Lords Sitting of 5 March 1827

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION—IRISH VESTRIES.
Lord Kingsaid, he had a petition intrusted to him by the Catholics of Ireland; and, as it related to the state in which they were placed with respect to the church of Ireland, he had been unwilling to present it before he saw an Irish prelate in the House. The petition complained of the exactions which were practised on the property of the Catholics at the will and pleasure of Protestants, for Protestant purposes, and with very little check given to them by those who had the power to control such proceedings. The petition stated the grievances the Catholic suffered from being obliged to pay sums of money, levied by vestries, where Protestants voted away the money, nine-teen-twentieths of which were paid by Catholics; Catholics being excluded by law from voting at vestries on a great many occasions. The petition stated, that the church of Ireland was the richest primeval Christian church in the world; the people the poorest and most wretched in any country. The number that professed the faith of the Established Church was comparatively the smallest in any country in the world which was burthened with an established church. The petition went on to state the injustice of persons being allowed to tax others, while the classes who paid the money had no control whatsoever over them. He was aware of an act being passed professing to be for the relief of the Roman Catholics, as assessed by Protestant vestries. That act, however, so far from being a relief, was an aggravation of the evil. Whether this was true or not he could not say; but that was the opinion of those who stated that they were aggrieved. Certainly, Catholics were, in a great many cases, excluded from being present at vestries. It was true that they had a right of appeal; but, coupled with a condition which few Catholics, he was afraid,

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were enabled to comply with; namely, sureties of 100 l. each, to answer any costs that might be given against the appellant. In order that their lordships might see that the petitioners did not complain without reason, he would read to them some of the exactions practised on the Catholics, which would appear quite incredible, had they not been sanctioned by the authority of a parliamentary return. He thought their lordships would be astonished at some of the items. In the parish of St. Thomas, Dublin, at a vestry composed of Protestants, voting away money that was paid by the Catholics, the following were charges, year after year, that were exacted from the Catholics:—for wine to the sacrament, 28 l., for a sextoness 30 l. for a sexton 30 l., for a beadle 20 l. There was, besides, an extraordinary compensation made to the rev. Mr. Field, and the rev. Mr. Copland, for attending early service, of 50 l. each. Two women were also paid for attending early service; so that it would appear that the vestry was first of all forced to pay the preachers for their attendance, and afterwards to buy a congregation to hear them. The two women had a yearly stipend allowed them for attending as well as the clergyman; and thus their lordships might go on year after year, for as sure as the same sum was charged for the clergyman attending, so sure were the two old women paid for their attendance. And it was the same with the sacramental wine. Every year 28 l. was charged for that article; it would seem, therefore, that there was no falling off in the number of the communicants. He would now take another parish. In that parish he found that 150 l. was charged for compensation for early service: there was paid to the organist 70 l.; to Margaret Ryan, gallery keeper, 20 l.; to assistant gallery-keeper 20 l.; to the vestry-keeper 20 l.; to the organ-blower, 20 l.; for sacramental wine, 20 l. In another parish, 59 l. 11 s. 8d. was charged for the sacramental wine. He thought such a charge quite enormous. In Dublin, the diocese was charged with the expense of repairing the cathedral. In England, it was both the law and the practice to pay for the repairs of the cathedral out of the property of the cathedral. But in Ireland the cathedrals were thrown upon the parish. In the diocese of Waterford, in the union of Trinity, there was this item: for repairing the roof of the cathedral, 220 l., levied by the vestry, and
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paid for by the Catholics. He would now go to another cathedral, that of Lismore. In 1812, 95 l. was paid for repairing the cathedral gates; in 1813, 100 l.; in 1814, 122 l. 8s. 1d.; in 1815, 51 l.; in 1816, 100 l.; and in the year 1817, 20 l. What did their lordships think the expense of repairing these gates amounted to?—to a sum of no less than 488 l. Michael Angelo had said that the gates of a celebrated church in Florence were so beautiful that they were fit to be the gates of Paradise. He did not know whether the gates of Lismore cathedral were equal to those famous gates in Florence, but he thought it was the highest price ever paid for gates in the world. These expenses were paid for by the parish, nineteen-twentieths of which were composed of Catholics. He would now take another diocese, that of Cork. Here the items were as follows:—Paid to the parish clerk, 20 l.; for singing anthems, 34 l. 2s.; for instructing the boys, 22 l.; for the sacramental wine, 22 l.; and to parish clerk for evening attendance, 34 l.; as if he had not enough already; for washing the church linen, 9l. 2s.; for candles for the church, 30 l. All this sounded most extraordinary to English ears. In the diocese of Elfin there was paid for repairs done by order of the bishop, 220 l. Cash paid to the bishop for outlay by him two sums of 50 l., and one of 33 l. From these charges it appeared to him, that the vestries imitated a certain assembly, which never made the expenses it had to vote as small but as great as possible. The vestries were to be sure but a very humble imitation. A person once went into that assembly, and he thought it a very strange place, in which very strange things were done. One man handed up a paper, and mumbled a few unintelligible words over it, which he afterwards found to be a vote of some millions. So a Protestant carpenter hands up to a Protestant mason an estimate of necessary repairs, and they get a very good job between them, and it turns out that there is a very large sum to be paid. One reason that was given why so few Catholics attended the vestries was, the general satisfaction their proceedings had given. How far that was the case, would appear from the opinion of those who were interested in the matter; who stated, that small proportion of the parish, an interested minority, was enabled to tax, to a great amount, the majority who were composed of Catholics. It was most

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unconstitutional to take money from a man without his own consent. It was nothing less than downright robbery. That, however, was but a part of the mischief. If a man appealed to the sessions, he must do two things. He must employ a good practical lawyer, and he must find two sureties bound in 100 l. each to answer for the costs. The noble lord moved, that the petition be read.
The Bishop of Chesterobserved, that many of the things complained of by the petitioners, if they were objectionable, might equally be made a subject of complaint in England. He certainly did not feel himself called upon to defend the particular acts referred to, or to support Protestants in making exactions on Roman Catholics. It must be allowed, that it appeared hard in principle, that so large a majority of persons as that described in the petition, should possess no countervailing power to protect their interests. If they had no such protection already, he had no hesitation in saying that some alteration was necessary. With regard to vestry jobs, he confessed that, from his own experience in England, he must say that they were more frequent than, for the interest of the church, they ought to be. He had taken the pains to look through the ponderous volume, to which the noble lord had referred, and he must express his opinion, that, considering the vast number of returns, the instances of abuse appeared to be extremely few. There were one or two points in the noble lord's speech which he should take the liberty of adverting to. As to the remark made on the sum of 50 l. a-year being charged for each of two clergymen for performing morning service, he wished the noble lord to recollect that no clergyman was bound by law to perform divine service more than twice a day. When, however, a parish was large, it was usual to engage a clergyman for morning service, which was performed at six o'clock, and surely the noble lord would not consider 50 l, a-year too much for that duty. In such cases the churchwardens proposed a stipend to be given for the morning service; and that stipend was generally a small one. The same course was followed in many English churches, as in St. James's and other parishes in the metropolis. To this item of expense he understood the Catholics did not object. Another item of expense which was very con-
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siderable had been referred to. He meant the sacramental elements. But the noble lord must be aware, that when there was any surplus of those elements, it was directed by the rubric to be given to the poor. Now, as there was no poor-laws in; Ireland, it was probable that, on that account, the charge for wine was greater than it otherwise would be, because the almoner of the church would thereby be enabled to relieve proper objects. With regard to the two old women who were stated to be paid for attending morning service, it must be observed, that there were in every place of worship persons who opened the pews, lighted the candles, and did other necessary offices. They were the servants of the church, and were paid for their services. This, he had no doubt, would be found to be the case, on examining the charge for those two women. As to the salary of the organists, he doubted if that was, or ever had been, objected to, by the; Roman Catholics. He knew that in a parish in Dublin, in 1812, nine-pence had been collected from 1,800 houses for defraying this expense, but the trouble to the collector was so great, that the Roman Catholics agreed among themselves to give 70 l. a-year. In 1819, several salaries were raised by the Roman Catholics from 40 l. to 50 l. a-year. In 1820, 10 l. a-year was added to the salary of the clerk in the parish he had alluded to; and the addition probably might be for instructing children to sing anthems. With respect to the Roman Catholics attending vestries, he was aware that they had not the right of voting or of opposing the vote which might be come to; but it appeared that their opinion was always attended to. The Roman Catholics were, indeed, generally consulted on such subjects; and if they had not so been in the instance alluded to, it was probable that their voices would, before now, have been heard beyond the narrow confines of their own parish. He was ready to acknowledge that there might, be some cases of hardship; but it did not appear that the actual abuses had been such as to induce: the Catholics generally to complain; and, as far as he could learn, the Catholics had been no less liberal than their Protestant brethren in remunerating the services in question.
Lord Clifdenobserved, that when the churches of Ireland were, in the reign of Henry 8th, and his successor, Elizabeth,

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taken from the Catholics and given to the Protestants, they were in good repair; but they had since been suffered to fall into decay. Every man, acquainted with Ireland, knew that he could not ride the distance of three miles without seeing a church in ruins. Now, however, a fancy had been taken to build churches; but it was very unreasonable that the Catholics should be compelled to pay for the rebuilding of churches, which the Protestants had allowed to go to ruin.
The Earl of Limerickin reply to the observations that the funds of the cathedrals ought to pay the expenses of their repairs, said, that in Ireland the cathedrals were, in many instances, parish churches, and that, therefore, the charges for repairing them fell on the parish.
Lord King, having been appealed to by the right reverend prelate, on the subject of the charge for the expense of morning service, must say, that 50 l. certainly was not too much in England for Protestant purposes; but that 150 l. was far too much in Ireland for performing that service for a comparatively small number of Protestants.
Lord Strangford, without intending to follow the noble lord through his items, said, it happened to be in his power to answer him on one point. He was in Ireland last Easter twelvemonth. He then went to the church of St. Thomas, Dublin, to the morning service, when so far from there being only two old women present, there were, at seven o'clock in the morning, four hundred persons in the church, and afterwards that number was increased to eight hundred communicants. This being the fact, what became of the assertion of the necessity of paying two old women to attend the morning service? And what became of the supposed enormity of the charge of 28 l. for wine, when eight hundred communicants were assembled on this ocasion.
Ordered to lie on the table.