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    • Main contributor: Dr. David Heffernan
    St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

    Irish church records (Church of Ireland) are records pertaining to the Anglican Church of Ireland from its first establishment during the Irish Reformation Parliament in 1536 down to the present day. The Church of Ireland adheres to Anglicanism, what was viewed as a moderate form of Protestantism in early modern times. Because of the extensive nature of colonial rule in Ireland between the sixteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries, the Church of Ireland was the official church on the island, even though the majority of the population were either adherents of Roman Catholicism. A substantial minority also adhered to Presbyterianism, the Scottish form of Calvinist Protestantism, in Ulster from the seventeenth century onwards once wide-ranging Scottish settlement occurred there. Owing to its official status, the Church of Ireland produced a very wide range of records between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries which are of great value for genealogical studies and family history in Ireland.[1]

    History of the Church of IrelandHistory of the Church of Ireland

    According to legend, Christianity arrived to Ireland in the fifth century when a Romano-British slave by the name of Patrick was brought to Ireland from England or possible Wales and subsequently began trying to convert the Pagan heathens of Hibernia to the word of Christ after gaining his freedom. We are standing on firmer historical ground when it comes to assessing how figures like St Columba not only transformed Ireland into a bastion of Christianity in the sixth and seventh centuries, but also then in turn led major missionary movements to Britain and the continent.[2]

    King Henry VIII

    Ireland then was a part of the Roman Catholic Church from the sixth century and there was an ‘Irish church’ from that time onwards, one which was closely tied to Rome and the Papacy. However, when reference is made to the Church of Ireland, what is being referred to is the schismatic Church of Ireland that was established in the sixteenth century as part of the extension of the English Protestant Reformation to Ireland. Ireland had been partially, though not fully, conquered by the English crown in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Its church remained under the guidance of Rome thereafter. Furthermore, while Protestantism found early adherents in England in London and some of the other towns of the south in the 1520s and 1530s, there was no domestic Protestant movement in Ireland during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509–1547) of any kind. Instead the Protestant Reformation was introduced into the country as part of the wider ecclesiastical changes being initiated by the English government in the mid-1530s as the king broke with Rome over the issue of his divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn.[3] With this, an Irish Reformation Parliament was held in 1536, one which declared the supremacy of Henry VIII over a new Church of Ireland. Hence was created the Protestant Church of Ireland.[4]

    The Church of Ireland remained the state-sanctioned church in the country for over three centuries. It was disestablished as the official church in 1869 as parts of efforts to placate Roman Catholics in Ireland.[5] As the official church for over 330 years it generated a large amount of documentation, including the typical baptismal, marriage and death records. However, two developments have limited the scope of these. Firstly, English efforts to Protestantize Ireland singularly failed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and approximately 80% of the island’s people remained adherents of Roman Catholicism. Without engagement with the Church of Ireland, these Catholics did not produce records within it that can be used by genealogists today.[6] Secondly, the Irish Public Records Office in Dublin was blown up in 1922 at the beginning of the Irish Civil War. A huge proportion of the Church of Ireland parish registers, containing baptismal, marriage and funeral records going back to the sixteenth century were destroyed in the process.[7]

    Church of Ireland recordsChurch of Ireland records

    Fire of the Four Courts and Irish Public Records Office in 1922

    The Church of Ireland produced very extensive records between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. These can be of very great value to genealogists and anyone exploring their family history, given that the first full Irish census was not undertaken until 1821 and the records of many of the nineteenth-century censuses were also destroyed in 1922. Some of the earliest Church of Ireland records that have survived are ecclesiastical visitations of the two dozen or so dioceses into which the Church of Ireland was divided at a given time (the number changed periodically). These visitations involved the archbishop or bishop of the diocese being ordered to carry out a survey of parishes within his diocese and these often included details of the local minister and of individuals within the parish who rented ecclesiastical land from the Church of Ireland there. These visitations were undertaken regularly throughout the early modern period and the records of many of them have survived in various libraries and archives in Ireland and England. Examples of these survive as far back as the late sixteenth century and are abundant for the seventeenth century.[8]

    Another major Church of Ireland record which is of great utility to genealogists and family historians is the religious census of 1766. Over half a century before the first secular, civil census was carried out in Ireland, the Church of Ireland was ordered to carry out a census of everyone in the country on the parish level, including Roman Catholics who refused to conform to the Church of Ireland. While the full set of original records for this were also in the Public Records Office in 1922, these have been reconstructed from fragments which survived the fire and also abstracts and partial copies located in other libraries and archives in Ireland and England. This has allowed for the retrieval of about 50,000 individuals from the ‘religious census’. Records like these are immensely valuable to Irish genealogists.[9] Portions of the 1766 religious census and other Church of Ireland records are available through MyHeritage's records collections.

    Where to find Irish church recordsWhere to find Irish church records

    Unfortunately, because of the destruction of the Irish Public Records Office in 1922 during the Irish Civil War and the very nature of colonial government in the centuries prior to this, there is no central archive which houses the records of the Church of Ireland. Instead the relevant records are dispersed throughout a range of different collections today. For instance, if one takes the example of the ecclesiastical visitations which were carried out in every diocese of Ireland in 1622, records have survived for nearly every diocese, though they are of varying levels of completeness and they are dispersed today throughout a wide array of archives including the manuscripts archives at Trinity College Dublin, the National Library of Ireland, Marsh’s Library, Armagh Robinson Library and Lambeth Palace Library in London.[10]

    This caveat aside, a number of key archives hold a lot of the material involved or microfilm copies thereof. The first points of call are the National Archives of Ireland[11] and the National Library of Ireland,[12] both in central Dublin. Armagh Robinson Library[13] has extensive records as the archdiocese of Armagh had primacy within the Church of Ireland, while the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin[14] is also a useful resource. Overseas the National Archives of the United Kingdom hold the State Papers Ireland series. Contained within this massive collection are a very substantial amount of documents relating to the Church of Ireland and its administration. One will also find a huge array of correspondence from the various archbishops and bishops of the Church of Ireland between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries to government figures in England. These will often name individuals in Ireland who were noted recusants (Catholics who refused to attend Church of Ireland services on Sundays), something which was punishable by fines. As such, these documents have a genealogical value.[15]

    See alsoSee also

    Explore more about Irish church records from the Church of IrelandExplore more about Irish church records from the Church of Ireland

    References

    1. ↑ Mark Empey, Alan Ford and Miriam Moffitt (eds), The Church of Ireland and its Past (Dublin, 2017).  
    2. ↑ https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04136a.htm
    3. ↑ https://www.history.com/news/henry-viii-divorce-reformation-catholic-church
    4. ↑ Brendan Bradshaw, ‘The Opposition to the Ecclesiastical Legislation in the Irish Reformation Parliament’, in Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 63 (March, 1969), pp. 285–303.
    5. ↑ https://www.ireland.anglican.org/our-faith/church-teaching/disestablishment
    6. ↑ Nicholas Canny, ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: Une Question Mal Posée’, in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 30, No. 4 (October, 1979), pp. 423–450.
    7. ↑ Herbert Wood, ‘The Destruction of the Public Records: The Loss to Irish History’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 11, No. 43 (September, 1922), pp. 363–378.
    8. ↑ P. B. Phair, ‘Seventeenth Century Regal Visitations’, in Analecta Hibernica, No. 28 (1978), pp. 79–102.
    9. ↑ https://virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/1766-religious-census
    10. ↑ https://sources.nli.ie/Record/MS_UR_066339
    11. ↑ http://genealogy.nationalarchives.ie/
    12. ↑ https://www.nli.ie/
    13. ↑ https://armaghrobinsonlibrary.co.uk/
    14. ↑ Raymond Refaussé, ‘The Representative Church Body Library and the Records of the Church of Ireland’, in Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 49 (1995), pp. 115–124.  
    15. ↑ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/state-papers-ireland-1509-1782/


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