Description

The Vestry Records of the Parish of St Audoen, Dublin, 1636–1702 is an edited historical source volume by historian Maighréad Ní Mhurchadha, published by Four Courts Press in 2012 as part of its Texts and Calendars series.

The book reconstructs vestry minute records for St Audoen’s Parish in central Dublin. Although the original vestry minute books have not survived, the editor has carefully compiled the surviving material from printed extracts (notably in The Irish Builder) and manuscript transcripts preserved in Marsh’s Library. This allows the recovery of a fragmented but highly valuable administrative record of parish life in early modern Dublin.

St Audoen’s is one of Dublin’s most historically significant parish churches, and during the 17th century it functioned not only as a religious institution but also as a key unit of local civil administration. The vestry handled a wide range of responsibilities, including:

• Collection and management of parish taxes (cess)
• Maintenance of church buildings and infrastructure
• Oversight of poor relief and welfare support
• Appointment of parish officers such as churchwardens
• Regulation of local order and community obligations

The records provide rare insight into the everyday governance of Dublin city during a period marked by political upheaval, religious change, and urban development. They capture details of parish finances, community disputes, and administrative decisions that reveal how civic and ecclesiastical life were closely intertwined.

Beyond institutional history, the volume is also an important genealogical and social resource, preserving names, family references, and patterns of residence within one of Dublin’s oldest urban communities.

Scholarly apparatus—including introduction, notes, and indexing—helps contextualise the material within broader Irish ecclesiastical and urban history. The result is a key reference work for historians studying 17th-century Dublin, Church of Ireland administration, and early modern urban society.