Home Thoughts From Abroad - 14 - A Parish Of Many Names

A series of posts from the Historical Assoc. Facebook group page - I'm From Togher , Boy!

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A Parish Of Many Names

17th January 2015

Just a few thoughts on Parishes. Whenever this term is bandied about , most people subconsciously think of a Roman Catholic Parish. Though there is some truth in this assumption , it is not 100% accurate and is only part of the answer. The actual origins of the Parish go back to the 12th Century shortly after colonization by the Anglo-French Normans , where the system was rapidly put in place to facilitate the payment of Tithes to the Church ( we can see here that this was a practice long before the much later enforced payment of tithes to the Protestant Church ) - the Catholic Church! These ecclesiastical units of administration closely followed the boundaries of Manors ( in Cities ) and Tuath ( in pre-existing Gaelic County areas ). During the 17th Century and the dissolution of the Catholic Church , these Parishes became Civil Parishes , with much the same mandate - the collection of Tithes - but this time to the Protestant Church. During the 18th and 19th Centuries , the Irish Clergy established a separate system of Church Parishes. This is where the " new " Parishes forked off ( pun unintended ) from the original ones , which had by then transformed into purely Civil administrative Parishes. The Civil Parish as it pertains to the South Cork City area was originally known as the Manor of Fayth - in its Catholic guise , and later became St Finbarrs - in its Protestant mould. It later was subdivided into St Finbarrs West , which took on the name of the Lough Parish , which subsequently further subdivided into many other Catholic Parishes , including in 1977 - the Togher Parish. So a lot of affiliation and crossover from an historical point of view. Remember also , that the Parish was made up of many smaller units - known as Townlands. And this is just from a R.C. perspective! There are many others from the past and sure to be many more in the future!