The Irish Church and the Reform Ministries
The Whig ministries of 1830-34 were faced with problems in regard to foreign affairs and parliamentary reform that were almost certain to reveal differences of philosophy within the Cabinets, yet it was on the Irish issues, more particularly that of the Episcopal Reformed Church of Ireland, that the ministries divided and broke. It is generally known that questions concerning the revenues of the Irish Church drove Stanley, the future Conservative Prime Minister, out of the Whig Party, enabled the House of Lords to rally after the Reform Bill and block measures passed by the Commons, and gave William IV an opportunity to dismiss a ministry which still retained the confidence of the lower house and replace it by a Government of his own choice. There is less knowledge, however, of the specific issues behind these events, and of the peculiarities of the Irish Church which hampered an easy solution of its problems. A study of both will serve to illuminate the conflict of parties and of personalities in the first five years of the reform age.From the utilitarian point of view, the temporalities of the Church were absurdly large. Containing only 852,064 members — less than there were in the see of Durham alone — it had a total of twenty-two bishops, including four archbishops. Many holders of benefices had no religious duties, nor, indeed, even a church in which to perform the one service required by their appointment; where parish duties were necessary, they were frequently discharged by a curate who received only a small fraction of the income of the incumbent.