Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (15 page)

Confederation of Kilkenny
.
See
Catholic Confederacy.

confession and avoidance
. The plea of a defendant wherein he acknowledges the truth of the allegations against him but introduces new facts which would entitle him to succeed.

confraternity
.
See
guilds, religious.

congé d'élire
. (Fr., leave to elect) A royal warrant issued to the dean and chapter of a diocese obliging them to elect a person nominated by the crown to a vacant see.
See
Praemunire, Statute of.

Congested Districts Board
(1891–1923). The Congested Districts Board was established by the
Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act
in 1891 to relieve poverty in the west and south of Ireland where too many people were trying to eke out a subsistence on too little land. The board received initial funding of £1.5 million from the surplus left over after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. A congested district was defined as a district where the total rateable value divided by the number of inhabitants was less than 30 shillings. In 1891 this criterion applied to over 3.5 million acres with a population of over half a million people. By 1910 that acreage had doubled. The Congested Districts Board was tasked with the development of agriculture, industry and the provision of assistance towards those who wished to emigrate. It became heavily involved in the promotion of cottage industries, fishing, road- and bridge-building and the dissemination of agricultural techniques. A feature of the board's work was the enlarging of small and uneconomic holdings. Birrell's
Irish Land Act
(1909) provided the board with compulsory purchase powers which enabled it to acquire and sell land in congested districts under the land purchase scheme operated by the
Irish Land Commission
. This led to the acquisition of 600,000 acres and the sale of 50,000 holdings. In all over four million acres were purchased by the Congested Districts Board at a cost of £9 million. Its functions were passed on to the Land Commission in 1923. (Micks,
An account.)

Congregationalists
.
See
Independents.

Connacht, Annals of
. Attributed to the Ó Duibhgeannain family, this Connacht collection covers the period stretching from the early thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries and derives from a fifteenth-century work by the Ó Maoilchonaire family. The text is close to the similarly-derived
Annals of Lough Key
and was used as a source for the
Annals of the Four Masters
. (Freeman,
Annála Connacht
.)

Connacht, Composition of
.
See
composition.

connywarren
. A rabbit warren.

Conradh na Gaeilge
. (Ir., Gaelic League) An Irish language revival movement founded in 1893 by Eoin McNeill and Douglas Hyde,
Conradh na Gaeilge
promoted the use of Irish through language classes, social evenings and the publication of literary work. It published an Irish language newspaper,
An Claidheamh Soluis
, and established
An tOireachtais
, an annual cultural festival. Its non-political status attracted an eclectic membership which included Protestants and unionists but campaigns to ensure that Irish was retained as a subject in secondary schools and to make it a compulsory matriculation subject in the National University of Ireland added a political cutting edge to its activities. Hyde, a Protestant Gaelic scholar, resigned when it became apparent to him that heavy infiltration by the
Irish Republican Brotherhood
had turned the movement into a separatist organisation. Many of the 1916 rebels were members as were Sinn Féiners and later, the IRA.

conscience, court of
. A small debts court associated with municipal corporations where summary jurisdiction was exercised. Jurisdiction was limited to sums of up to 40 shillings and defaulters were liable to imprisonment. The judge was usually the mayor or the ex-mayor for the year following his term of office. (Hughes, ‘The Dublin court', pp. 42–9.)

consistorial court
. A diocesan ecclesiastical court of the Established church. Until the passage of the Probate Act of 1857 (20 & 21 Vict., c. 8), wills were proved and letters of administration granted in the consistorial court. Other matters dealt with included
tithe
disputes, matrimonial causes, clerical misconduct and immorality. The judges in the 20 consistorial courts were appointed by the bishop and were known as vicars-general. Although in many dioceses the vicar-general was a lay lawyer, surrogates could be appointed and these were usually clergymen. He was assisted by a registrar who retained custody of the records and entered the decisions of the court. Where a deceased person had an estate worth more than five pounds in another diocese (
bona notabilia
) the issue of probate and administration was referred to the
prerogative
and
faculties court
of the archbishop of Armagh. Four
metropolitan
courts exercised original jurisdiction in the archiepiscopal dioceses and served as courts of appeal from the consistorial courts in their respective provinces. Testamentary jurisdiction was transferred to a secular court of probate in 1857. Eleven district registries replaced the consistorial courts and the jurisdiction previously exercised by the prerogative court was henceforth exercised by the principal registry in Dublin.
The Irish Church Act
abolished the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts in 1869.
See
probate.

constable
. 1: A manorial or parish official elected annually at the
court leet
and later at the
quarter-sessions
to keep or supervise the watch. This unpaid office was introduced in medieval times by the same legislation which instituted the watch. The petty constable was required to assist in distraints, whip convicts, enforce the Sabbath and extinguish fires. Paid substitution was permitted but the constable himself was unpaid. Catholics were banned from holding the post of constable until 1718 when discriminatory legislation lapsed and thereafter the majority of constables were probably Catholic. Until 1734 a high constable was appointed for each barony at the quarter-sessions, later at the Lent
assizes
.
See
police, watch and ward 2: An officer given command of an important castle and garrison or an army.

Constantine, Donation of
. A document of disputed authenticity in which the fourth-century Emperor Constantine is purported to have granted the popes temporal as well as spiritual authority over Rome and Western Europe. Although generally regarded as an eighth-century forgery, the Donation was employed to advance papal claims against the temporal powers. On the basis of Constantine's grant, John of Salisbury, secretary to the archbishop of Canterbury, extracted the bull
Laudabiliter
or the Donation of Ireland from the English pope Adrian IV in 1155. This bull, the authenticity of which has also been disputed, permitted the intervention of Henry II in Ireland for the purpose of reforming the Irish church.

constat
. (L., It is certain) 1: A certificate issuing out of the court of
exchequer
stating what appears on record concerning a matter upon which a defendant intends to move for a discharge or upon which he intends to plead 2: A copy or exemplification of the enrolment of letters
patent
under the great
seal
.

constitutional settlement
(1782–3).
See
Yelverton's Act, ‘patriot' party.

contumacy
. Contempt. A refusal to recognise the jurisdiction or obey the summons of an ecclesiastical court or to present oneself before it, the penalty for which could be excommunication.

conventicle
. Originally a Sunday afternoon gathering of Lutherans to review the morning's sermon and engage in devotional reading and discussion. In Ireland and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the term came to refer to a non-conformist assembly during the period when such assemblies were regarded as seditious and heretical. Conventicles were outlawed in 1664 under the Conventicle Act (16 Chas. II, c. 4).

Convention of 1660
. A convention of 137 Protestant delegates elected on the basis of the parliamentary constituencies which met in Dublin between March and May 1660 to shepherd the country through the uncertainties attending the collapse of the
Commonwealth
. The convention was promoted by a group of officers who had deposed Edmund Ludlow (the English republican commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland) and the civil administration in a
coup d'état
on 13 December 1659. A range of issues including universities and schools, trade, revenue and expenditure and the maintenance of ministers were considered by the assembled delegates but their key concerns were enshrined in a declaration drawn up to validate the assembly and to state its objectives. The members pledged support for the army, repudiated the tyranny of the
Rump
, asserted the right of Ireland to have its own parliament and to tax itself and claimed that Ireland was not bound by acts emanating from the English parliament. They proposed a learned, preaching ministry organised on a parochial basis and supported by
tithe
but there was to be no room for extremists such as
Quakers, Baptists
, Sectaries or
Independents
. Principally, the convention was anxious to have confirmed all grants of forfeited land and leases made since 1653 and to this end agents were dispatched to England to lobby the newly-restored king. Their almost complete success in this regard is recorded in the king's
gracious declaration
of November 1660 which was legislatively enacted in the
Act of Settlement
in 1662. To support the army a
poll tax
ordinance was issued, requiring every person above the age of 15 to pay a levy graduated according to social rank. The army, however, benefited little from this ordinance for the bulk of it was presented as a gift to Charles II. (Clarke,
Prelude
; McGuire, ‘The Dublin convention', pp. 121–146.)

Convention Act
(1793). Introduced against the background of the French revolution, the Convention Act (33 Geo. III, c. 29) was an attempt to repress agitation in favour of electoral reform and Catholic emancipation and to neutralise the activities of the
United Irishmen
and the
Catholic Committee
, both of which had recently held conventions. It outlawed all gatherings which claimed to be representative and which assembled for the purpose of petitioning the crown or parliament for changes in the law. The Catholic Committee had, in fact, dissolved itself after the passing in the same year of Hobart's Catholic Relief Act of 1793 (see relief acts). The act was invoked successfully against a revived Catholic Committee in 1811 and against its successor, the Catholic Board, in 1814.
See
Catholic petition.

conventualism
. The position adopted by a faction within the
Franciscans
which opposed the severity of the rule of absolute personal and communal poverty. A massive increase in membership led the conventuals to believe that settled houses must be established and this implied communal possessions. Conventuals thus became associated with a laxity of discipline. They were opposed by the observants, zealots who pressed for a literal interpretation of the rule. Guided by the moderation of St Bonaventure the order managed to plot a safe course through the minefield but on his death the old dissensions reappeared. The outcome was a division in the order between the conventuals and the observants. In Ireland the majority of Franciscan friaries were observant by 1538. Some commentators maintain that one of the attractions of observance for native Irish friars was that it enabled them to detach themselves from their Anglo-Irish conventual superiors. However, although observance achieved greater success among the Gaelic Irish, some friaries under Anglo-Irish control also adhered to the observance. Other orders, including the
Augustinians
and the
Dominicans
, also experienced observant reforms and the
Capuchins
, a Franciscan offshoot founded in 1525, were an even more austere observant group.

convert rolls
. Certificates of conformity to the Established church were enrolled on the convert rolls which were records of chancery. When the ‘Act to prevent the further growth of popery' (2 Anne, c. 6) was passed in 1703, converts from Catholicism to Protestantism were obliged to give proof of conformity. This involved the acquisition of a certificate from the bishop of the home diocese declaring that the person named had renounced Catholic doctrine and sworn the
oath of abjuration
at a public service. From 1709 (8 Anne, c. 3) conformers were also required to take communion from an Anglican minister within six months of declaring themselves Protestant. Only by conforming could a Catholic evade the disabilities imposed on property and profession by the
penal laws
. The original convert rolls were destroyed by fire in 1922 but two volumes of calendars are preserved in the National Archives. In all, they contain the names of almost 6,000 people who conformed between 1703 and 1838. (O'Byrne,
The convert
.)

conveyance, deed of
. Introduced by the
Real Property Act
(1845), it replaced the more cumbersome
lease and release
and
bargain and sale
methods of conveyance and established the modern deed of conveyance.

convocation
. The bicameral clerical body of the Established church which dealt with church matters, taxation and crown subsidies. The upper house comprised the archbishops and bishops while representatives of the lower clergy sat in the lower house. Until the creation of the General Synod and the
Representative Church Body
in 1870, it was the assembly of bishops and clergy of the united dioceses of the Established church, the representative body of the church. It met after the restoration in 1661 until 1666 and from 1704 to 1711 but never sat again despite petitions to the crown for permission to do so. No convocation was permitted between 1711 and 1869. The episcopacy petitioned unsuccessfully in 1861 and again in early 1869 for permission to hold a convocation to discuss disestablishment. Gladstone refused permission unless they were prepared to deal solely with the means and mode of disestablishment and not the question of disestablishment itself. The episcopacy rejected this and the issued died. The convocation of Canterbury met only once between 1717 and 1847 and that had been a formality.
See
Irish Church Act (1869), Church of Ireland.