Announced theologian to cover English and Irish county (8)
I believe the answer is:
declared
'announced' is the definition.
('declare' can be a synonym of 'announce')
'theologian to cover english and irish county' is the wordplay.
'theologian' becomes 'dd' (Doctor of Divinity degree).
'to cover' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'irish county' becomes 'clare'.
'e'+'clare'='eclare'
'dd' enclosing 'eclare' is 'DECLARED'.
(Other definitions for declared that I've seen before include "Closed an innings" , "Made clearly known" , "Announced formally" , "Named the trump suit in card game" , "Spoke or said dramatically" .)