150 years ago this month the Church of Ireland was removed from its role as Ireland’s State Church by an Act of the UK Parliament.
The Irish Church Act 1869 separated the Church of Ireland from the Church of England and disestablished the former. The Act meant the Church of Ireland was no longer entitled to collect tithes from the people of Ireland although existing clergy of the church received a life annuity instead. It also ceased to send representative bishops to the House of Lords in Westminster.
Royal assent was given to the Act on 26 July 1869 and it was commenced on 1 January 1871.
Commenting on the matter to the Irish Times, Canon Patrick Comerford said leading Church of Ireland figures feared the “very worst for the future” and a “very dismal catastrophe”. However, those fears were never realised.
“The Church of Ireland was left in possession of the cathedrals, churches and church schools then in use – which might not have been the fate of an established Church of Ireland at independence half a century later,” he said.
Dr Ida Milne, lecturer in European history at Carlow College, says disestablishment meant little to those made their livings as tenants rather than the professional classes that were a key element of the political and social Protestant establishment.
“We probably find the historic connection to the Church of Ireland establishment and the inequality it created in society an embarrassment, and would in the past have been teased about it,” she says.
