Ministers' money

Ministers' money was a tax payable by householders in certain cities and towns in Ireland to fund the local Church of Ireland minister.^[1][2] It was introduced in 1665,^[3] modified in 1827,^[4] and abolished in 1857.^[1][5] The cities and towns affected were Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Clonmel, and Kinsale.^[1][2] It was levied as a rate of up to one shilling in the pound (i.e. 5%) on the property's rateable value. The valuation, to a maximum of £60, was done by commissioners appointed by the Lord Lieutenant.^[2] Churchwardens appointed by the local minister collected ministers' money on the quarter days: Christmas, Lady Day, St John's Day, and Michaelmas.^[2][6] The 1689 Irish Parliament, which the Catholic James II summoned during the Williamite War, abolished minister's money;^[7] after James lost the war, William and Mary's 1695 Parliament annulled the 1689 one.^[8] A 1723 act^[9] provided that, in Dublin, the same valuation could be used both for ministers' money and for calculating cess, a separate local rate used for public works and poor relief.^[6][10] Thereafter, cess rates were often expressed in terms of pence per shilling of minister's money.

Ministers' money was resented because it was a regressive tax and applied only in towns with a Catholic majority.^[11] In rural areas, tithes were a similar grievance, and the 1830s Tithe War ended when the Tithe Commutation Act 1838 replaced tithes with "tithe-rentcharges"; but this did not apply to ministers' money. Church rate, separate from ministers' money and tithes, was abolished by Church Temporalities Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 37). Another grievance was that the valuations for ministers' money were done infrequently and might not reflect recent improvements or decline in the property or its neighbourhood.^[6] An 1838 proposal by Daniel O'Connell to bring ministers' money into the terms of the Irish Poor Law was withdrawn.^[12] An 1848 committee of the Commons recommended its abolition,^[11] and motions to that effect were proposed by MPs Francis Murphy (1842^[13] and 1844^[14]) and William Trant Fagan (six times 1847–54).^[15] A petition of Cork residents was laid on the table of the Lords in 1846.^[16] In 1854, Sir John Young, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduced an Act^[17] which reduced the rated charge by one quarter and charged the municipal authority (borough corporation or town commissioners) rather than the minister with collecting it.^[18] The Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Ireland forwarded the money from the municipality to the minister, making up the reduction from its own funds.^[18] In 1857, Fagan and Francis Beamish introduced a private member's bill, which was successfully enacted, to replace ministers' money with a direct subvention of ministers by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.^[5][19] Some members of the Church of Ireland objected to the act as confiscation of church property, and saw it as a prelude to disestablishment, which eventually came under the Irish Church Act 1869.^[18]