HL Deb 09 March 1826 vol 14 cc1205-8
The Earl of Kingston

rose to bring forward the motion of which he had given notice. He had hoped, he said, that the subject would have been taken up by some one better qualified for the task than he was; and indeed he wished it had been brought before their lordships by one of the learned prelates, to whose province it more particularly belonged. From the reports upon their lordships' table, it appeared, that a vast number of unions of parishes had taken place in the province of Munster, not such unions as that of seven religious houses in the city of Cork, which altogether did not extend over half a mile; but of large parishes, extending over a distance of fifteen miles. In that large union, there was only one church, and that one church had been built by a private individual, the ancestor of the present lord Massey. In the province of Munster, their lordships would find instances of six, seven, and eight parishes united together, with but one church amongst them all. Now, it was impossible to expect people to remain of the Protestant religion in a place where they had no church to attend, and where they could not even procure the attendance of a clergyman in cases of emergency. He bad been told, that no curate had been seen in the parish of Kilbennie for several years, and that the inhabitants were therefore obliged, when they required the performance of any religious office, to send to the rector of another parish five or six miles off. He did not mean, by making these observations, to say any thing disrespectful of the clergy. Undoubtedly, they had done much. Many churches had been built, but they had not funds to build all that were necessary. In moving, therefore, for a commitee to consider the present state of the church in Munster, he was rather addressing himself to his majesty's ministers, in the hope of inducing them to furnish the clergy with the means of building churches, and per- petuating the established religion. The piety and zeal of the Roman Catholic clergymen in that part of the country were truly praiseworthy. They attended their flocks with the most exemplary attention; while the Protestant inhabitants had no person to attend to their spiritual wants. The noble earl, after referring to the reports before the House, for the number of unions in the dioceses of Cashel and Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe, concluded by moving for a committee to inquire into the state of the Protestant church in Munster. In Ulster, he said, there was a church in every parish.

The Earl of Harrowby

thought the noble earl had not laid before the House sufficient grounds to induce them to accede to his motion. He had moved for a committee, while the very papers which he held in his hands would, if examined, have afforded an answer thereto. There could be little doubt, that in some cases these unions of parishes had been a great evil; but he did not think that observation could be properly made of those unions which had been effected under episcopal authority, and which must, therefore, be supposed to have been made on good consideration. It was said, that many of these unions were without a single church, and blame had been attributed to the government on that account. Now, the fact was, that the government were not at all insensible to the evils of which the noble earl had complained. That they were not insensible to these evils, might be proved by the single fact, that in the twenty years preceding 1822,175 churches had been built in the province of Munster, and 122 glebe houses had been given. In the particular case to which the noble earl had alluded, the vicar was not resident, but the curate had always attended. These returns contained all the information that the noble earl could acquire, even if the committee were granted; and for himself he must say, that he thought the granting of a committee would be casting an undeserved slur on the dignitaries of the church of Ireland.

The Bishop of Ferns

thought himself bound, as the clerical representative of that part of the kingdom, to say a few words on this subject. He should call on the House to exercise all their indulgence towards him, for he was not much accustomed to addressing public bodies on any subject, and on this subject par- ticularly he was unprepared. He had none of his Irish brethren to assist him, and the notice of motion had been too short to enable him to send to Ireland for information. Returns of unions, and of their dissolution, and the time when such dissolution took place, had been made, and every information had been afforded, except that which might be expected from the proceeding now going on in Ireland. The noble earl opposite had referred to the extent of these unions, but their extent alone did not furnish any satisfactory evidence of the difficulty or facility of the performance of clerical duties. One parish, he knew, was several miles in length, and three quarters of a mile in breadth, and the difficulty there arose not so much from its extent as its form. There was another parish, of which he had given up the tithes for building a church, and that parish although very small, possessed a greater number of parishioners than some which were much larger. The evil did not lie where the noble earl seemed to imagine, and the true remedy was, not to dissolve the parish unions, but to erect chapels of ease, for the accommodation of those who were at a distance from the church. The fact was, it was only by means of these unions that the rectors could be able to receive any payment; for although these unions covered a great extent of ground, it was seldom they had many inhabitants. The rectors at present, so far from being overpaid, were actually very poor. Many of these unions were so poor, as to leave nothing to pay the rector after he had discharged the claims of his curates. The rector of Wexford had three curates, and their pay, although moderate, swallowed up nearly the whole revenue of the parish. There were seven episcopal unions in Cashel, and in. none were there more than two parishes. In Emly there were only two unions. He had once applied to the board of First Fruits to erect an additional church in Leitrim, in which there were five hundred parishioners, who complained that they were too distant from the church; but the application was refused, on the ground of want of funds; and in another case, where he had been applied to, he had felt himself bound to require, before he interfered, a description of the form of the parish, as well as of the number of its inhabitants. After some observations, his lordship concluded by expressing his conviction that the survey at present going on in Ireland would furnish his majesty's government with the best information as to what measures they ought to adopt with regard to this subject.

The Earl of Kingston

insisted that he had made out a case to justify his motion, and that the circumstances stated by the right rev. prelate proved it. He knew a district in the South of Ireland, through which one might travel along the high road for a distance of twenty-two miles without seeing a single church. Although, however, he was satisfied that he had fully made out a case, yet as his object in: bringing forward his motion was to point the attention of the learned prelates to the subject, he was willing to abstain from pressing it.—His lordship accordingly withdrew his motion.