| Why are diocesan and county boundaries not aligned? |
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| Ireland - Ireland FAQs and Trivia | |||
| Written by Hugh McManus | |||
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If you ever look at a map of the diocesan boundaries in Ireland, they look really strange. Dioceses straddle many counties. Why? While county boundaries were, for the most part, finalized in the 19th century, diocesan boundaries were established in A.D. 1111 at the Synod of Raith Bressail. Society had evolved in the intervening 700 years, so it didn't make sense to have political administrative districts aligned with ecclesiastical units. Further, there were valid reasons for the structure of Irish diocese that didn't pertain to counties in the 19th century.The Synod of Rath Bressail marked a change in the Irish Church from a monastic structure to one based on the traditional diocesan/parish structure of continental Europe. The synod attracted almost all Irish bishops–over fifty were in attendance. In those days, bishops weren't necessarily tied to any diocese–most were, essentially, freelance! Two provinces were established: Armagh and Cashel.The unusual shape of Irish dioceses–many long and straggling–were developed so each bishop had easy access to the ocean. Strange as it might sound, but there was a time when a bishop couldn't cross into a neighboring diocese. To ensure that access to Rome wasn't impeded by a neighboring bishop, each diocese has either an outlet to the ocean–for the case of the Diocese of Clogher, for example, that access is a strip a few miles wide near Bundoran. Other landlocked diocese, like Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, have access to a major river, such as the Shannon.
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