Digest of Irish Benefices.

REMARKS ON THE DIGEST.

Armagh contains, according to Dr. Beaufort's map of Ireland, 470,000 acres ; divided among 78 livings, it gives an average of 6,000 acres each, worth at least £3,000 a-year, exclusive of glebes and houses.

Cashell and Emly contains 131 parishes, but only 57 benefices. The resident parsons are 34, the absent 23. The benefices returned contain 272,391 acres, averaging 5,044 to each, besides houses and glebes: the value of land in the diocese makes the tithes of each benefice, at 5s. in the pound on the rental, amount to £2,837 a-year: the cost of administering church rites in this diocese, is about £110 a-year for each Protestant family.

Clogher has, out of 44 parsons, only 25 resident. As the late Bishop JOCELYN made no return of tithes in any benefice, there is no stating particulars.

Clonfert contains 710 Protestant families, 2,769 Catholic. The tithes, according to Wakefield's valuation, reckoned at only four rents, would amount to £88,000 per annum, or £6,300 for each incumbent. Five incumbents are absent, and nine resident. The Bishop says that the old division of tithes into FOUR PARTS is still retained in his diocese: we suppose, however, the Bishop and the Priest now divide the two parts formerly intended for the poor and the repairs of the church. Cloyne has 78 parsons; 45 of whom are non-resident.

In Cork 11 parsons out of 20 are absent.

Derry, under Bishop Knox, exhibits a singular spectacle: the Dean (Saurin) has three glebes of 1,530 acres freehold, deanery-house, and the tithes of 89,600 acres. The whole diocese contains 16,347 acres of glebe, which gives an average of 320 acres for each parson, besides all tithes. A tenth-part of a district, containing 200,000 inhabitants, is thus shared among FIFTY-FOUR clergymen, besides an estate of 320 acres. For the Bishop's relations see Knox's in the List.

Dublin has only 49 resident parsons out of 78. There are thirty-one deaneries, chancellorships, prebendaries, &c. in the diocese, but no return of the glebe and estates annexed to these offices and sinecures,

Elphin: see French in the List of Pluralists.

Kildare has 25 absentees and only 18 residents. There are two appropriations in this diocese without any return; one belonging to the Bishop appears to be very extensive, and yields to him the tithes of TWENTY different townships or places-they probably contain 40,000 or 50,000 acres.

Killala and Achonry contains 52 parishes, compressed into 20 benefices, with 14 resident and 6 absent parsons, enjoying the tithes of 708,800 acres, to administer church rites to 562 Protestant families. The tithes only would yield £300 a-year for EACH PROTESTANT FAMILY, supposing land worth only twelve shillings per English acre. Notwithstanding this COSTLY management, it appears that, from 1766 to 1792, the Catholics increased from 6 to 1 to 60 to 1-that is in a tenfold proportion ! Three of this Bishop's relations (the Verschoyles) hold ten parishes and 96,160 acres of tithe.

Killaloe. By the Return 28 benefices in this diocese yield 674,008 acres, averaging 24,071 acres to each benefice. The average rent, by Wakefield, is 33s. per acre. Taking the tithe at one-fourth the rent, these benefices would be worth £9,929 a-year each. Eight Sinecurists hold THIRTY-TWO parishes without even the cure of one soul.

Kilmore contains 30 benefices, the GLEBES alone of which amount to 11,026 acres, averaging 367 acres of freehold each, worth £540 a-year. Surely these freeholds are quite ample, without any tithe whatever, for reading the church service to A FIFTH

Irish Church Patronage.

of the population; but if, in addition to the £540 a-year, freehold, besides houses, demesnes, &c., each possess (like the pluralist Wynne) 30,000 acres of tithe--what a picture!

Leighlin. Forty-three parishes in this diocese are not returned, because the tithes are in the hands of Lay Impropriators.

Waterford contains 18 resident, 32 absent clergymen. The tithes of this diocese, according to Wakefield's calculation, are worth £394,200 a-year, and are appropriated to administer religious rites to 1,375 persons out of 108,625. The number of Catholics in 1792 were 108,625; Protestants 1,375. In 1766 the Catholic families were 76,519; Protestants 2,879. The Catholics, during that interval, therefore, increased from 6 to 1 to 80 to 1. So much for the efficacy of tithes in supporting the Reformed religion.

IRISH CHURCH PATRONAGE.

1

The Irish Bishops have a far greater proportion of patronage than the English

Bishops: the former have the gift of 1,392 livings out of 2,249; the latter have only

Irish Church Patronage.

the gift of 1,290 out of 11,598. The livings, too, in the gift of the Irish Bishops are far more valuable. Those in the gift of the Archbishop of Cashel, Wakefield says, are worth £35,000 per annum; those in the gift of the Bishop of Cloyne, £50,000; of Cork, £30,000; and of Ferns, £30,000. In the See of Cloyne ONE living is worth £3,000, one worth £2,000, and three worth £1,500 each. A living of £500 is but a middling one in Ireland, and any thing beneath it is considered very low.

The King's Ministers, nominating the Bishops, and these having the disposal of all the livings, with the exception of a few to the Universities, lay lords, and those that are tithe free, the whole of the tithes and church revenues of Ireland are in the gift of the Crown. Hence we may see how hopeless is the prospect of Reform under the present system. Indeed the Irish Protestant Establishment forms a convenient and almost inexhaustible fund for Parliamentary curruption; and appointments to it, like those in the Colonies, being out of sight of the English public, they are often made without any regard to decency. Thus a Lieutenant in the Navy has been made an Archbishop; a Member of the Collective Wisdom, a Dean; a Proprietor, and it is said Editor, of a Newspaper, a Chancellor; and an Aide-de-Camp at the Castle, a rich Rector. The promotion of such a fellow as JoCELYN is still more illustrative. And all this, too, in times when "moral considerations" have been impudently pretended to influence Government by one Member who unhappily has had too much influence in the Irish system.

The Irish Sees are almost in the exclusive possession of the thick-and-thin supporters of Administration, in the families of the Beresfords, the Clancartys, Balcarras, Mayos, Northlands, Rodens, Hoaths, Kilkennys, Caledons, &c. Among whom one looks in vain for a single scholar or celebrated divine.