The term meeting house normally refers to Presbyterian Church buildings of an earlier time but some churches are still referred to as Meeting Houses. In 1661 the Penal Laws against dissenters were imposed. The established church being the Church of Ireland (i.e. Anglican or Episcopalian). All had to pay tithes to the established church and in some circumstances were forced to attend the established church - and this was in addition to supporting their own church and minister. Further Presbyterians, etc were not allowed to hold government office, vote, nor was lawful to be married or baptised by a Presbyterian Ministers. The Presbyterian churches were not allowed to look like church, meaning no Steeple or Tower, Bell, or stained glass. At the Ulster Folk Museum at Omagh is the "Mellon" Meeting house - a building arranged inside with the preaching and "sanctuary" area in the centre with the pews arranged around in a square facing the centre. A further restriction was in regard to where the worship place could be built. One finds the Nonconformist, and Catholic Churches were built outside the town boundaries. The C of E, or C of I, church which looked like a church would be built at the centre of the town. At Castlederg, Co Tyrone, the First Castlederg Presbyterian Church was built outside the town in 1700. The Second Castlederg Church, which is still known as the Meetinghouse, was built inside the town boundary in 1791. Another factor was education, in that, only Church Ireland members could attend University in Dublin. Realise that all these laws applied to England. Scotland, was of course more enlightened and was open to Presbyterians (Church of Scotland) though there were restriction on non C of E to public office. This meant that most Irish Presbyterian ministers were trained in Scotland and similarly were Doctors. All restrictions were officially lifted in 1848, though some restrictions still applied to Catholics. There were individuals who converted to C of E to for pragmatic reasons. An interesting facet of this in my family in Australia. The Rev Cunningham Atchison (my GGG uncle) born in Castlederg, Co Tyrone 1803 trained for the ministry in Edinburgh. In 1837, he was called by Rev John Dunmore Lang to the colony of New South Wales, along with 18 or so other Presbyterian Ministers from Scotland and Ireland. 1840-64 he was ministered at Wollongong, NSW. During his ministry the NSW Govt. made a grant to all churches of most denominations. Atchison chose to use the grant to erect a steeple on the church building. There was some dissent in the community over this decision as it was felt there were more worthy causes this money could be used for. The Steeple or Tower become known at "Atchison's Folly". Was his reasoning that he wanted his church to actually look like church and not a meeting house? Regards Cunningham ATCHISON Auckland, NZ -----Original Message----- From: cotyroneireland-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cotyroneireland-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Patricia Moosman Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 11:34 AM To: 'Theresa Forsyth'; 'Mailing Tyrone' Subject: Re: [CoTyIre] GLASGOW/SLOAN Marriage -----Original Message----- Meeting House is what they called the church building back then The church was the whole thing parishioners and everything and meeting house was what we now call a church This was explained to me a minister in Ireland Patricia New Zealand ------------- Our community web-site: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cotyroneireland ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COTYRONEIRELAND-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message