The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, January 1865
History
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, January 1865
Catholic Church -- Ireland -- Periodicals; Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Not to be too long, we merely refer the reader to Alderman Dillon's
speech, in which he shows that the Protestant Church Establishment has
been for centuries and is at present the unhappy source of all the
evils of Ireland. With him we join in a fervent wish that a political
institution, the creature and the slave of the state, an institution
so useless and so mischievous, may soon reach the end of its career.
Its present position may be understood from the following statistics
given by Mr. Dillon, and which are founded on the authority of the
last census:--
"The present Protestant population of the diocese of
Kilfenora--251, men, women, and children--is less than that of
the Jews in the city of Dublin, and could be removed in a few
omnibuses; that of Kilmacduagh, consisting of 434 persons,
would not fill one room in the Catholic Parochial Schools at
Ennistymon, in that diocese; the smallest rural Catholic
Chapel in the diocese of Emly would be thinly filled with the
1,414 professing Anglicans in that diocese; the new Catholic
Church in Ballinasloe would be comparatively empty with a
congregation composed of the 2,521 Protestant inhabitants of
the diocese of Clonfert; whilst, through the Cathedral of
Waterford, three times more Catholics pass on Sunday, during
the hours of Divine worship, than the 2,943 Protestants in the
whole of that diocese. In fact, the single parish of St.
Peter's, in the City of Dublin, contains, according to the
Census of 1861, more Catholics than there are Protestants in
the five dioceses just named, together with those in the six
other dioceses of Achonry, Cashel, Killaloe, Ross, Lismore,
and Tuam; the Protestant population of these eleven dioceses,
amounting to 38,962 persons, and that of the one Catholic
parish, to upwards of 40,000 souls. There are as many
Catholics in the City of Limerick as there are Protestants
in the whole five counties of Connaught; there are more
Catholics, by 23,000, within the municipal bounds of the city
of Dublin than there are Anglicans in the twelve counties of
Leinster; there are many thousands more Catholics in every
county in Ulster, save the small county Fermanagh, than there
are Protestants in the whole province of Munster; and,
finally, the Anglican population of the kingdom exceeds that
of the Catholics of the single county of Cork by only about
70,000 souls. In no province, no county, no borough in
Ireland, can the Anglican population show a majority".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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