The Catholic Clergy

The importance of the clergy during the Penal Era cannot be overstated. Bishops, priests and curates provided both spiritual and secular leadership for their flocks.

At present, published biographical dictionaries of Catholic clergy in the northern dioceses of Ireland are few in number. Those that do exist as published books include:

Details on clergy in the diocese of Clogher have been published in a series of articles (so far incomplete) in the Clogher Record entitled, ‘Clogherici. A dictionary of the Catholic clergy of the diocese of Clogher (1535–1835)’.

Important work on Irish clerical students in Continental Europe includes: L.W.B. Brockliss and Patrick Ferté (eds), ‘Prosopography of Irish Clerics in the Universities of Paris and Toulouse, 1573-1792’, Archivium Hibernicum, vol. 58 (2004), pp 7–166.

A major project to gather biographical information on the Catholic clergy in Ireland is Clericus, the aim of which is to develop a database of members of the clergy in the early modern and modern periods in Irish history. The project’s website (https://clericus.ie) hosts this database, which includes details on thousands of members of the clergy, drawn from numerous sources.

Clergy Down and Connor Reduced

Passed in the Irish Parliament in 1704, the ‘Act for registering the popish clergy’ obligated priests to register with civil magistrates. Fewer than 200 priests registered in Ulster (over 1,000 registered in all). Among other things, priests were required to provide their name, age, parish, place of residence and date of ordination.

Usefully, in terms of the additional information listed, two named individuals were to stand surety for each priest. Looking at these names (unfortunately not available for every county), it is clear that many of those who acted as sureties were Protestants.

The information gathered under this legislation was published in 1705 in A list of the names of the Popish parish priests throughout the several counties in the kingdom of Ireland. The names were reprinted in The Complete Catholic Directory of 1838 and in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol. 12 (1876). A discussion of this source can be found on the Clericus website.

Wills of the clergy

The exploration of the family backgrounds of the clergy can be illuminating as far as understanding more of their genealogical connections is concerned. The value of testamentary papers in this regard is well known, though researchers will be well aware of the catastrophic loss of wills as a result of the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922.

A helpful source in print is William Carrigan (ed.), 'Catholic episcopal wills in the Public Record Office, Dublin, 1683–1812', Archivium Hibernicum, i–v (1912–15), which includes transcriptions of the testamentary papers of Irish bishops. The first article, in volume 1, covers the Province of Armagh (which includes dioceses in Ulster).

A huge amount of genealogical information is contained in these wills, as the testators made bequests to brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces. The testamentary papers for John Armstrong, Bishop of Down and Connor, include a full inventory of his possessions - a rare survival of this type of record.