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in order to
abolish the
filthy barba-
rity of the

Irish
Church.

as in England, so also in Ireland, the annual payment of one penny for every house;) to the end that the filthy practices of that land may be abolished, and the barbarous nation which is called by the Christian name, may through your clemency attain unto some decency of manners; and that when the Church of that country, which has been hitherto in a disordered state, shall have been reduced to better order, that people may by your means possess for the future the reality as well as the name of the Christian profession."

This Bull and the preceding may be seen in the original, with notes and references to authorities, in Ussher's Sylloge, Nos. 46 and 47.

No. XXXVI.

Old Eng

lish version of the 8th act of the Synod of Cashel.

ON THE EIGHTH ACT OF THE CASHEL SYNOD.

Allusion has been made at p. 520, not. sup to the translation of the 8th act of the Cashel Synod given in the old English version of Giraldus. The passage as there given I could only refer to from memory, (not having the MS. within my reach,) when that note was going to press. But having since transcribed it from the original, I am enabled to subjoin it in this place,

viz. :

"The 8 that all men and women worshipe holy

Churche and ofte goe to churche and holye church in all sarvice be governede one the manner that is in England."-Gir. MS. F. 4. 4, (in T.C.D.) p. 24.

This appears after all to refer to the service and worship of the Church.

No. XXXVII.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE TITHES AND OTHER CHURCH PROPERTY IN

IRELAND.

Church

and ignorant

There are few topics perhaps which furnish Irish for the harangues of the rash and the malicious property a more fruitful matter for statements full of un- favourite subject with blushing effrontery, profligate mendacity, and conceited unmitigated and obvious nonsense, than that of "Reform" the Church establishment of Ireland. The af- politicians; fair is confessedly in an unsatisfactory state. It has perplexed many wise and good and well-informed statesmen ;-and yet the hair-brained captain-the pampered slavedealer of the cotton mill-the fat-headed stockbroker-the designing revolution-monger of every class, Romish, dissenting, or infidel, and every other political quack-doctor-is ready with his plan of parliamentary tinkering, for the settlement of the case, if only you will give him leave to work at it in his own way. It is true that neither bob

VOL. III.

who find it however

a somewhat

bins, nor parade, nor steam-shares, nor even reform clubs, are the objects most likely to furnish and prepare the mind for so serious an undertaking; but however, although knowing little more of the matter than he does of the tenantright or sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the remote side of the moon, each is confident of his powers; no Morison, Perry, nor Holloway, more so. Each is there with his pack down, ready for opening. "Just let him but hammer at the vessel half an hour; patch this corner; clip that; smoothen the other; and you'll see what a nice job he'll make of it. It will be a complete new thing. You wouldn't know it to be the same."

Unfortunately however for the development of the abilities of these no less talented than unmanage- well-informed individuals, "there are difficulties able study. in the way." Very old ones too. For it is now some 3300 years since that eminently renowned and zealous political jobber, the Son of Beor, from the mountains of the East, was anticipated in the perception of some of them by the longeared quadruped on which he rode forth to his crusade against the Church of God. "There are difficulties," which must force even the most recklessly compliant and unscrupulous of whig generals to curb and muzzle, as may be possible, the turbulent and unprincipled band of his fero

cious retainers.

"There are difficulties"-and

will be, thank heaven-until the Church's own unfaithfulness, or need of chastisement, give occasion for their providential removal.

To enter at any length here into the difficult Extent of and complicated subject of the ecclesiastical the subject. property of Ireland, its glebes and see lands, tithes and ministers' money-their several origins, and the changes to which they have been subjected-reduced at one time to a low condition by war or legislative plunder, and again rising to prosperity under more friendly auspices their transmission from hand to handand the heads of the civil enactments which from age to age have altered their values, or otherwise affected their general circumstances, however useful such an essay might be, would be of course utterly impossible here. We may however profitably introduce a few notices and statements of a general kind, likely to prove useful to the unlearned, as enabling them to comprehend better the force of the misrepresentations commonly current in connection with this subject.

of Church

The CHURCH LANDS of Ireland were in their First origin origin the fruits of the voluntary system, a valu- lands in Ireable adjunct (however insufficient as an exclu- land. sive source of income) to other means of supporting a religious establishment. By such

landed property was the Church in this country maintained in the earliest ages, before the establishment of the tithe system under AngloNorman influence. The native princes and lords of Ireland gave in the most ancient times after the introduction of Christianity, to particular saints, various territories and plots of ground, on which to build churches and monastic schools, to be held by them and their successors for ever; to which others were added by donation or purchase from time to time, until at length foundations and endowments of the kind were to be found in almost every parish. The lands chosen by the austere and retiring piety of the ancient saints were generally in the most retired spots; for they loved the desert and seclusion, as affording more hope of peace and security in troublous times, and better opportunity for the kind of life they had selected for themselves. And where the bounty of secular princes would have bestowed the gift in a rich and fertile soil, they preferred what was less attractive to covetousness, contenting themselves with wild and barren spots, which might by unwearied labour become productive and valuable. And in fact, by their persevering toils, those very spots became in after times the richest and most fertile in the country: so that while, from the lives and habits of the lay proprietors, their

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