Irish clerical taxation

Summary

From the fourteenth century until 1669 the Irish church in English parts of Ireland paid taxes to the Dublin exchequer in the same way as their brethren in England paid tax to the exchequer in London. No complete survey of this taxation exists, but the following gives the evidence which may be gleaned from the convocation and parliamentary records.

Edward IV (1461-83)

No records of clerical taxation have survived, but we learn from a complaint made by the clergy in 1496 that the assessment of Armagh inter Anglicos was fixed at £19/13/8 for a double tenth in the time of Bishop Sherwood, who was lord deputy form 1475 to 1478 and who carried through a comprehensive tax reform which greatly increased the yield from subsidies. Perhaps we can infer from this that a subsidy of £19/13/8 was regularly (annually?) granted to the king from this time onwards. The amounts would of course be in the Irish pounds introduced in 1460 (£1 Irish= 15s. sterling). Thus£19/13/8 Irish = £14/15/3 sterlingand£19/13/4Irish = £14/15/0 sterling, a devaluation of 25% in real terms.