Abstract:
Irish Baptists have historically adopted the view that religion and politics should not be mixed. The Home Rule Crisis of the late nineteenth century, and the Second Home Rule Bill in particular, put this view to the test. The prospect of Home Rule and the fear of domination by the Catholic majority under the influence of the papacy forced them to respond. Baptists, who had for so long been on the fringes of religious and political life in Ireland, now found themselves drawn into a broad Protestant front in an attempt to resist Home Rule. It also revealed that despite their attempts to maintain their distinctiveness from other Protestant denominations they shared exactly the same concerns.Keywords:
Home rule
Optimal distinctiveness theory
Rule of Law
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Sectarianism
Opposition (politics)
Working class
Home rule
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This article examines the evolution of religious conflict in Early Modern Ireland from a starting date of circa 1500 until the end of the Interregnum in 1660. At the beginning of this period Ireland was highly fragmented in political terms. In religious terms, the world of Irish Christianity differed in many respects from the pattern of late medieval Catholicism, although the parts of the island where English influence and settlement was strongest corresponded more closely to the European norm. The reformation in Ireland was almost entirely external in origin. Protestantism attracted few adherents among either the Irish Gaelic population or the pre-Elizabethan English community. The article argues that the chief reason for this historically vital development was the fatal coincidence of religious change and Tudor state-building in Ireland.
By the beginning of Stuart rule, the English State had conquered the entire island but the State Church was extraordinarily unpopular. Between c. 1580 and 1641, however, an authentic Protestant identity was created in Ireland through large-scale immigration of English and Scots. Favoured by the government, these enjoyed rapid economic success and gained a monopoly over office-holding. The State Church, however, enjoyed little evangelical success. The conquest of Ireland by the victorious regicides of the second English Civil War led to enormous loss of life and a massive diminution in Catholic landownership and the destruction of Catholic urban elites.
Taken together the events of the 1640s and 1650s were to have a critical influence on the nature of confessional identities in Ireland in the centuries that followed. The memory of sectarian attacks by Catholics on unprepared Protestants in 1641 laid the basis for a strident insistence on the need to repress Catholic power and property. On the Catholic side, the great hardships of the 1650s became central to a shared conviction of persecution and loss on religious grounds. In Ireland confessional differences had become mapped onto ethnic and colonial antagonism adding a depth and complexity to confessional divisions largely absent elsewhere in Western Europe.
Interregnum
Confessional
Scots
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During the 1890s evangelical Protestants took to preaching on the streets in southern Irish towns and cities. They provoked an angry response, with large Catholic crowds gathering to protest at their activities. This created a difficult situation for the authorities. Obliged, on the one hand, to protect the rights and liberties of the preachers, they also looked to nurture behaviour appropriate to the sectarian realities in Ireland. At stake was the extent to which Ireland could be treated as an undifferentiated part of the United Kingdom, with W. E. H. Lecky increasingly recognizing the need for a different legal basis in Ireland. These events formed part of the wider evolution of ‘constructive unionism’. More broadly, respectable Irish Protestant and Catholic disapproval of preachers and the ‘mob’ revealed the way in which class attitudes cut across sectarian identities, suggesting that the political dividends paid the wider unionist movement by this exposure of the apparent realities of ‘Rome rule’ were little valued in the locale. Similarly, interventions by home rule politicians reinforced the sense that conciliating British public opinion was a central concern. Here was an example of how locally orientated sectarianism helped shape national political agendas.
Sectarianism
Home rule
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Alan Ford and John McCafferty (eds), The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. ix + 249, hb. £50.00, ISBN: 978-0-521-837-552.'Ireland is riven by sectarian hatred.' This sweeping, but regrettably accurate statement sets agenda for a collection of essays that seeks to explore an area of Irish history that has previously been 'under-researched', 'that period when Protestants and Catholics began to live apart and create parallel communities, institutions, cultures and histories' (p. 3).In his eloquent introductory chapter Alan Ford chooses not to summarise succeeding articles but to explore some of themes that dominate in period that Ireland became confessionally aware, late-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Thus he looks at issues of periodisation and terminology and provides an interesting if brief analysis of opposing trend to book's stated subject matter: giving a few glimpses of ability of some early modern Irish people to 'live together' in relative peace. Ute-Lotz Heumann's article imports recent German historiographical frameworks of confessionalisation and periodisation and successfully applies them to Irish context. Whilst she and Ford are at variance over which term, 'confessionalisation' or 'sectarianism', is more appropriate, they provide sound arguments for each and improve range and quality of interpretive frameworks available to us.David Edwards and Brian Jackson both look at development, organisation and internal workings of Catholic communities in early-modern Ireland. Edwards's ground-breaking essay on link between Catholicism and plantation offers a corrective view to commonly held assumption that New English meant Protestant. By highlighting influx of Catholic migrants from England and Scotland throughout period and especially during plantations, which after 1580 were assumed to be completely Protestant, Edwards shows overriding power of religion in forming communities between people of differing and often antagonistic ethnic stock. Thus many New English Catholics went, just a couple of generations from English conquerors to Catholic rebels' (p. 101). As he notes, marriage bonds, political and military alliances were made between New English Catholic settlers and native Irish and Anglo-Irish Catholics resulting in groups being almost 'as one ... in fearing worst as the Puritan faction grew in strength after Wentworth's downfall' (p. 123). Jackson's micro-historical account of a well-known dispute in Drogheda in 1618 shows internal rivalries and disputes within Irish Counter-Reformation Catholicism and undermines commonly held view that it was 'vigorous, rigorous and aggressive: a coherent ideology propagated with missionary fervour' (p. 203). Instead he details bitter and damaging disputes between Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits over power and influence in town. These two essays in particular remind us not to treat confessions or ethnic blocks as clearly defined and defining parameters in our research. Sectarianism arose not only between two confessions, but as John Morrill notes in his concluding chapter, in 'mutual recrimination amongst Protestants and Catholics' (p. 233).John McCafferty's and Tadhg O'Hannrachain's articles complement each other well, pointing out contrasting experiences and effectiveness of two rival Irish episcopates. So whereas Protestant Lewis Jones was proposed for see of Dromore so that 'in that vast country [there will be] at least some show of a church' (p. 60), during 1640s Irish Catholic hierarchy 'had evolved as a genuinely national body representing ... all four provinces of island' (p. 81). Reading essays together highlights in particular differing emphasis two churches placed on native Irish dimension. Though James I and a handful of clerics encouraged use of Irish language in early years, propagation of faith in native tongue soon lost impetus. …
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This study examines the interaction between religious and national affiliations within a Dissenting denomination. Linda Colley and Jonathan Clark argue that religion provided the unifying foundation of national identity. Colley portrays a Protestant British identity defined in opposition to Catholic France. Clark favors an English identity, based upon an Anglican intellectual hegemony, against which only the heterodox could effectively offer criticism. Studying the Baptists helps test those two approaches. Although Methodists and Baptists shared evangelical concerns, the Methodists remained within the Church of England. Though Baptists often held political views similar to the Unitarians, they retained their orthodoxy. Thus, the Baptists present an opportunity to explore the position of orthodox Dissenters within the nation. The Baptists separated their religious and national identities. An individual could be both a Christian and a Briton, but one attachment did not imply the other. If the two conflicted, religion took precedent. An examination of individual ministers, specifically William Winterbotham, Robert Hall, Mark Wilks, Joseph Kinghorn, and David Kinghorn, reveals a range of Baptist views from harsh criticism of to support for the government. It also shows Baptist disagreement on whether faith should encourage political involvement and on the value of the French Revolution. Baptists did not rely on religion as the source of their political opinions. They tended to embrace a concept of natural rights, and their national identity stemmed largely from the English constitutional heritage. Within that context, Baptists desired full citizenship in the nation. They called for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the reform of Parliament. Because of their criticism of church and state, Baptists demonstrate the diversity within British Protestantism. For the most part, religion did not contribute to their national identity. In fact, it helped distinguish them from other Britons. Baptist evangelicalism reinforced that separate identity, as the nation did not outweigh spiritual concerns. The church and state establishment perceived the Baptists as a threat to social order, but Baptists advocated reform, not revolution. They remained both faithful Baptists and loyal Britons.
Opposition (politics)
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ABSTRACT Ireland in the 1690s was a protestant state with a majority catholic population. These protestants sometimes described themselves as ‘the king's Irish subjects’ or ‘the people of Ireland’, but rarely as ‘the Irish’, a label which they usually reserved for the catholics. In constitutional and political terms their still evolving sense of identity expressed itself in the assertion of Irish parliamentary sovereignty, most notably in William Molyneux's 1698 pamphlet , The case of Ireland's being bound by acts of parliament in England, stated. In practice, however, the Irish parliament did not enjoy legislative independence, and the political elite was powerless in the face of laws promulgated at Westminster, such as the i6gg woollen act, which were detrimental to its interests. One possible solution to the problem of inferior status lay in legislative union with England or Great Britain. Increasingly in the years before 1707 certain Irish protestant politicians elaborated the economic, constitutional and practical advantages to be gained from a union, but they also based their case upon an appeal to the shared religion and ethnicity of the sovereign's loyal subjects in the two kingdoms. In short the protestants insisted that they were English. This unionist episode thus illustrates the profoundly ambivalent character of protestant identity in late seventeenthand early eighteenth-century Ireland .
Home rule
Scots
Elite
Independence
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Winner of the 1996 Albert C. Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History of the American Society of Church History This is the first full-length work on the fate of the Protestant nonconformists in Ireland following the restoration of the monarchy and the Church of Ireland in 1660. Of the religious groups studied in this book-the Scottish and English Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the Friends-only the Scottish Presbyterians had established themselves prior to the revolutionary upheavals of the 1640's and 1650's. The Congregationalists and Baptists arrived in the train of the English armies dispatched to quell the Irish rebellion. Neither group established firm roots outside the military and civilian republicans, and survived only as shadows of their former selves after 1660. This was also the case for the English Presbyterians. In contrast, the Friends, whose work in Ireland began in 1654, crisscrossed the island in their search for converts, and thus established a much stronger foundation on which to build in the later decades of the century. In addition to examining the internal history of these groups from the restoration to the eve of the penal laws in the early eighteenth century, the author also explores the relationships between the civil authorities and the restored state church and the nonconformists. Only the Scottish Presbyterians and the Friends extended and solidified their bases, and by the end of the century had evolved from sects into denominational churches. Beginning around 1668, both groups underwent a rationalizing process that entailed the development of institutionalized authority, structured systems of discipline, multiregional networks of spiritual leaders, and means to raise funds, found schools, and, in the case of the Friends, establish agencies to censor, publish, and disseminate religious literature. The two groups-their organizations intact, their members yoked together in striking cohesiveness-were thus well positioned to withstand the penal laws in the eighteenth century.
Church History
English Reformation
Gentry
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The idea of an ‘Irish empire’ has had enduring appeal. It was a rare source of pride promoted by politicians and churchmen during depressed periods in independent Ireland, particularly the 1950s, and the phrase provided an evocative title for at least one popular – and notably sanguine – version of the Irish diaspora's story as late as the turn of this century. In such contexts ‘Irish empire’ can appear simply a wry play on a far more commonly used and, if recent scholarship is to be taken into account, by no means unrelated term, ‘British empire’. Yet as many historians of the Irish abroad, the Irish Catholic Church, and Irish culture more generally have noted, the existence of a peculiarly Irish ‘spiritual empire’ was widely spoken of even as the island's ports were daily choked with emigrants. Nevertheless, the pervasiveness and persistence of the concept, invariably involving the perception of a special, God-given emigrants' ‘mission’ to spread the Catholic religion in whatever part of the world they settled, warrant a more searching analysis than historians in the above-mentioned categories have hitherto devoted to it.
Emigration
Diaspora
Pride
British Empire
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William Pitt's decision to seek the abolition of the independent Irish parliament and the union of the established churches in Ireland and England ended a quarter century experiment in Irish legislative independence. During this brief period the penal system had been substantially modified, and the traditional Protestant ascendancy partially dismantled by liberal Protestants themselves. The Church of Ireland, however, had not shared in the enthusiasm of this Irish “renaissance”; parliamentary spokesmen had demanded abolition of the tithe, enforcement of clerical residence, endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy and elimination of abuses in ecclesiastical patronage. Anticlericalism had increased, tithe resistance had infected even Protestant tenants, and pamphlets condemning the Church of Ireland as the unholy wonder of Christendom were penned by Protestants themselves. The alarm of Irish churchmen only too aware of the fundamental weaknesses of the established church, the clamor of British peers with large Irish landholdings and the outbreak of rebellion in 1797, finally convinced British statesmen that the crisis could be relieved only by the abolition of the Irish legislature.
Home rule
Toleration
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This thesis explores the development of Gallican and anti-papalist ideas among English and
Irish Catholics in the period c. 1635 - c. 1685. It identifies a set of arguments concerning
political theology and the rule of faith which, it maintains, constituted a comprehensive
response to the dilemmas faced by Catholics living under protestant rulers and trying to
reconcile their religious and political loyalties. It suggests that the qualitative identity
between the arguments of the writers under consideration is such that it is useful to think in
terms of a discrete school of thought which may be labelled 'Anglo- Irish Gallicanism'.
The writers whose works are examined in detail are Sir Kenelm Digby, Thomas White (also
known as Blacklo), Henry Holden, Hugh Paulin (in religion, Serenus) Cressy, John Austin,
Richard Bellings, Redmund Caron and Peter Walsh. This study complements earlier
research into English and Irish Catholic thinking in the seventeenth century. Whereas
previous discussions of the Oath of Allegiance controversy have been restricted to the period '
c. 1606 - c. 1615, this account stresses the ongoing importance for English and Irish, Catholics of the Oath of Allegiance, and of the issues which it raised, during the rest of the
century. The 'Blackloist' contribution to the rule of faith debates has been examined
recently, and there have been short studies of aspects of the careers of the other writers, but
there has not been a sustained examination of the political theology of the English and Irish
Catholics in general or of these writers in particular. Nor has there been any attempt to
consider the links between, and coherence of, many of their political-theological ideas and
their arguments concerning the rule of faith. This thesis therefore addresses one aspect of
the neglected intellectual history of English and Irish Catholics in this period.
It is argued that Anglo-Irish Gallican political theology comprised dualist, and even
'Marsilian', accounts of the relationship between the church and the state, and tolerant
attitudes towards the relationships between different Christian denominations. These
positions were maintained on the basis of anti-papalist rules of faith. Such rules of faith
were important not only in debates between Catholics and protestants about the identity of
the true church, but also in debates between Catholics and Catholics about the status and
teachings of this church. These approaches enabled the writers whose works are analysed to
define the status of their religion, and the jurisdictions of their temporal and spiritual leaders,
in such a way that they could express absolute loyalty to their temporal sovereigns while still
subscribing to what they saw as the true Catholic faith. In these approaches, they built on
comparable claims about the papal deposing power advanced during the Oath of Allegiance
controversy in the period up to c. 1615; but they systematised these claims and bolstered
them with more sustained accounts of political theology and the rule of faith than are evident
in the earlier writings.
The potential political significance of Anglo-Irish Gallicanism is also noted. Whereas
previous accounts of 'popery and politics' in this period have usually been concerned with
'anti-popery and politics', and have paid only scant regard to the ideas and beliefs of the
Catholics themselves, this thesis notes that the Anglo-Irish Gallicans played a potentially
significant role in the Stuart count during the 1660s and 1670s. In addition to using a range
of published material, it draws on manuscript sources written by English and Irish Gallicans
concerning the establishment of a tolerant system of government in England and Ireland and
the reunion of the English and Roman Churches. These manuscripts were written by, or
associated with, English and Irish Gallicans at the heart of the Stuart polity, namely Serenus
Cressy and Richard Bellings. Although it cannot consider the purely 'political' role of these
Catholics, this thesis is intended to provide some account of the intellectual culture which
they represented and which has hitherto been largely ignored. It may therefore have
implications for the political history of the Stuarts, as well as for the English and Irish
Catholics, in the seventeenth century and later.
Allegiance
Oath
Pilgrim
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