disestablishment

disestablishment. The privileged position of the Church of Ireland had long been resented by both Catholics and Presbyterians. The Church Temporalities Act and reform of the tithe system in the 1830s had modified but not removed the anomaly of a state church whose members made up only one‐eighth of the population. Following the Fenian insurrection of 1867 Gladstone made disestablishment part of his programme for pacifying Ireland. Census returns and a series of parliamentary inquiries confirmed the image of an establishment whose wealth and political prestige contrasted vividly with its minority position and pastoral and administrative inadequacies. Despite strenuous objections by the queen and the Conservative opposition, and in the face of a policy of non‐co‐operation by the church itself, Gladstone's Irish Church Act became law on 26 July 1869.

The church was largely disendowed. Bishops and clergy were guaranteed their existing incomes for life, but most chose to commute this interest to a capital sum, vested in the Representative Church Body, which thus received a total of £7.6 million. Capital sums were also granted to the Presbyterian church and Maynooth College, in place of previous regular endowments. As from 1 January 1871 the Church of Ireland was a voluntary body, governed by the General Synod, with its property and financial affairs in the hands of the Representative Church Body.

Kenneth Milne