Description

The Vestry Records of the United Parishes of Finglas, St Margaret’s, Artane and the Ward, 1657–1758 is an edited archival publication by historian Maighréad Ní Mhurchadha, released as part of the Texts and Calendars series by Four Courts Press in association with the Representative Church Body Library.

The book is based on surviving vestry minute books and parish administrative records from a largely rural Church of Ireland parish network in north County Dublin. These records document the functioning of local parish governance during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a period in which the vestry acted not only as a religious body but also as a form of local administration.

The material includes:

• Vestry meeting minutes
• Churchwarden accounts
• Parish cess (local tax) records
• Registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials (partial survival)

These entries reveal a structured community responsible for a wide range of civic functions, including poor relief, road maintenance, financial administration, and oversight of parish infrastructure. The records show how local governance operated at a granular level, with detailed lists of expenditure, appointments, disputes, and community obligations.

Beyond administrative history, the volume is an important genealogical and social resource. It preserves names, family connections, and demographic data that are essential for reconstructing population patterns and local history in early modern Ireland.

The editor’s scholarly framework situates the records within broader developments in Irish ecclesiastical and social history, highlighting how parish vestries functioned as hybrid institutions—part church authority, part civil administration—during a time of political and religious transformation.

This work is widely used by historians, genealogists, and researchers studying Church of Ireland communities, rural governance, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Irish society.