La morphologie de la paroisse en Irlande

The geography of parishes in Ireland focuses attention on their territorial endurance and social cohesion through history. Geographical continuity was buttressed by their functions as centres of worship for the delivery of religious services such as baptism, marriage, communion and burial. They were also importantly areas providing taxation (tithes) to the church. These function consolidated to a sense of identity and belonging to the parish. Churches were probably among the first significant central places in the Irish landscape, dating back to the fifth and sixth centuries. Early medieval churches closely reflected local secular kingroup structures in “pre-parochial” formations. When dioceses and parishes were officially established in Roman reform synods in the twelfth century, they matched contemporary political and tribal territorial arrangements.The medieval parish structure, designated as a ‘civil’parish following its use as a convenient administrative unit by the colonial state from the seventeenth century, reflects the realities of settlement and society in the middle ages. These parishes were inherited by the Church of Ireland following the Protestant Reformation, and the medieval boundaries and accompanying rights and tithes were maintained, though many unions of parishes were formed where the Church of Ireland population was small. While the Catholic church was oppressed by anti-catholic legislation in the 17th and 18th centuries, its association with the parish structure was disrupted. With the gradual removal of penal legislation, Catholic attachment to the older medieval entities survived, though in many cases the medieval parishes were too small for the teeming Catholic populations. New unions of the older parishes were formed to more adequately reflect emerging modern patterns of population and settlement.