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Updated: May 21, 2025
The report of the ecclesiastical commission originated by him, with its startling disclosures of pluralism and non-residence, became the basis of legislation which has wrought a veritable revolution in the financial and disciplinary administration of the church. His tithe bill, abortive as it was in 1835, was reproduced, with little alteration, in the tithe commutation act of 1836.
There is a special reason given by at least one English writer, why Irish landlords ought to be resident, and thus endeavour to gain the confidence of their tenants; and that is, because nine-tenths of the Irish estates have been confiscated from the native owners, and are held by men who differ from their tenants in country and religion; and their non-residence, and consequent want of sympathy with the people, perpetuates in the minds of those people the bitter traditions of rapine and conquest; so that, instead of feeling they are the tenants of kind, considerate landlords, they are apt to regard themselves, in some sort, as the despised slaves of conquerors, who, if they do not still look upon them as "Irish enemies," do not certainly entertain for them the feelings which ought to find a place in the breasts of landlords who look upon their tenants as something more than mere rent producers.
After this the Third Estate demanded the convocation of a general assembly every ten years, a more just distribution of taxes, equality of all before the law, the suppression of interior custom-houses, the abolition of sundry sinecures held by nobles, the forbidding to leading nobles of unauthorized levies of soldiery, some stipulations regarding the working clergy and the non-residence of bishops; and in the midst of all these demands, as a golden grain amid husks, they placed a demand for the emancipation of the serfs.
In the ministry of 1767, however that of the Duke of Grafton and Lord Chatham Lord Halifax was replaced at Dublin Castle by Lord Townsend, who, among his other good qualities, deserves specially honorable mention as the first Lord-lieutenant who made residence in Dublin his rule on principle; for till very lately non-residence had been the rule and residence the exception, a fact which is of itself a melancholy but all-sufficient proof of the absolute indifference to Irish interests shown by all classes of English statesmen.
When Lady Huntingdon founded her college for the training of ministers at Trevecca, she invited Fletcher to undertake a sort of general superintendence over it. This Fletcher undertook without fee or reward not, of course, with the intention of residing there, for he had no sympathy with the bad custom of non-residence which was only too common in his day.
Pluralities and non-residence being thus so common among the very men whose special duty it was to prevent them, one can hardly wonder that the evil prevailed to a sad extent among the lower clergy.
Yet Knox did not advise a secession; he merely advised that non-residence, or a scandalous life, or erroneous doctrine, on the part of the person presented, should make his presentation 'null and of no force or effect, and this to have place also in the nomination of the bishops. Thus Knox was, on occasion, something of an opportunist.
We find in the act-books officiating rectors or vicars presented for non-residence upon their cures; while rectors and other recipients of great tithes are "detected" at visitations for not repairing the chancels in their churches; or not maintaining their vicarage buildings with barns and dove-cotes; or for not providing quarter sermons where the clergyman serving the cure was not himself licenced to preach; beneficed men not resident are arraigned for not giving the fortieth part of their revenue to the parish poor; resident ministers indicted for not keeping hospitality, or for not visiting the sick.
Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them together, and of unlimited non-residence. In the course of his harangue he made use of the phrase non obstantibus, of which Lucifer immediately took a note.
Condition of the Irish Parliament. The Octennial Bill. The Penal Laws. Non-residence of the Lord- lieutenant. Influence of the American War on Ireland. Enrolment of the Volunteers. Concession of all the Demands of Ireland. Violence of the Volunteers. Their Convention. Violence of the Opposition in Parliament: Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Flood. Pitt's Propositions Fail.
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