The Catholic persecution in Ireland was a five-century quest to eliminate the Roman Catholic faith in an island where the religion has been deeply entrenched since the time St. Patrick introduced the faith in the second half of the fifth century. The Roman Catholic religion has been, until the 1540's, Ireland's religion until Henry VIII broke away with the Church. He instituted the English and Irish reformations in an attempt to rule over the church. Compared to other anti-Catholic movements that spread throughout Europe during the Reformation, the different aspects of Irish Reformation were primarily triggered by shifting government policy. Nevertheless, much of Ireland did not embrace these policies. While majority of England changed faith, the opposite happened in Ireland and majority continued to practice the Roman Catholic faith. The religious persecutions continued through the 17th century, seeing its height after the Restoration of the Stuart dynasty, well until Ireland declared its independence in early 20th century.
The Tudor Years
Since the Norman rule, the kings of England have traditionally held the title "Lord of Ireland" in reference to their personal rule of island after the Normans have successfully invaded and conquered Ireland. Ireland did not officially become a kingdom until 1542, when the Ireland Act promulgated by the Irish Parliament, upon order from King Henry VIII, bestowed upon him the title King of Ireland. Aside from adding personal prestige, as he is now technically a king of the two separate kingdoms, the king’s success over the elevation of his Irish title was another act of defiance to the Vatican, as the Lordship of Ireland was actually granted to English sovereigns by the Papacy. In theory, Ireland was the Pope’s, granted to the Normans as a fiefdom. When he was excommunicated, Henry feared that the Pope would strip him of his lordship. He only acted quickly.
In another act of defiance, Henry also commissioned the Irish Parliament to declare him the supreme governor of the Church in Ireland. This was made even more possible with the help of the Archbishop of Dublin, George Brown. In fact, the King appointed Brown upon the death of his predecessor without the Pope’s approval.
Henry VIII’s death did not stop the Irish reformation. His successor, Edward VI, despite his short reign, continued his father’s work. This was the time when the Church of Ireland claimed apostolic succession on the basis of the link in the hierarchy. The Roman Catholic Church, however, protested, claiming that only bishops with the Pope’s approval are deemed legitimate.
The dissolutions of monasteries and religious houses in Ireland were not as easy as it were in England and Wales. In Ireland, there were more than 400 religious houses in 1530. That figure was equivalent to that of England and Wales’ combined! But King Henry VIII was adamant of dissolving Catholic imprint over his kingdom. In 1537, he sponsored a legislation legalizing that dissolution of monasteries and religious houses in Ireland. He succeeded in his aim; by the accession of son, Edward, in 1547, more than half of Catholic houses were shut, but that was not without resistance from various Catholic orders, whose resistance has been felt well into the reign of Elizabeth I.
The reign of Edward VI (1547–53) saw Protestantism proclaimed as the state religion. The legislation of the Act of Uniformity in 1549, though, did not have much impact in Ireland.
Henry's and Edward's efforts almost seemed worthless when all their anti-Catholic proclamations and laws were repealed by Queen Mary I of England. A fanatical Roman Catholic, Mary immediately reimposed Catholicism as the official church upon her accession in 1553. But her reign would not last long and the ascent of her half-sister, Elizabeth, in 1558, restored Protestantism, with passing of the Act of Supremacy in 1559. This began the era of tougher persecution of Irish Catholics.
In 1560, Irish Act of Uniformity was enforced, requiring everyone to worship in churches which adhered to the Church of Ireland. Likewise, every civil servant or church official in Ireland was required to pledge the Oath of Supremacy in allegiance to the Church. Anyone caught violating these provisions would be hanged and quartered. The Act also made it compulsory to join Church services. Anyone who failed to attend, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant nonconformist, was fined and physically tortured. Until 1570, Queen Elizabeth I tolerated Catholic and Protestant nonconformist ceremonies. However, the Queen began considering the Catholics as threat to the kingdom after the Pope promulgated the Regnans in Excelsis in 1570. However, the Irish Act of Conformity was not fully implemented and was rather enforced sporadically until the 17th century.
In reaction to the rising persecution of Catholics, the landed gentry surprisingly formed an unexpected alliance with Gaelic Irish families and the Norman "Old English." These people were actually enemies for generations. They eventually decided to unite when they saw that the Irish Reformation was a threat to their interests. After all, they were mostly Roman Catholic.
The Stuart Years
James VI of Scotland inherited the throne as James I when Queen Elizabeth I died. He was initially tolerant of Catholic preachings, especially when he signed the Treaty of London (1604) with Spain. However, that changed after the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. He and his officials eventually enforced stricter rules to Roman Catholics, especially in Ireland, where majority of the MPs and Lords were Catholic. Ireland’s conversion rate to Protestantism was so low compared to other countries in Europe that the Catholic Counter-Reformation was not introduced until 1612. In fact, it was the last kingdom to introduce such measure!
But the defeat of the northern earls in the Nine Years' War (1594-1603), an anti-English and anti-Protestant uprising in Ulster under the leadership of Hugh O'Neill and aided by Spain, led to a massive exile. Deprived of their land and livelihood, the Irish lords and their retainers sought patronage and protection on the Continent with Habsburgs. Further repressive measures by the English regime drove large numbers of Catholic clerics abroad, a movement that turned into a torrent after crushing another, large uprising in 1652. (Hsia, 89)
Between 1590 and 1681 no fewer than twenty Irish colleges were established on the Continent. The largest numbers were in the Spanish Netherlands: in Antwerp, Louivain, Nieuwpoort, Dunkirk, Ypres, Lille, St.-Omer, Tournai and Douai; others were founded in Spain, France and Italy. Hundreds of Irish priests received their trainings in these continental seminaries, where they absorbed the teachings of the Tridentine Church and returned home as bearers of new militant Catholicism. By 1613, Douai had sent 149 priests back to Ireland; the College of St. Patrick at Salamanca endowed by Philip II had sent back 148. Of the 800 Diocesan priests in Ireland at this time, the majority had been trained in the Continent. The Irish clergy abroad served as transmitters of the Counter-Reformation. The first Tridentine catechism in the Gaelic language, for example, was translated from the Spanish by the Franciscan Flaithri O Maoil Chonaire; the first Gaelic catechism, the Teagasg Criosdaithe (1611), was adapted from Cardinal Bellarmine's catechism by the Franciscan Bonaventure O'Hussey and printed in Antwerp; still other religious writings and devotional treatises in Gaelic were published in Antwerp, Brussels and Loucain. This last named university town in the Spanish Netherlands became the center for Catholic Gaelic literature, thanks to Irish friars (Hsia, 89).
The ideology of Catholic resistance reflected the closely knitted clerical-military network among the Irish exiles in the Spanish Netherlands. The defeated Irish lords and their retainers found employment in the Army of Flanders; between 1658 and 1621, more than 5,000 Irish mustered in the Spanish army; many served directly in an Irish regiment formed in 1605 by Henry O'Neill, son of Hugh (Hsia, 90).
The Irish regiment and the military friars constituted thus the best hope for foreign intervention among the militant Catholics at home, as well as an instrument of warfare and diplomacy for the Spanish Habsburg (Hsia, 91).
No wonder the regime in Dublin viewed Catholic clergy as ringleaders in the rebellion against English authority. In 1605 and 1611, it banned all foreign missionaries; in 1612 it executed Cornelius O'Devany, bishop of Down; in 1617 it banned all Irish clergy who had studied abroad; between 1641 and 1652, it executed scores of clerics during the suppression of the Irish uprising; and it exiled more than 1,000 priests after the Irish forces at the last stronghold of Galway surrendered in 1652 (92).
But the Irish Catholics did not see harsh persecution until the Commonwealth Years, between 1649 and 1660. Until Oliver Cromwell's regime, Catholic Clergy were liable to death for saying mass, and the Catholic laity were deprived of their land and their civil rights (McGonigle et al).
Oliver Cromwell was determined to both take revenged for the supposed massacre of Protestants in Ireland in 1641 and to introduce order and stability where cahos had reigned since 1641. Cromwell was not at liberty to devote attention to Ireland until August 1649. He then launched a three pronged program aimed at the elimination of all military resistance to government authority; the removal of all priests and landowners who were in any way implicated in the insurrection that had taken place; and the promotion of an evangelization drive, supported by the state, that would bring the entire population of Ireland to the Protestant faith (Oxford, 146).
The restoration of the Stuarts and the reign of Charles II guaranteed that the amount of land in Catholic ownership should remain limited and was concentrated west of the river Shannon where Catholic landowners had been tolerated by Cromwell. Once again it was possible for the religious clergy who had found refuge on the Continent during the Cromwellian interlude to resume their missionary work in Ireland, providing a breathing space for Catholicism in Ireland, despite the outbreak of occasional acts of persecution such as the execution of Archbishop Oliver Plunkett of Armaghat the time of the Titus Oates plot in England (149).
The ascension of the Catholic James II proved beneficial for the Catholics, who saw a turn of fortune's wheel in their favor: recovery of their land and their lost glory and an official position for their religion would follow (149).
The Orange Revolution and Beyond
However, they joy would be short-lived with the deposition of James II and the accession of William III and James' daughter, Mary II. Stern resistance to the Williamite army was presented but proved futile. This sequence of defeats prepared the way for the final surrender of the Catholic landed interest; the departure from the country of most Catholic officers who had fought in the Jacobite army; and yet another confiscation of Catholic property, consolidating the Protestant interest and facilitating a rigid penal code against Catholics. Nevertheless, Ireland at the onset of the 18th century was English and Protestant in appearance, but still predominantly Catholic in religion (Oxford, 152).
The primary cause of English oppression in Ireland during the eighteenth century--a real cause with some, a mere pretense with others--was religious proselytism. It was deemed necessary to destroy Catholicism in Ireland, and make the country Protestant. The sanguinary violence employed to attain this end had failed; men got tired of Irish rebellions and their suppression--another influence was tried, that of the penals (Beaumont 56).
The national religion of Ireland must be destroyed! Observe that to tear from a people its religion and its creed, is a fearful enterprise. In truth, it was designed to accomplish this without driving the Irish people to revolt; but what is the difference between persecution by the sword and persecution by the law? The tyranny is still the same, and it is the most depraving of all persecutions, for it strikes the most deeply into the law (Beaumont 56).
It is designed to persecute without driving to revolt--to practice oppression without provoking resistance; but this is a difficult problem. How can it be dissolved? In truth, a law existed from the very commencement of the Reformation, which absolutely interdicted the exercise of the Catholic worship; this law had not been abolished, but its application was suspended (Beaumont 57).
The Catholic clergy was thus reduced to the proportions strictly necessary for the exercise of a temporary worship, and was destined to be gradually extinguished in the midst of a population whose religious belief, it was supposed, would vanish at the same time (Beaumont 58).
Catholic priests were only allowed to stay in Ireland on three conditions; first, that they should take the oath of abjuration; second, to register their names at the court of quarter sessions, and give to sureties in fifty pounds each, that they would not go out of the county; and third, that they would officiate only in the parish for which they were registered. Thus the religious ministers of the Catholic population were treated as malefactors, obliged to find security for their good behavior, and to remain in a fixed residence, where they would always be within the reach of the public authorities (Beaumont 58).
Ireland possessed the liberty strictly necessary for remaining Catholic, and yet suffered incessantly for its attachment to that faith; its religion was not taken away, but the profession of it entailed a thousand grievances, and this was what the law desired. The law willed that the Irish should suffer incessantly for keeping their ancient religion, and not adopting the new creed; and this suffering was felt not only in religious, but still more severely in civil and political life. In fact, the penal laws struck the citizen more heavily than the Catholic, because the blows directed against the former, though they affected his interests, irritated the passions, whose effervescence was dreaded, much less than an attack to the second (Beaumont 59).
Even those few Catholics whose estates had been spared, were denied the protection of the rules of inheritance which preserved in Catholic families. By the tenth clause of the Act of 1703, the estate of a Papist not having a Protestant heir is ordered to be gaveled, or divided in three equal shares amongst his children. Thus there was on the one hand an obstacle to the acquisition of wealth by a Catholic family; and, on the other hand, the certainty that it would be lost in a given time (Beaumont 63).
The tenth clause of the Act of 1703 provided that the estate of a Papist not without a Protestant heir would be gaveled, divided in equal shares amongst his children. Thus there was, on the other hand, an obstacle to the acquisition of wealth by a Catholic family; and, on the other hand, the certainty that it would be lost in a given time (Beaumont 63).
This new persecution led to an even deeper identification of Irish Catholicism with Irish Nationalism. In the 18th century, Irish Catholics increasingly called for more independence from England, as did Scottish Protestants living in Ireland. The outbreak of the French Revolution intensified the call by both Catholics and Protestants for political reform. Fearing the excesses in France, many Irish Catholic bishops took a conservative stance and condemned a revolt in 1798, which sought to establish a free Ireland; the revolt was crushed by England. Eventually, however, members of the hierarchy did not become supporters of the move for British Irish independence in the 19th century (McGonigle et al 38).
At the time, England possessed one of the largest reserves of food in Europe, but despite of this did not provide help to the Irish victims of the Blight, fueling the idea that Great-Britain had voluntarily let the Catholics die of hunger, and provoking a rise of Irish nationalism. The Young Ireland movement created at that time by Charles Gaban Duffy (a catholic journalist) and Thomas Davis (a protestant student), had one goal in mind: the abrogation of the Union (Bradshaw). Even though their attempt to revolution miserably failed the movement had nonetheless a great influence over the nationalist movements which followed. Violence was invoked as a way to fight over the British presence, and the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) inspired themselves from the ideology of the Young Ireland (Clutterbuck 95).
Another main cause of the conflict may be assessed through the notion of ethnicity. In the case of Ireland, it is a complex argument to put forward, as Irish are by definition from the same island and share a common patrimony. It is not quite so in reality, as two distinct “labels” have emerged in time. The Catholics consider themselves as Irish, and their nationalism grew on this Irish-ness. One of the most significant forms of nationalism was the attempt to maintain the Irish language of Gaelic in schools. The Protestants, on their side, felt they were part of the British Crown, and were commonly qualified as Unionists, Loyalist, or again Orangeman. This cleavage between the perception of the core identity of each group grew over the centuries, and in the 1960’s it was almost impossible to dissociate the conflict from a powerful nationalism intertwined with ethnicity. Anchored in a British tradition, during “The Troubles”, Protestants will fight in order to maintain the ties between the two islands, while Catholics will pursue the harmony they look for through the unity of Ireland.
Finally, religion seems to tie the conflict all together. Two aspects of religion must be analyzed in this conflict. The dogmatic differences between the two religions must not be disregarded. Indeed, Catholicism is structured around rituals (prayers, sacraments), and hierarchy is at the core of the institutions. Consequently, this very organized religion have come to develop a certain desire to realize social order under the domination of leaders. On the other side, Protestantism is not built on the same rules’ rigidity. The universal priesthood of believers designs priests as the direct mediators between the people and god, disregarding the hierarchical system of the Roman faith. Therefore, the opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism cannot come down to the only ethnic interpretation, as it is based on a divergent interpretation of Christianity.
References:
B. Bradshaw, Irish Historical Studies c1989.
Clutterbuck, Lindsay. Countering Irish Republican Terrorism in Britain: Its Origin as a Police Function, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18 (1) March 2006, 95-118.
De Beaumont, Gustave. Ireland: Social, Political, and Religious Gustave de Beaumont. United States: Harvard College, c2006.
Hsia, R. Po-chia Hsia. The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770. New York: Cambridge University Press, c2005, 89-92.
McGonigle, Thomas D. et al. A History of the Christian Tradition: From the Reformation to the Present. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, c1996, 38.
The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland edited by R. F. Foster. Oxford: Oxford University Press, c1989, 146-152.
