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From: "Jane O'Brien" <>
Subject: The Church of Ireland in ireland in 1931
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 18:46:45 +0100

THE CHURCH OF IRELAND (1931)

There were 33 Church of Ireland Dioceses in 1931. All incumbents on
vacancies occurring, were appointed by the several Boards of Nominations,
except I some cases of District Churches and Parochial Chapels, where
Trustees were appointed previous to the Dis-establishment, and in parishes
where , under the statutes of the Church, Donors by Endowment acquired the
Patronage.

Until Jan 1, 1871, the Church of Ireland was established by Law and was
combined with the Church of England, by the Act of Union (1800). The
Bishops and beneficed Clergy had a freehold in their offices, and in the
emoluments and privileges belonging to these offices; the resources of the
Church were practically all derived from the tithe rent charges, from the
annual rents or produce of Church lands, from occasional private
subscriptions, and from the income arising out of private benefactions. The
lay members of the church were entitled to all the ministrations of its
clergy without any liability to support it with their contributions; and
they had neither authority nor responsibility in relation to the management
of its temporal affairs.

The Irish Church Act, 1869, provided that from January 1, 1871, the
statutory union between the Churches of England and Ireland should be
dissolved, and that the Church of Ireland should cease to be established by
law. Subject to the vested interests of the then existing Bishops, Clergy
and other Church officers, all such Church property of every kind was vested
in the ‘Commissioners of Church Temporalities’ who were created by the Act
and who carried out al the transactions that the Act required - in
realising all items of property, selling Church lands to occupying tenants
and others and discharging all liabilities imposed by the Act, and, from
time to time, as parliament might direct, appropriating the surplus to
various Irish purposes.

All the Ecclesiastical Corporations that existed under former conditions
having been dissolved by the Irish Church Act, the necessity arose for the
creation of a new corporate body to take over from the Church Temporalities
Commissioners whatever property and moneys under the e Act were to be
transferred to the Authorities of the disestablished Church, and to be the
trustee and agent in respect of property and funds subsequently acquired.
This was met by the corporation in 1870 of the Representative Church Body.
This body was constituted so as to include representatives from every part
of Ireland.

By recognising the vested interests of the Bishops, Clergy and other church
officers who were in office when the Act came into operation and their
rights to receive their respective emoluments during their lives and by
making it a condition, that in return they should render the same service as
before, an opportunity was afforded by the authorities to make plans for
future church sustentation. It was eventually decided that instead of
having a general plan for all Ireland , local effort would be stimulated to
a greater degree, and other advantages secured by having a separate plan
for each diocese or group of dioceses in which the resources of all the
parishes under the plan would be pooled, and by which a steady voluntary
effort on a uniform principle from the very beginning on the part of all the
parishes would eventually secure on the disappearance of the last surviving
annuitant, an accumulated capital, the interest on which, with the same
regular annual subscriptions from the parishes, would fully meet the
Stipends secured to the Clergy of the Diocese under each particular scheme.

At a General Convention held in 1870, it was declared as a general and
fundamental principle, that a General Synod consisting of the Archbishops
and Bishops, and of representatives of the Clergy and Laity "shall have
chief legislative power as may be necessary and consistent with its
Episcopal constitution""
The General Synod consists of three orders, the Bishops, the Clergy and the
Laity. These sit as two Houses, the House of Bishops consisting of all the
Archbishops and Bishops and the House of Representatives, consisting of 216
Clerical and 432 Lay Representatives, distributed among the dioceses and
elected every third year by the Diocesan Synods.

The Registered Vestrymen are Church members who either own property or are
resident in the parish, or are accustomed members of the congregation of the
Church or Churches in the parish. They are the constituency that elects 9a0
one of the Churchwardens - the other being nominated by the Incumbent; (b)
members of the Select Vestry which controls the Parochial Charity and Church
Funds © the Lay Synodsmen who sit in the Diocesan Synod and (d) the three
Parochial Nominators who with the Bishop and the three Diocesan Nominators
elected by the Diocesan Synod elect the Board of Nomination with whom rests
the appointment of the Incumbent of the parish.

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