government and the Church of the people of Ireland were almost as much separated from each other by difference in race, language, political feeling, and even ecclesiastical discipline, as they have been at any period since by difference in creed Dis- heartening as may be some of the conclusions too j^lainly deducible from this fact, it clearly shows at least that the establishment of the Reformed Church in that kingdom was not the first or sole cause of the bitter hostility between the two races." — Hist, of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 114. XV. — Abolition of the Church as an Establishment, not its Reform, the object of the present attach. Let no friend of the Church in Ireland for a moment be deceived by the idea that the present attack on its temporalities is merely with a view to reform in order to increase its efficiency, and not with the ' Vide Mr. Bright's Letter of Dec. 22, 1864, to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and Mr. W. E. Forstcr's speech at Bradford on Jan. 10, 1865. 2 I am indebted to my friend the Rev. Robert King, the author of our best Irish Church History, for the following valuable remarks on the subject : — " A curious illustration of this is to be found in the fact that there is actually in the native Irish tongue no ivord for Protestant ; indicating the total absence from the native's mind of any idea of a religious enemy as distinct from a national one; or at least the all-absorbing character of the latter nation. In the South the object of enmity is the 'Sassenach' or Saxon; while in the North, similarly, all I'rotcstauts are indiscriminately ' 4-lhauachs ' or ScQtcluncn." OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 25 object of obtaining its abolition as an Establishment. A few internal reforms may from time to time be necessary, a few anomalies may demand to be safely and wisely remedied, bnt these require to be effected by proper authority after due thought and discussion, and not in haste and excitement at the pressure of an hostile faction, nor should it be forgotten that reform in times past has already been carried to such an extent, that, as the Primate observed in his Charge of 1864, p. 11, "the incomes of the Irish Clergy have been pared down to the lowest sum compatible with the existence of the Church in this country." No. Abolition and not reform will alone satisfy the leaders of the present movement. " We demand the disendow- ment of the Established Church in Ireland," says Archbishop Cullen, the Pope's Legate, to his coadjutors^ : and the Liberation Society heartily join in the cry. The real end which all along the oppo- nents of the Irish Church have had in view, however skilfully they may have managed hitherto to deceive the public with respect to it, was clearly pointed out by Sir G-. Cornewall Lewis in his work on the Irish Church Question, published in 1836, to which we have before referred. " It is ever to be remembered in discussing the ecclesiastical state of Ireland," said he, " that the objections of the Roman Catholics to the Established Church of that country are not of more or less ; THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE REMOVED BY THE ABOLITION OF A FEW BISHOPRICS OR THE PARING DOWN OF A FEW BENEFICES, BUT THAT THEY LIE AGAINST ITS VERY EXISTENCE. No improve- ments in the internal economy of the Established Church, in the distribution of its revenues, in the discipline of its Clergy, tend to lessen the sense of grievance arising from this source : the objection is of principle, not of degree, and nothing short of perfect equality in the treatment of all religious sects will satisfy the persons whose discontentment springs from this source."—" The Irish Church Ques- tion," pp. 351,352. Conclusion, From the foregoing it will be seen that the Established Church in Ireland is the Old Church of the country : that it is the same in doctrine, discipline and government as the Church founded by St. Patrick ; that it is the rightful possessor of the tithes of Ireland ; that it has been ecclesiastically one with the Church in England for nearly eight centuries ; that the two as now by law established must stand or fall together, for that an attack on the one is virtually an attack on the other ; that the Church in Ireland has not lost ground in that country since 1834, but has relatively increased ; and that, if it has absolutely lost in number, it has lost much more of its revenues in proportion ; and that, instead of being a source of weakness or ^ " And the coadjutors echo the cry, * No tinkering, no patching, no efforts to make this detestable nuisance less unpalatable, by softening down its particular or minor scandals, can ever be accepted as a final settlement.' " Letters of an Irish Catholic, in The Times of Nov. 15, 1865. 26 FACTS RESPECTING THE PRESENT STATE discontent to the Irish people, as is stoutly but most erroneously asserted by those who seek her destruction, the Established Church is in reality the strongest bond of union between the two countries ; and, in the words of Edmund Burke, " a great link towards holding fast the connexion of religion with the state, and preserving the connexion between England and Ireland." — Burke's Works, vol. vi. p. 72. Bohn's Ed. 1861. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland in 1826 and 1864. Dr. Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, in his Essay on the Catholic Claims, p. 302, in order to prove the sin- cerity of the Romish Bishops in disclaiming all interference with the Established Church in Ireland^ gives the following oaths signed by the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Tuam, and twenty-seven other Irish Bishops, numbering thirty in all. " The Catholics of Ireland, far from claiming any right or title to forfeited lands, resulting from any right, title, or interest which their ancestors may have had therein, declare upon oath, ' That they will defend to the utmost of their power the settlement and arrangement of proj^erty in this country, as established by the laws now in being.' They also ' disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment for the purpose of sub- stituting a Catholic Establishment in its stead. And further, they SWEAR that they will not exercise any privilege to ivhich they are or may he entitled to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant Government in Ireland.' " This declaration was made by the Roman Catholic Prelates, not as individuals, but in their corporate capacity as Bishops of the Romish Church in Ireland, and would therefore, in all ordinary casess be considered binding on their successors : but what is now the language of the Romish hierarchy in Ireland, headed by Archbishop Cullen ? The second resolution of the meeting of December 29, 1864, at which seven Roman Catholic Bishops were present, speaks for itself. It is as follows : — " That we demand the disendowment of the Established Church in Ireland as a condition without which social peace and stability, general respect for the laws, and unity of sentiment and of action for national objects, can never prevail in Ireland." The words in italics are significant, especially when w^e consider what these national objects are ; and the first resolution, moved by Archbishop Cullen himself, concluded thus : — " This singular institution (the Established Church) was originally established, and has always been maintained by force, in opposition to reason and justice, and in defiance of the will of the great majority of the Irish people. That we therefore resent it as a badge of national servitude, ofiensive and degrading alike to all Irish- men, Protestant as well as Catholic 11 55 1 How little right the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops have to speak thus in the name of the Irish people, may be gathered from the following extract from a leading' OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 27 We see, then, that before the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1829, the Roman Catholic Bishops solemnly and on oath disclaimed all intention of subverting the Church Establishment, and declared " they would defend to the utmost the arrangement of property in Ireland, as established by the laws then in being," one of which was the Act of Union. In 1864 they demand the disendowment of the Church Establish- ment as a condition without which social peace and general respect for the law cannot exist in Ireland. Such proceedings can only be justified on the principle asserted in the Bull of Pope Innocent III., when excommunicating the Count of Toulouse, " Juxta sanctorum j)atrum canonicas sanctiones ei qui fidem Deo non servat, Jides servanda non siV — Catel. Hist, des Comtes de Toulouse, p. 242. A Boman Catholic definition of " the Root of the Irish Eviiy We desire to call special attention to the following remarkable ex- tract from The Tablet, one of the chief organs of Roman Catholic oj^inion. It openly asserts that "the wound of Ireland" is — (1) That such a large proportion of the soil of Ireland belongs to Protestants. (2) That Protestants form such a large portion of those classes whose social station in Ireland is above the rest. The disendowment of the Church would abate neither of these evils, and therefore, if the Church Establishment wass removed " the Irish grievance" would still remain. The extract is as follows : — " We have always thought that it could be shown that, if the Irish Church Establishment were abolished to-morrovf — if its churches, lands, and rent-charges were applied to secular purposes or even to Catholic purposes — or if, leaving the Protestant Establishment alone, the Catholic Church were endowed by the State, and put on a footing of perfect equality of wealth and privilege with the Protestant Church, we should only have dealt with one feature, with one symptom of the disease, and should not have reached the seat of the disorder. The wound of Ireland is, that whereas the great majority of the population of Ireland are Catholics, such a large proportion of the soil of Ireland belongs to Protestants, and that Protestants form such a large portion of those classes which, by superior wealth and superior advantages, are raised in social station higher than the rest. " This we believe to be the root of the Irish Evil, and it lies deeper, far deeper, than the Ii'ish Protestant Church Establishment. article of The Times of September 27th, 1865. Eeferring to the Fenian movement it says, " Equally explicit is Tke Irish People about the Irish Church and Tenant Right. About the former it frankly admits that Irishmen ' care very little.' Of the latter one of its correspondents says that whoever proposes it, must think the Irish little better than dogs to be appeased with a bone ! Neither the aholition of the Irish Church, therefore, nor the establishment of Tenant Eight, would have prevented Fenianism.^* 28 APPENDIX. We are perfectly convinced, and on evidence than which demonstra- tion could scarcely be more conclusive, that if the Legislature were to confiscate to-morrow every acre of land and every shilling of tithe rent-charge now belonging to the Protestant Church Establishment in Ireland, and were to deprive the Protestant Bishops and Clergy of every legal privilege which they now possess by virtue of their be- longing to the State Chnrch, they would not have abated the Irish grievance, or cured the Irish disease ; they would only have caused a change in the form of words by which the complaints of those who feel aggrieved now find expression." APPENDIX (A). Progressive increase of Clergy, &c., in Ireland from 1730 to 1863. Clergy. Churches. Benefices. Glebe Houses. 17301 800 400 . . 141. 1806 2 1,253 1,029 1.181 295. 1826 3 1,977 1,192 1,396 768. 18644 2,172 1,579 1,510 978. APPENDIX (B). The following dates in Irish Church history are worthy of special notice at this time ; for it will be seen from them that there is little difficulty in tracing the origin and subsequent development of Pomish power in Ireland, a.d. Landing of St. Patrick in Ireland .... 432 The first Bishop resident in Ireland Avho acknowledged sub- jection in spiritual matters to any but an Irish Primate was Patrick, second Archbishop of Dublin . . . 1074 The first assertion of the Pope's supremac}^ as extending to Ireland was made by Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand) . 1084 The first Eomish Legate in Ireland was Gillebert, Bishop of Limerick . ...... 1106 The first Irish Council at which a Pope's Legate presided was that of Pathbreasil . . . . . .1110 The first Palls bestowed on any Bishop of the Irish Church were sent over in . . . . . . 1151 (More than 700 years after the foundation of the Irish Church by St. Patrick.) The first Irish Council which regulated the Church ritual and discipline of Ireland in conformity with th« Church of England, then in communion with Kome, was that of the Synod of Cashel ...... 1172 ^\i^ first Primate of Armagh appointed by a Pope was Eugene M'Gillivider ....... 1206 The Papal Supremacy was renounced by the Church of Ireland 1534 ^ 1 Charles' Irish Church Directory for 1865. 2 Report of Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Inquiiy, 1807. 3 I. C. Erck's Ecclesiastical Register. * Parliamentary Returns, 1864-. 5 « wiien these historical facts can be annihilated, and not until then, the Church of Rome may boast of the antiquity of the reception of her doctrines and system APPENDIX. 29 A.D. The^rst Presbyterian congregation formed in Ireland (Mant. i. 367) ... . ... . 1611 The Convocation whicli accepted the English Articles of 1562 and ordained the Irish Canons was held in . . . 1634 The Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland received the Koyal Assent, August 1 . . . . . 1800 The Eoman Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in . . 1829 The Church Temporalities Act (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 37), by which ten Irish Bishoprics were suspended, was passed in . . 1834 The Tithe Commutation Act, by which the incomes of the Clergy were diminished 25 per cent., was passed in . . 1838 Ministers' money (amovmting to £12,500 a year), hitherto paid by certain towns, abolished and placed on the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Eund ..... 1854 Irish Church History may be divided into the following periods : — yeaes. The Church existed in Ireland without acknowledging the Papal Supremacy from a.d. 432 to a.d. 1152, a period of . 720 The Supremacy of the Pope was exercised in Ireland from a.d. 1152 to A.D. 1534, a period of ... . 382 The Reformed Church in Ireland has renounced the Supremacy of the Pope since a.d. 1534, a period of . . . 334 Total period of Christianity in Ireland . ' . . . 1436 Total period during which the Church in Ireland has not acknowledged the Supremacy of the Pope . . . 1054 APPENDIX (C). Glebe-Lands in Ieeland. Area of Ireland in Statute acres . . . 20,815,460^ Glebe-lands in the hands of the Beneficed Clergy . 132,756| 20,682,703* These Glebe-lands are distributed as follows : — A. E. P. Province of Armagh . . 111,151 29 ^ Tuam . . 3,067 3 2^ Province of Dublin „ Cashel in this country ; for the ancient religion of Ireland cannot he that which com- menced its development 600 years at least after the arrival of St. FatricJc in this island. And whosoever, therefore, is disposed to look upon submission to the Pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth, as a necessary sign of a good Catholic Christian, will find very little traces of such Catholics in Ireland before the close of the 11th century." — R. King's Irish Church History, ii. 581. 1 Thorn's Official Directory for 1868, p. 743. 2 Report of Commissioners of Inquiry in 1833, 114,218 3 32 9,475 9,062 1 1 36i 131 18,537 3 lOi 30 APPENDIX. It will be observed, that 111,151 acres (or 5-6tlis of the whole) lie within the ancient province of Armagh, and were granted to the Eeformed Church in the 17th century, and therefore never were in the possession of the Church of Rome. £ Total value of Crops in Ireland in 1866 .... 30,217,776 Poor Law Valuation of Property in 1866 .... 12,989,026 43,206,802 1 A tithe of that would be 4,320,680 Gross Income of all the Irish Bishops and Clergy . . 586,428 Net Income 448,943 The above returns are taken from Tlioms Official Directory for 1868. APPENDIX (D), SUMMAEY OF Tlie Roman Catholic Church in Ireland^. Archbishops ...... 4 Bishops 27 Total number of Priests, including Regu- lars and Private Chaplains, &c. . . 3,120 Parishes 1,071 Churches and Chapels .... 2,329 Protestants and Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom. It is believed that the following will be found to be nearly an accurate Statement of the number of Protestants and Eoman Catholics in the United Kingdom in 1861 ^. Protestants. Roman Catholics. England . . 19,498,316 707,188 = 20,205,504 Ireland . . 1,293,702 4,505,265 = 5,798,967 20,792,018 5,212,453 = 26,004,471 Scotland . . 2,938,801 122,450 = 3,061,251 Total. . 23,730,819 5,334,903 = 29,065,722 1 This is exclusive of the Live Stock in Ireland, which, in 1866, was valued at £50,453,522. See Thorn's Directory for 1868, p. 787. 2 These returns are taken from the Eoman Catholic Directory for 1866. 3 It is too often forgotten that the disestablishment of the Irish Church is an Imperial question, which intimately coucerns the whole of the United Kingdom. Disendow the Established Church in Ireland, and on what principle can the Esta- blishment in Scotland be maintained ? APPENDIX. 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(?! 1 1 rH lO 1—1 O i> XO l> o 05 t- 00 r-i Ji 1-i r-i r-i rH rH r-i r-i r-i rH VO s r-^ 3 ci m H S J3 (U >< .';:^ o » O CO o I— 1 GO (M CO OO r-i ^rH ^ '^ 1 1 M .£•" S S i:^ Ci VO VO r-t -* r> CD CD 00 ^ Ci 1 a CO (M rH N rH 3 fc-=q cq H (M CD ^ O \o lO o t^r Ci 1> (-> rH CD •>_; C 4) . lO Oi t> (M Ci O CD '^ CO r-i CD U5 T? I-H 00 OT CD Oi 1> r-i (M t> o 00 CO "^5 i oo" lO ctT ■^ Oi o" lO o" ■3^- t> 1 r-^ X \a '^ cq \o CD 00 00 ^ ^. t^ Xft o 1 O a> t^ 05^ ^ 05 (N CD (M x> 1> i> !>; X> 3 •» ._r r-T p-T r-l r-l r^ C^ ■fac • • • . • f. .2 o i2 I-H g 6 i • • • • * • ^ Cm « 1 Q 'S n3 1 1 1 p 2 1 -B g ^ S ;3 t? '3 1 J 'ci § if -1 ^ .^^ s '^ i-H c 00 ci 6 r^ d i^ rH rH rH V •Hf)VKaY •iniana ^ JO aouiAOJj; JO eouiAoajj fA M EIGHT vSHORT PAPERS on the IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. I. A Few Words to Englishmen on the Irish Church Question. Price 2d. II. Where are we to Stop ? III. A Few Words on the Origin of Church Property in Ireland. IV. Facts respecting the Irish Church worth remembering. V. 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