The Ecclesiastical
law section of the archive comprises papers, of a very general nature,
1607, 1623, 1632, and c.1667-1970. They include papers and legal opinions
about the Primate's right to present to livings during the vacancy of
a see, c.1674, the form of absolution to a Quaker, c.1674, and 'Rules
to be observed on uniting and dividing parishes and changing the site
of parish churches', N.D. Other, later, papers of 1824-c.1826 relate
to various points of ecclesiastical law, including what is to be done
about a Roman Catholic or Dissenting clergyman who officiates at a burial
in a parish churchyard, the terms and conditions on which the Church
in Ulster participated in the forfeitures of the early 17th century,
forms for establishing perpetual cures, granting faculties, condemning
houses and offices (on grounds of dilapidation), etc, and the provisions
of the Residence Act of 1826. Later material includes papers of November-December
1865 about the Dean of Cloyne's complaints of invasion of the rights
of deans.
The paper
about Convocation, which last met in Ireland in 1711, include: formal
documents about Convocation, among them a copy of a patent for holding
Convocation, 1634, a copy of a commission to the same purport, 1661,
and the original of a confirmation of canons, 1714; a small folio volume
containing, among other things, copies of the acts of Convocation, 1639-1641
and 1661-1666, together with copies of letters from the Lord Deputy,
Thomas Wentworth, later Earl of Strafford, to William Laud, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 1635, and of Dean Andrew's deliberations about the relationship
between the canons of England and Ireland, [1635?]; journals of the
Upper House of Convocation, 1701-1713 (although, as already noted, Convocation
last met in 1711); and correspondence and formal documents of the period
1861-1869, about ideas of reviving Convocation in the era of Disestablishment
and as part of the post-Disestablishment structure of the Church of
Ireland.
Papers
about the diocese of Clogher (which was not only in the province of
Armagh but was also merged with the archbishopric in 1850-1886), are
dated 1638, 1611-1705 and 1732-1974. These include formal documents
relating to Bishops of Clogher, 1820, 1822, 1886, 1903, 1907-1908, 1923,
1943-1944, 1958, 1969-1970 and 1973, and formal documents about Clogher
clergy, 1661-1705, 1853, 1857, 1868, 1970 and 1973. There are also letters
and papers about numerous individual parishes in the dioceses. Papers
about improvements and dilapidations to the palace and demesne at Clogher,
1732, 1812, 1816 and 1819, mostly relate to the time of Bishop John
Porter (whose successor in the see did not want the palace which Porter
had built and which therefore passed down in the Porter and Ellison-Macartney
family and had its name changed to 'Clogher Park'). Primate Beresford's
correspondence about the deposition of Porter's successor as bishop,
Percy Jocelyn, in 1822 is subject to an indefinite closure.
There is a royal visitation book for Ulster, 1622, triennial visitation
returns for the metropolitan province of Armagh, 1661, 1664, 1679 and
1754, and more miscellaneous triennial visitation papers, 1778, 1829,
1831, 1859-1861 and 1868-1871. These papers relate to the whole metropolitan
province of Armagh which, from 1839, included the former metropolitan
province of Tuam as well. The earliest of them is actually not a visitation
paper at all, but a return made by William Parsons (Surveyor-General
of Ireland) in 1617 of glebes in the northern counties granted to incumbents.
Under
the first of the Plantation Commissions issued on 19th july, 1608, Chichester
and the other members of the Irish Council conducted a survey of the
six Counties of Ulster destined to be planted (Cal. S.P.I., 1608-10:
An. Hib. 3, pp. 151-218). Based on this survey the scheme for Plantation
was completed in 1609. In that same yeare a second Commission was issued
authorizing Chichester and his colleagues to carry out a new survey
of the escheated counties, divide the counties into proportions, make
maps illustrating the divisions, and generally to take all necessary
measures for furthering the Plantation. By the spring of 1610 the work
was completed, and then a further commission enabled Chichester and
the others to give possession to the successful applicants of the proportions
of land assigned to them. The Plantation proper began in the summer
and autumn of 1610.
The geographical
scope of the the province of Armagh, the vast majority of the documents
relate to the archdiocese, and apart from documents relating to the
archdiocese have no ecclesiastical significance (for example, maps of
Sir Arthur Chichester's Inishowen estate, Co. Donegal), and some of
them no obvious reason for being in the archive. It should be noted
that the surveys include non-pictorial surveys; the dividing line between
these and the rentals (DIO/4/45) is often fine. The maps, surveys and
plans are arranged as follows: volume containing bound-in original documents,
with a list of contents in the handwriting of Henry Upton in the front
fly-leaves, [late 17th-early 18th century]; surveys, 1642, 1725-1795,
1819 and 1838; survey rentals, 1725, 1728, 1743 and 1824; survey maps,
1662, 1685, 1706-1730, 1764-1777, 1795-1796, 1817-1836 and 1852-1862...
1, 2,
3, 4,
5, 6,
7, 8,
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