Church Cess was an annual local tax imposed upon every family in a parish to help defray Church of Ireland obligations. While the Church of Ireland was bestowed with many material advantages, many onerous obligations to the parish poor and indeed to other concerns fell on the shoulders of the Vestry. Each family in town and country was assessed on its apparent potential to contribute to the local tax which might well be regarded as corresponding to the latter-day Poor Rate. The disputes which arose as a result of this assessment are not the concern of this article. Suffice to state that local taxes paid to the representatives of one religious denomination could not have been popular affairs.

In the list which follows, ninety-nine household heads are detailed for Lurgan town. But it would be imprudent to assume that there were therefore only ninety-nine families dwelling in Lurgan, in 1693, since every population unit contains families and individuals unable to contribute to a social obligation, viz. the blind, the very aged, the incurable, the crippled and the orphaned.

Our thanks to Frank McCorry for the use of this information.

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