How common for a priest to be native to his parish?

[Ghostwheel]

I was wondering if anyone had an idea of how common it was for a priest to be native to his parish.

Did it ever happen?

Could it even happen many times, over the years, in the same parish?  And with a recurring surname?

[Wexflyer]

I was wondering if anyone had an idea of how common it was for a priest to be native to his parish.

Did it ever happen?

Could it even happen many times, over the years, in the same parish?  And with a recurring surname?

It certainly could happen - I know of instances.
At the same time I don't have an impression that such postings were made as a matter of policy, as opposed to routine assignment.

[Ghostwheel]

I count at least five priests with the same surname in one parish over the course of less than a hundred years (taking some at the beginning of the period when they were elderly) during the 1700s.

It's rather puzzling to me, since I don't consider it a place where the name was frequent.  That is, the parish.  (Though of course that is difficult to tell in the 1700s)

Somehow, it doesn't seem random.

They clearly had some sort of regard for each other.  The second man mentions the first in his will and they were both high officers - a bishop and a vicar.

The first and fourth are buried in the same grave.

The third and fourth were said to be brothers, with the one succeeding the other.

The third was buried in another parish, but with the stone erected by the fifth, who gave his address on the stone.

And there are some other circumstantial things that may connect.

The first took charge of the parish in 1657. Seemingly the same year a vicar of the diocese with the name was elevated to run the archdiocese of Dublin.  I have wondered if he could have been replacing the vicar (whose parish I am uncertain of).  I know that he himself was a vicar 15 years later, but I am not sure when he became one.  Potentially, it could be the same year he took charge of the parish, as he was about 30, and probably had the education for it.

I believe the bishop was ordained as a young man seemingly very close to the borders of the current parish, but not inside it.  However, I think it is possible it was inside it back then.

I strongly suspect that they had some sort of special local support.

Perhaps, it was clan-based rather than narrowly familial.  But I wonder if it could have been a certain branch of the clan, rather than anyone with the name.

I believe the last chief's wife held land locally.  The bishop was her chaplain, after her husband died.  Perhaps, before?  I wish I knew exactly where she lived, when not in Dublin and when exactly they got married.

Also, I wish I could figure out how the men were related to each other, but it seems probably impossible.  Or at least would require rare documents, if they survive somewhere in Europe.  (Some ordination records did give the parents names).

[Wexflyer]

Ahh, I see we were discussing different periods.

I now realize you were referring to the Penal Law period - 1600s and 1700s, while I was referring to the period from the late 1700s to date.

In the penal period, things may have been different. I remember seeing an assertion many years ago (don't ask me where, but some academic text) that it was common for priests to live with their family or relatives. This makes apparent sense - with a price on their head, and being subject to the death penalty, transportation or imprisonment, it makes sense that the priests would perforce seek to stay only with trusted persons. And who better to trust than family?

As for records of the Irish Colleges on the mainland, quite a few were published in journals such as Archivium Hibernicum. They could be quite detailed, but are difficult to access as they are in Latin, French, Spanish, etc. and I don't have a good feel for what percentage of the records were actually published. There were a surprisingly large number of such Irish Colleges, and most are probably unpublished?

[Ghostwheel]

I have read the stuff that Archivium Hibernicum published about Lisbon.

It is really surprising to me that such records survive for there, despite the earthquake.  I kind of got the vague idea that it was atypical and the records don't survive for many other cities.

I found what A.H. published pretty confusing.  Seems like the early records often had at least slight biographical details about the priests going back to the 1500s. Like, diocese of origin or father or parents.  But the later records published for the 1800s don't seem to include that.

I wish I knew whether that info exists and AH didn't include it, or whether it doesn't.

Lisbon is not really a place that I am deeply interested in.  Just one fellow in the 1800s, who I think I can probably identify without the info.  But it is more the concept of what was the standard information in such records over time.

I have found an index to the records of the small college that the clan seemed to frequent in a French department.

But it's very difficult to understand, as it references a lot of things and the descriptions are really cursory and I think date to the French Revolution, where they seized the college and tossed out a lot of stuff.  And I really can't read French.  And can't understand what docs would be the best chance for finding something.

A lot of the stuff sounds like receipts for expenses signed by different people.  Food.  Charcoal.  That is what they were interested in, the money.

What I would really love to find would be documentation of any funds set up for students with the name.

I have seen some of those documents for other people and colleges and sometimes, they are really quite interesting and often include geneological info. But I am not even sure they would be in the same department or how to find them.

I have never seen them referenced directly, which somewhat makes me doubt they survive.

The word bourse appears like 85x in the index.  And most seem like minor documents, receipts or something, and not what I am looking for, which would be something more like a legal or banking document.