History of Christianity in Ireland
Encyclopedia

Introduction of Christianity

The introduction of Christianity to Ireland
Christianity in Ireland
Christianity is and has been the largest religion in Ireland, both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Irish Christianity is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church which has 86.8% of the Republic's population as followers. Most churches are organized on an all-Ireland basis which...

 dates to sometime before the 5th century, presumably in interactions with Roman Britain. Christian worship had reached pagan Ireland around 400 AD. For some unknown reason, the conversion from pagan worship to Christian worship was bloodless in Ireland, as was not the case in the rest of Europe at the time. It is often misstated that St. Patrick brought the faith to Ireland, but it was already present on the island long before Patrick arrived. Monasteries were built for monks who wanted permanent communion with God. The lengths they went to for tranquility are evident from the monastarie of Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael , also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean about 9 miles from the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands...

.

Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

 broadly refers to the Early Medieval
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

 Christian practice that developed in Britain and Ireland before and during the post-Roman period, when Germanic invasions sharply reduced contact between the broadly Celtic populations of Britons and Irish with Christians on the Continent until their subsequent conversion in the 5th and 6th centuries. Then through the works of Columba
Columba
Saint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...

 and Aidan
Aidan of Lindisfarne
Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria , was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old...

 it was spread to others on Great Britain, such as the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

 and Northumbrians respectively. Celtic Christianity may be distinguished by its organisation around monasteries rather than dioceses, and certain traditions, especially in matters of liturgy and ritual, that were different from those of the greater sub-Roman world.

It is easy to exaggerate the cohesiveness of the Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic Christian communities. Scholars have long recognised that the term “Celtic Church” is simply inappropriate to describe Christianity among Celtic-speaking
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

 peoples, since this would imply a notion of unity, or a self-identifying entity, that simply did not exist. As Patrick Wormald
Patrick Wormald
Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.He attended Eton College as a King's Scholar...

 explained, “One of the common misconceptions is that there was a ‘Roman Church’ to which the ‘Celtic’ was nationally opposed.” Celtic-speaking areas were part of Latin Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...

 as a whole, wherein a significant degree of liturgical and structural variation existed, along with a collective veneration of the Bishop of Rome
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 that was no less intense in Celtic areas. Nonetheless, it is possible to talk about certain traditions present in Celtic-speaking lands, and the development and spread of these traditions, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some scholars have chosen to apply the term ‘Insular Christianity’ to this Christian practice that arose around the Irish Sea
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...

, a cultural nexus in the sub-Roman period that has been called the ‘Celtic Mediterranean’. The term “Celtic Christianity” may also be employed simply in the sense of different Catholic practices, institutions, and saints amongst the Celtic peoples, in which case it could be used meaningfully well beyond the seventh century.

St Patrick Apostle of the Irish

In 430, Pope Celestine I
Pope Celestine I
Pope Saint Celestine I was elevated to the papacy in the year 422, on November 3 according to the Liber Pontificalis, but on April 10 according to Tillemont....

 sent Palladius
Palladius
Palladius was the first Bishop of the Christians of Ireland, preceding Saint Patrick. The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion consider Palladius a saint.-Armorica:...

, a bishop of Britain, to minister to the "Scots believing in Christ." Palladius, however, returned to Britain almost immediately, having accomplished little.

In 432 Celestine sent St. Patrick. Although he is called the Apostle of Ireland, this does not imply that he found Ireland altogether pagan and left it altogether Christian. It is however quite true that when St. Patrick did come paganism was the predominant belief, and that at his death it had been supplanted by Christianity.

Patrick (Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

: Naomh Pádraig) is thought to have been born in Britain about 390. He was captured by Irish raiders and spent six years as a slave in Ireland but escaped. He entered the church and became a bishop before returning to Ireland as a missionary.

Native Ministry

One of St. Patrick's highest priorities was to establish a native ministry. For this purpose he selected the leading men—chiefs, brehon
Brehon
Brehon is the term in Gaelic-Irish culture for a judge. The Brehons were part of the system of "Brehon Law". The Brehons wore yellow robes when delivering verdicts. Several dozen families were recognised as hereditary brehon clans.-See also:* Mac an Bhaird...

s, bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

s—men likely to attract the respect of the people, and ordained them, after a little training, and often with minimal education. In a short time, however, these primitive conditions ceased. In about 450 a college was established at Armagh
Armagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...

 under Benignus
Benignus of Armagh
Saint Benignus of Armagh was the son of Sesenen, an Irish chieftain in that part of Ireland which is now County Meath. He was baptised into the Catholic faith by St. Patrick, and became his favourite disciple and his coadjutor in the Diocese of Armagh around AD 450...

; other schools arose at Kildare
Kildare
-External links:*******...

, Noendrum, and Louth; and by the end of the fifth century these colleges sent forth a sufficient supply of trained priests.

Supported by a grant of land from the chief of the clan or sept and by voluntary offerings, bishop and priests lived together, preached to the people, administered the sacraments, settled their disputes, sat in their banquet halls. To many ardent natures this state of things was abhorrent. Fleeing from men, they sought for solitude and silence, by the banks of a river, in the recesses of a wood, and, with the scantiest allowance of food, the water for their drink, a few wattles covered with sods for their houses, they spent their time in mortification and prayer. Literally they were monks, for they were alone with God. But their retreats were soon invaded by others anxious to share their penances and their vigils, and to learn wisdom at their feet. Each newcomer built his little hut, a church was erected, a grant of land obtained, their master became abbot, and perhaps bishop; and thus arose monastic establishments the fame of which soon spread throughout Europe. Noted examples in the sixth century were Clonard
Clonard Abbey
Clonard Abbey was an early medieval monastery situated on the River Boyne, just beside the traditional boundary line of the northern and southern halves of Ireland in modern County Meath...

, founded by St. Finian
Finnian of Clonard
Saint Finnian of Clonard , or Finian, 'Fionán' or 'Fionnán' in Irish, was one of the early Irish monastic saints, who founded Clonard Abbey in modern-day County Meath. The Twelve Apostles of Ireland studied under him...

, Clonfert
Clonfert
Clonfert is a small village in east County Galway, Ireland. It is half way between Ballinasloe and Portumna.Clonfert Cathedral is situated in the village, which is the see of the Diocese of Clonfert.-See also:* List of towns and villages in Ireland...

 by St. Brendan, Bangor
Bangor, County Down
Bangor is a large town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough and within the Belfast Metropolitan Area. Bangor Marina is one of the largest in Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status...

 by St. Comgall, Clonmacnoise
Clonmacnoise
The monastery of Clonmacnoise is situated in County Offaly, Ireland on the River Shannon south of Athlone....

 by St. Kieran, Killeaney
Killeaney
In the 5th century the Great Island was given by Aengus, King of Cashel, to St. Endeus or St. Enda of Aran, who founded several monasteries, and built several churches, of which the principal was named after him Kill-Enda, now called Killeany...

 by St. Enda; and, in the seventh century, Lismore
Lismore, County Waterford
Lismore is a town in County Waterford, Ireland. It is located where the N72 road crosses the River Blackwater.-History:It was founded by Saint Mochuda, also known as Saint Carthage. In the 7th century, Lismore was the site of the well-known Lismore Abbey. It is also home to Lismore Castle, the...

 by St. Carthage and Glendalough
Glendalough
Glendalough or Glendaloch is a glacial valley in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is renowned for its Early Medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin, a hermit priest, and partly destroyed in 1398 by English troops....

 by St. Kevin.

Frequented by the best of the Irish, and by students from abroad, these latter diffused knowledge over western Europe, and Ireland received and merited the title of Island of Saints and Scholars. The holy men who laboured with St. Patrick and immediately succeeded him were mostly bishops and founders of churches; those of the sixth century were of the monastic order; those of the seventh century were mostly anchorites who loved solitude, silence, continued prayer, and the most rigid austerities. Nor were the women behindhand in this contest for holiness. St. Brigid is a name still dear to Ireland, and she, as well as St. Ita
Saint Ita
Íte ingen Chinn Fhalad , also known as Ita, Ida or Ides, was an early Irish nun and saint, patron of Killeedy . Her feast day is 15 January....

, St. Fanchea and others, founded many convents tenanted by pious women. In fact, scholars believe that in general Irish religious women held a higher status in society than those elsewhere; they were not required to live cloistered lives - although many did so out of choice - and many took very active roles in ecclesiastical and social affairs, such as helping the poor and the weak. Additionally, there is evidence that some married women took religious vows. This is particularly notable considering that Irish society in general was governed by the patriarchal Brehon Laws, which viewed women as socially inferior to men and legally dependent on their male relatives.

Nor was the Irish Church, as has been sometimes asserted, out of communion with the See of Rome. In the number of its sacraments, in its veneration for the Blessed Virgin, in its belief in the Mass and in Purgatory, in its obedience to the See of Rome, the creed of the early Irish Church was the Catholic creed of today. Abroad as well as at home Irish Christian zeal was displayed. In 563 St. Columba, a native of Donegal, accompanied by a few companions, crossed the sea to Caledonia
Caledonia
Caledonia is the Latinised form and name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire...

 and founded a monastery on the desolate island of Iona
Iona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...

.

Irish monasteries

Monastic school
Monastic school
Monastic schools were, along with cathedral schools, the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West from the early Middle Ages until the 12th century. Since Cassiodorus's educational program, the standard curriculum incorporated religious studies, the Trivium, and the...

s in Ireland became centers of excellence for peoples from all over Europe, as can be seen by tracing the English who came to study and train as missionaries in them. The historian Bede and an earlier English contemporary Aldhelm report that sizeable contingents of English students trained as missionaries in Ireland, specifically at Rath Melsigi, Co. Carlow, in Leinster
Leinster
Leinster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the east of Ireland. It comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Mide, Osraige and Leinster. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the historic fifths of Leinster and Mide gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled...

. These English monks trained in Ireland in order to convert their pagan Germanic relatives on the continent. Several of them had successful ecclesiastical careers after their Irish training.

Bede and Aldhelm, being clerics, emphasized religious training, but both confirm that secular subjects were also taught at Irish monastic schools. Study of the scriptures was paramount, but they both make it clear that students often traveled from site to site seeking out teachers who had specialized knowledge in secular subjects as well.

During the early decades of the seventh century many Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

 nobles were educated at Irish monasteries in northern Britain, specifically at Iona. Bede said that the Irish willingly welcomed the English students, gave them food, and provided them with books and instruction, without seeking any payment. When these Irish-educated English nobles returned to England, they invited Irish missionaries into their pagan kingdoms to evangelize. For example, the Anglo-Saxon King Oswald
Oswald of Northumbria
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...

 invited the Irish bishop Aidan
Aidan of Lindisfarne
Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria , was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old...

 from Iona into his kingdom, and Aidan founded the monastery at Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...

 on the coast of Northumberland around 635. The English historian Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

 shows that Irish missionary activity in northern England was more successful at converting the pagan English than that started by Rome in 597 from Canterbury in the south of England.

Fresh arrivals came from Ireland; the monastery with Columba as its abbot was soon a flourishing institution, from which the Dalriadian Scots in the south and the Picts beyond the Grampians were evangelized. When Columba died in 597, Christianity had been preached and received in every district in Caledonia, and in every island along its west coast. In the next century Iona had so prospered that its abbot, St. Adamnan, wrote in excellent Latin the "Life of St. Columba". From Iona had gone south the Irish Aidan and his Irish companions to compete with and even exceed in zeal the Roman missionaries under St. Augustine, and to evangelize Northumbria, Mercia, and Essex; and if Irish zeal had already been displayed in Iona, equal zeal was now displayed on the desolate isle of Lindisfarne.

The monastery of Iona
Iona Abbey
Iona Abbey is located on the Isle of Iona, just off the Isle of Mull on the West Coast of Scotland. It is one of the oldest and most important religious centres in Western Europe. The abbey was a focal point for the spread of Christianity throughout Scotland and marks the foundation of a monastic...

, founded by Columba, encouraged literary production in both languages. For example, one of its more famous abbots, Adomnán (679–704), mentioned already as the author of the Latin "Life of Columba," wrote a description in Latin of the significant sites in the Holy Land called "On the Holy Places" (De Locis Sanctis). Abbot Adomnán also wrote and promulgated a law (Cáin Adomnáin, 697), written in Irish, which was intended to protect women, children, and clerics from the ravages of warfare.

Saint Columba
Columba
Saint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...

, the founder of the monastery at Iona, has a Latin hymn, "Exalted Creator" (Altus Prosator), attributed to him, although not all critics accept the attribution. Three poems in praise of Columba rank among the oldest complete poems in the Irish language. One of them, the "Eulogy for Columba" (Amra Choluim Chille), has been dated on linguistic grounds to around 600, which coincides well with Columba's death date of 597. According to tradition, Dallán Forgaill
Dallan Forgaill
Saint Dallán Forgaill —also Dallán Forchella; Dallán of Cluain Dalláin; born Eochaid Forchella—was an early Christian Irish poet best known as the writer of the Amra Choluim Chille and the early Irish poem Rop tú mo baile, the basis of the modern English hymn Be Thou My Vision.-Personal...

, a professional poet, composed it in order to eulogize Columba on his death. This poem is important for several reasons besides its great age. It reflects an ancient tradition of praising secular rulers, but it is unusual for praising instead a religious leader. It demonstrates how the learning of the monasteries blended native customs with Christian teachings. For example, it complies with the norms of secular eulogy by noting Columba's aristocratic background and by providing genealogical information that can be corroborated in other sources. Columba is called a great champion, but rather than battling against his enemies and sharing largesse among his subjects, Columba excels in self-denial and Christian learning. His praiseworthy qualities are not those of a secular ruler, but of an ascetic, scholarly cleric.

The monastery at Bangor
Bangor Erris
Bangor Erris is a town in Kiltane parish in Erris, County Mayo, Ireland with a population of 500. It is on the banks of the Owenmore River and is the gateway to the Erris Peninsula linking Belmullet with Ballina and Westport, nestled at the foot of the "Bangor Trail" a 22-mile mountain pass across...

 also produced learned religious texts in Latin beside a vibrant vernacular literature of Irish tales. In the late seventh century a collection of beautiful religious poems and hymns in Latin, the "Antiphonary of Bangor," was compiled there. Important vernacular literature also came from Bangor. "The Voyage of Bran" (Immram Brain), perhaps the earliest example of the Irish "otherworld voyage," was written at Bangor. It tells of Bran's voyage across the Western Ocean and recounts the wonders that he encountered in a sinless otherworld. It employs a motif whereby characters in a pre-Patrician context prophesy the coming of Christianity and the salvation of the Irish. Tales in Irish about the early cultural hero Mongán mac Fiachnai
Mongán mac Fiachnai
Mongán mac Fiachnai was an Irish prince of the Cruthin, a son of Fiachnae mac Báetáin. Little is certainly known of Mongán's life as only his death is recorded in the Irish annals...

 also originated at Bangor. The tales about Mongán portray the Irish Sea as a highway between Ireland and Britain and relate episodes that involve battles against English kingdoms.

Missionaries Abroad

Missionaries from Ireland
Hiberno-Scottish mission
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a mission led by Irish and Scottish monks which spread Christianity and established monasteries in Great Britain and continental Europe during the Middle Ages...

 to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

 spread news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations came to Irish monasteries. The excellence and isolation of these monasteries helped preserve Latin learning during the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

. The period of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, mainly in the fields of illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

, the Ardagh Chalice
Ardagh Chalice
The Ardagh Hoard, best known for the Ardagh Chalice, is a hoard of metalwork from the 8th and 9th centuries, found in 1868 and now in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin...

, and the many carved stone crosses
High cross
A high cross or standing cross is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors...

 that dot the island.

During the Dark Ages in Europe these monasteries served as sanctuary to many of the continents great scholars and theologians. It was here that the lamp of Latin learning was preserved for the ages. During this age, the great illuminated manuscripts of Ireland were produced. Arguably the finest such work, is The Book of Kells which may still be viewed at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

.

The first significant renewal of learning in the West came with the Carolingian Renaissance
Carolingian Renaissance
In the history of ideas the Carolingian Renaissance stands out as a period of intellectual and cultural revival in Europe occurring from the late eighth century, in the generation of Alcuin, to the 9th century, and the generation of Heiric of Auxerre, with the peak of the activities coordinated...

 of the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

. Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

, advised by Peter of Pisa
Peter of Pisa
Peter of Pisa was a grammarian of the Early middle ages. He originally taught at Pavia. In 776, after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom, Charlemagne summoned him to his court to teach Latin. Peter was a friend of Alcuin. He returned about the year 790 to Italy where he died no later than 799...

 and Alcuin of York, attracted the scholars of England and Ireland, and by decree in AD 787 established schools in every abbey in his empire. These schools, from which the name scholasticism is derived, became centres of medieval learning. During the early Scholastic
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

 period, knowledge of the Greek language
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 had vanished in the west except in Ireland, where it was widely dispersed in the monastic schools.

Irish scholars had a considerable presence in the Frankish court
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...

, where they were renowned for their learning. Among them was Johannes Scotus Eriugena
Johannes Scotus Eriugena
Johannes Scotus Eriugena was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He is known for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.-Name:...

, one of the founders of scholasticism. Eriugena was the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period, and an outstanding philosopher in terms of originality. He had considerable familiarity with the Greek language, and translated many works into Latin, affording access to the Cappadocian Fathers
Cappadocian Fathers
The Cappadocian Fathers are Basil the Great , who was bishop of Caesarea; Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa , who was bishop of Nyssa; and a close friend, Gregory of Nazianzus , who became Patriarch of Constantinople...

 and the Greek theological tradition.

The Vikings arrive

During the ninth & tenth centuries, waves of Norse warriors ransacked the countryside. The Vikings plundered everything in sight. The monasteries were favorite targets for their treasures of golden religious ornaments.

As the eighth century neared its close, religion and learning still flourished; but unexpected dangers approached and a new enemy came, before whose assaults monk and monastery and saint and scholar disappeared. These invaders were the Danes from the coasts of Scandinavia. Pagans and pirates, they loved plunder and war, and both on land and sea were formidable foes. Descending from their ships along the coast of western Europe, they murdered the inhabitants or made them captives and slaves.

In Ireland as elsewhere they attacked the monasteries and churches, desecrated the altars, carried away the gold and silver vessels, and smoking ruins and murdered monks attested the fury of their assaults. Armagh and Bangor, Kildare and Clonmacnoise, Iona and Lindisfarne thus fell before their fury. Under native and Christian chiefs churches were destroyed, church lands appropriated by laymen, monastic schools deserted, lay abbots ruled at Armagh and elsewhere. Bishops were consecrated without sees and conferred orders for money, there was chaos in church government and corruption everywhere.

In a series of synods beginning with Rathbreasail (1118) and including Kells, at which the pope's legate
Papal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....

 presided, many salutary enactments were passed, and for the first time diocesan episcopacy
Diocesan bishop
A diocesan bishop — in general — is a bishop in charge of a diocese. These are to be distinguished from suffragan bishops, assistant bishops, coadjutor bishops, auxiliary bishops, metropolitans, and primates....

 was established. Meanwhile, St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, had done very remarkable work in his own diocese and elsewhere. His early death in 1148 was a heavy blow to the cause of church reform. Nor could so many evils be cured in a single life, or by the labours of a single man; and in spite of his efforts and the efforts of others the decrees of synods were often flouted, and the new diocesan boundaries ignored.

Anglo-Normans

In December, 1154 Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, by the Treaty of Wallingford
Treaty of Wallingford
The Treaty of Wallingford of 1153, aka Treaty of Winchester or as the Treaty of Westminster, was an agreement that effectively ended the civil war known as the Anarchy, caused by a dispute between Empress Matilda and her cousin King Stephen of England over the English crown...

 and a large fleet, became in addition Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

, King of England. In that same month an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspeare, was elected Pope Adrian IV
Pope Adrian IV
Pope Adrian IV , born Nicholas Breakspear or Breakspeare, was Pope from 1154 to 1159.Adrian IV is the only Englishman who has occupied the papal chair...

. Henry intended, as shown by his later Constitutions of Clarendon
Constitutions of Clarendon
The Constitutions of Clarendon were a set of legislative procedures passed by Henry II of England in 1164. The Constitutions were composed of 16 articles and represent an attempt to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and curb the power of the Church courts and the extent of Papal authority in England...

, to establish the supremacy of the civil law and courts above the ecclesiastical law and courts. In the first full year of Henry's reign (1155) he procured the Papal Bull Laudabiliter
Laudabiliter
Laudabiliter was a papal bull issued in 1155 by Adrian IV, the only Englishman to serve as Pope, giving the Angevin King Henry II of England the right to assume control over Ireland and apply the Gregorian Reforms in the Irish church...

 from the Hertfordshire born Pope Adrian IV
Pope Adrian IV
Pope Adrian IV , born Nicholas Breakspear or Breakspeare, was Pope from 1154 to 1159.Adrian IV is the only Englishman who has occupied the papal chair...

 authorizing Henry to proceed to conquer Ireland "to check the torrent of wickedness to reform evil manners, to sow the seeds of virtue". The quid pro quo was the condition that a penny should be yearly paid from each house to the See of Rome (the still extant Peter's Pence). Henry and the Pope also had other reasons (see Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

, section “Lordship over Ireland”). The invasion was put aside while Henry attended to other matters. Henry continued to battle the supreme power of the Church, and Thomas à Beckett
Thomas à Beckett
Sir Thomas à Beckett was an Australian solicitor and judge.-Personal:Thomas à Beckett was born in London, England...

 in England. In 1166, Henry took the opportunity to accede to the request by displaced Irish
Rí, or very commonly ríg , is an ancient Gaelic word meaning "King". It is used in historical texts referring to the Irish and Scottish kings and those of similar rank. While the modern Irish word is exactly the same, in modern Scottish it is Rìgh, apparently derived from the genitive. The word...

 of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada for assistance in regaining his Irish territory. A first contingent of the Norman Invasion of Ireland
Norman Invasion of Ireland
The Norman invasion of Ireland was a two-stage process, which began on 1 May 1169 when a force of loosely associated Norman knights landed near Bannow, County Wexford...

 came to Ireland in 1169 under Maurice Fitzgerald
Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Lanstephan
Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Maynooth, Naas, and Llanstephan) was a major figure in the Norman invasion of Ireland....

, followed by a stronger force under Strongbow (Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland . Like his father, he was also commonly known as Strongbow...

) in 1170, the year Thomas à Beckett was murdered. In 1171 Henry himself landed at Waterford and proceeded to Dublin, where he spent the winter, and received the submission of most the Irish chiefs. This submission was outlined in the Treaty of Windsor 1175.

Given the significant degree of independence in the Celtic Church, some Irish clergy quarrelled. Disputes arose over appointments. There were some religious houses which were corrupt, their Chieftains, priors and abbots often controlling great and wealthy landholdings. Some were too involved in secular concerns. The great monastic schools had declined. Clonmacnoise, for example, was in ruins.
Gradually preaching would be revived by the influx of the new mendicant orders. Henry's title as the Lord of Ireland (Dominus Hiberniae) was confirmed by the papacy. The bishops took the oath of fidelity to him and his successors at the Synod of Cashel
Synod of Cashel
The Synod of Cashel of 1172, also known as the Second Synod of Cashel,The first being the Synod held at Cashel in 1101 was assembled at Cashel at the request of Henry II of England shortly after his arrival in Ireland in October 1171...

. The Celtic Church's alignment with the Church of Rome was copperfastened. The native liturgies were gradually streamlined and adapted and many aspects of the liturgy of the Western European Roman Christian Church were adopted.

From then on, a papal legate was resident in Ireland. Pope Alexander III
Pope Alexander III
Pope Alexander III , born Rolando of Siena, was Pope from 1159 to 1181. He is noted in history for laying the foundation stone for the Notre Dame de Paris.-Church career:...

 was extremely gratified with this extension of his dominion. In September, 1172, in a tone of sanctimonious arrogance, he issued a brief confirming the Bull of Adrian IV, and expressing a hope that “the barbarous nation” which it undoubtedly would have been, would attain under the government of Henry “to some decency of manners”. He also wrote three epistles — one to Henry II, one to the Righ and nobles of Ireland, and one to its reorganised and renewed hierarchy — enjoining the people of Ireland to the personal sovereignty of the King of England, and of both nations to the Roman see of St. Peter.

In some ways the change effectively streamlined the church hierarchy. Under the ancient system, the native Chieftains were absolute over their followers in religious matters. This included the clergy. According to the new order introduced by Henry II, the Chieftains no longer had authority over the clergy. To maintain sovereignty over the general Irish clergy, the major Sees were filled by Normans. The native Irish clergy often appealed to Rome to confirm the more controversial nominations. Instances of predictable jealousy, hostility and dispute characterized the relations between the Norman and the Irish ecclesiastics. Animosity in the struggle for supremacy ebbed and flowed. It lasted for centuries, and would impact the Reformation.

Reformation and beyond

It was not until the end of the 17th centuries that the Crown of England gained full control of Ireland by means of a series of military campaigns in the period 1534–1691. During this period, the island was progressively colonised
Plantations of Ireland
Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....

 by English and Scottish Protestant settlers. Most of the Irish remained Roman Catholic.

Henry VIII

Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 decided to destroy the power Anglo-Norman Kings and take control of Ireland. As he did so, he put English lords in charge of confiscated land, and plundered the Catholic monasteries and churches, as he had done in England. In 1536 during the Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....

, Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 arranged to be declared head of the Church in Ireland through an Act of the Irish Parliament. When the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 was re-formed under Edward VI
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...

, so too was the Church of Ireland.

In the beginning of his reign, Henry VIII was preoccupied with more pressing matters in England and on the European Continent and therefore paid little attention to Ireland. It was not until he had reigned for a quarter of a century on the throne that he turned his attention to Ireland and then it was primarily due his conflict with the Church over his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. When Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy which invested Henry with spiritual jurisdiction over England, and proclaimed him head of the Church of England rather than the Pope. When the proctors of the clergy refused to agree to this measure, the irate monarch deprived them of the right of voting, confiscated church lands and suppressed monasteries, in some cases shedding the blood of their inmates, in the remaining cases evicting them and making them homeless and poor.

Elizabeth I

At the time of Elizabeth I's accession, all Ireland was Catholic. Fearing Ireland's Catholicism and strategic value for her enemies, Elizabeth consolidated English power in Ireland. The Anglo-Normans and the Gaels fought as one against the English but with little success. All but two of the Irish bishops accepted the Elizabethan Settlement
Elizabethan Religious Settlement
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I’s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. This response, described as "The Revolution of 1559", was set out in two Acts of the Parliament of England...

, although the vast majority of priests and the church membership remained Roman Catholic. The Church of Ireland
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...

 claims apostolic succession
Apostolic Succession
Apostolic succession is a doctrine, held by some Christian denominations, which asserts that the chosen successors of the Twelve Apostles, from the first century to the present day, have inherited the spiritual, ecclesiastical and sacramental authority, power, and responsibility that were...

 because of the continuity of consecration has been preserved in the episcopal hierarchy; however, this claim is disputed by the Roman Catholic Church.

The established church in Ireland underwent a period of more radical Calvinist doctrine than occurred in England. James Ussher
James Ussher
James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...

 (later Archbishop of Armagh
Archbishop of Armagh (Church of Ireland)
The Anglican Archbishop of Armagh is the ecclesiastical head of the Church of Ireland, the metropolitan of the Province of Armagh and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Armagh....

) authored the Irish Articles, adopted in 1615. In 1634, the Irish Convocation adopted the English Thirty-Nine Articles
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

 alongside the Irish Articles. After the Restoration of 1660, it seems that the Thirty-Nine Articles took precedence; they remain the official doctrine of the Church of Ireland even after disestablishment.

The English-speaking minority mostly adhered to the Church of Ireland or to Presbyterianism, while the Irish-speaking majority remained faithful to the Latin liturgy of Roman Catholicism, which remained the majority denomination in Ireland. From this period on, sectarian conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history.

Translation of the Bible into Irish

The first Irish translation of the New Testament was begun by Nicholas Walsh
Nicholas Walsh (Bishop of Ossory)
Nicholas Walsh was a bishop of the Church of Ireland who is noted for having introduced prayer-books and catechisms printed in the Irish language. He began the work of translating the Bible into Irish but was not able to complete this before his murder in 1585.The son of Patrick Walsh, bishop of...

, Bishop of Ossory
Bishop of Ossory
The Bishop of Ossory is an episcopal title which takes its name after the ancient of Kingdom of Ossory in the Province of Leinster, Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but in the Church of Ireland it has been united with other bishoprics.-History:The diocese of Ossory...

, who worked on it until he was murdered in 1585. The work was continued by John Kearny, his assistant, and Dr. Nehemiah Donellan, Archbishop of Tuam; it was finally completed by William O'Domhnuill (William Daniell, Archbishop of Tuam in succession to Donellan). Their work was printed in 1602. The work of translating the Old Testament was undertaken by William Bedel (1571–1642), Bishop of Kilmore, who completed his translation within the reign of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

, although it was not published until 1680 in a revised version by Narcissus Marsh
Narcissus Marsh
Narcissus Marsh was an English clergyman who was successively Church of Ireland Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, Archbishop of Cashel, Archbishop of Dublin and Archbishop of Armagh....

 (1638–1713), Archbishop of Dublin. William Bedell had undertaken a translation of the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

 in 1606. An Irish translation of the revised prayer book of 1662 was effected by John Richardson (1664–1747) and published in 1712.

The first translation of the entire Bible that was approved by the church was An Bíobla Naofa, supervised by Professor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta
Pádraig Ó Fiannachta
Pádraig Ó Fiannachta is a renowned Irish language scholar, poet and priest, born in the Kerry Gaeltacht in 1927. He studied at Maynooth, University College Cork and All Hallows, Clonliffe College. He was ordained a priest in 1953. He spent some time in Wales prior to returning to Maynooth College...

 at Maynooth
Maynooth
Maynooth is a town in north County Kildare, Ireland. It is home to a branch of the National University of Ireland, a Papal University and Ireland's main Roman Catholic seminary, St. Patrick's College...

 and published in 1981.

Rebellion of 1641

The plan of the rebel leaders, of whom Ruadhri Ua Mordha was chief, was to capture the garrison towns by a simultaneous attack. But they failed to capture Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland...

, containing large stores of arms, owing to the imprudence of Colonel MacMahon. He imparted the secret to a disreputable Irishman named O'Connolly, who at once informed the Castle authorities, with the result that the Castle defences were strengthened, and MacMahon and others arrested and subsequently executed. In Ulster, however, the whole open country and many towns fell into the rebels' hands, and Munster and Connaught soon joined the rebellion, as did the Catholics of the Pale
The Pale
The Pale or the English Pale , was the part of Ireland that was directly under the control of the English government in the late Middle Ages. It had reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast stretching from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk...

, unable to obtain any toleration of their religion, or security of their property, or even of their lives. Before the new year was far advanced the Catholic Bishops declared the rebellion just, and the Catholics formed a confederation which, from its meeting place, was called the "Confederation of Kilkenny". Composed of clergy and laity its members swore to be loyal to the king, to strive for the free exercise of their religion, and to defend the lives, liberties, and possessions of all who took the Confederate oath. Supreme executive authority was vested in a supreme council; there were provincial councils also, all these bodies deriving their powers from an elective body called the "General Assembly".

The Supreme Council exercised all the powers of government, administered justice, raised taxes, formed armies, appointed generals. One of the best-known of these officers was General Preston, who commanded in Leinster, having come from abroad with a good supply of arms and ammunition, and with 500 trained officers. A more remarkable man still was General Owen Roe O'Neill
Owen Roe O'Neill
Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill , anglicised as Owen Roe O'Neill , was a seventeenth century soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster.- In Spanish service :...

, nephew of the great Earl of Tyrone, who took command in Ulster, and whose defence of Arras against the French caused him to be recognized as one of the first soldiers in Europe. He also, like Preston, brought officers, arms, and ammunition to Ireland. At a later state came Rinuccini
Giovanni Battista Rinuccini
Giovanni Battista Rinuccini was a Roman Catholic archbishop in the mid seventeenth century. He was a noted legal scholar who became chamberlain to Pope Gregory XV, who made him the Archbishop of Fermo in Italy...

, the pope's nuncio, bringing with him a supply of money.

Meanwhile, civil war raged in England between king and Parliament; the Government at Dublin, ill supplied from across the Channel, was ill fitted to crush a powerful rebellion, and, in 1646, O'Neill won the great victory of Benburb. But the strength of which this victory was the outcome was counterbalanced by elements of weakness. The Catholics of Ulster and those of the Pale did not agree; neither did Generals O'Neill and Preston. The Supreme Council, with a feeble old man, Lord Mountgarret, at its head, and four provincial generals instead of a commander-in-chief, was ill-suited for the vigorous prosecution of a war. Moreover, the influence of the Marquis of Ormond was a fatal cause of discord. A personal friend of the king, and charged by him with the command of his army and with the conduct of negotiations, a Protestant with Catholic friends on the Supreme Council, his desire ought to have been to bring Catholic and Royalist together. But his hatred of the Catholics was such that he would grant them no terms, even when ordered to do so by His Majesty.

The Catholics' professions of loyalty he despised, and his great diplomatic abilities were used to sow dissensions in their councils and to thwart their plans. Yet the Supreme Council, dominated by an Ormondist faction, continued fruitless negotiations with him, agreed to a cessation when they themselves were strong and their opponents weak, and agreed to a peace with him in spite of the victory of Benburb, and in spite of the remonstrances of the nuncio and of General O'Neill. Nor did they cease these relations with him even after he had treacherously surrendered Dublin to the Parliament (1647), and left the country. On the contrary, they still put faith in him, entered into a fresh peace with him in 1648, and when he returned to Ireland as the Royalist viceroy they received him in state at Kilkenny. In disgust, General O'Neill came to a temporary agreement with the Parliamentary general, and Rinuccini, despairing of Ireland, returned to Rome.

Cromwell's Invasion

The Civil War in England
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 was then over. The Royalists had been vanquished, the king executed, the monarchy replaced by a commonwealth; and in August, 1649, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 came to Ireland with 10,000 men. Ormond meanwhile had rallied his supporters, and, with the greater part of the Catholics of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the Protestants of the Pale and of Munster, and great part of the Ulster Presbyterians, his strength was considerable. Early in August he had been disastrously beaten by the Puritan general Jones, at Rathmines; in consequence he offered no opposition to Cromwell's landing and made no attempt to relieve Drogheda. It was soon captured by Cromwell and its garrison put to the sword. A month later the same fate befell Wexford. Waterford repelled Cromwell's attack, and Clonmel and Kilkenny offered him a stout resistance; but other towns were easily captured, or voluntarily surrendered; and when he left Ireland, in May, 1650, Munster and Leinster were in his hands. His successors, Ireton and Ludlow, within two years reduced the remaining provinces. Meanwhile Owen Roe O'Neill had died after making terms with Ormond, but before meeting with Cromwell. The Catholic Bishops, however, repudiated Ormond, who then left Ireland. Some negotiations subsequently between Lord Clanricarde and the Duke of Lorraine came to nothing, and the long war was ended in which more than half the inhabitants of the country had lost their lives.

Cromwellian Settlement

In the beginning of the rebellion many Englishmen subscribed money to put it down, stipulating in return for a share of the lands to be forfeited, and thus hatred of the Catholics was mingled with hope of gain. The English Parliament accepted the money on the terms proposed, and the subscribers became known as "adventurers", because they adventured their money on Irish land. When the rebellion was over, the problem was to provide the lands promised, and also to provide lands for the soldiers who were in arrears of pay. It was a difficult problem. There was an Act for Settling Ireland
Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652
The Act for the Settlement of Ireland imposed penalties including death and land confiscation against participants and bystanders of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent unrest.-Background:...

, and Act for the Satisfaction of Adventurers in Lands and Arrears due to the soldiers and other public Debts; there was a High Court of Justice to determine who were guilty of rebellion; there were soldiers who had got special terms when laying down their arms; and there were those who had never had a share in the rebellion, but had merely lived in the rebel quarters during the war. The best of the lands east of the Shannon were for the adventurers and soldiers, the dispossessed being driven to Connaught. To determine where the planters were to be settled and where the transplanted, and what amount they were to get, there were commissions, and committees, and surveys, and court of claims. Nor was it till 1658 that the Cromwellian Settlement was complete, and even then many of the transplanted protested their innocence of any share in the rebellion, and many of the adventurers and soldiers complained that they had been defrauded of their due. In the amount of suffering it entailed and wrong inflicted the whole scheme far exceeded the plantation of Ulster. But it failed to make Ireland either English or Protestant, and in setting up a system of alien landlords and native tenants it proved the curse of Ireland and the fruitful parent of many ills.

Restoration of the monarchy

To the Irish, Cromwell's death in 1658 was welcome news, all the more so because Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 (1660–85) was restored. Had Charles been free to act, the Cromwellian Settlement would not have endured; for he loved the Catholics much more than he loved the Puritans. But the planters were a dangerous body to provoke, sustained as they were by the English Parliament and by the king's chief adviser, Ormond, who indeed hated the Cromwellians, but hated the Catholics much more. Some attempt, however, was made to right the wrong that had been done, and by the Act of Settlement, six hundred innocent Catholics were restored to their lands. Many more would have been restored had the court of claims been allowed to continue its sittings.

The irate planters wanted to know what was to become of them if the despoiled papist thus back their lands; utterings threats and even breaking out into rebellion they alarmed the king. Under Ormond's advice the Act of Explanation was then passed (1665) and the court of claims set up by the Act of Settlement closed its doors, though three thousand cases remained untried. Thus the Cromwellians who had murdered the king's father were, with few exceptions, left unmolested while the Catholics were abandoned to their fate. Before the rebellion two-thirds of the lands of the country were in the hands of the latter; after the Act of Explanation scarcely one-third was left them, a sweeping confiscation especially in the case of men who were denied even the justice of a trial.

After this the toleration of the Catholics was but a small concession. Not, however, during the whole of Charles's reign; for Ormond, now a duke, filled the office of viceroy for many years; he at least would maintain Protestant ascendancy, and exclude the Catholics from the bench and the corporations. In the English Council and in Parliament he bitterly attacked and defeated the proposed revision of the Act of Settlement. He does not appear to have had any sympathy with the lying tales of Oates and Bedloe, or with the storm of persecution which followed, and he disapproved of the judicial murder of Oliver Plunket. But his aversion from the Catholics continued, and was in no way chilled by advancing age. One of the last acts of Charles was to dismiss him from office as an enemy to toleration. The king himself soon after died in the Catholic Faith, and James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

, an avowed Catholic, succeeded, the first Catholic sovereign since the death of Mary Tudor.

James II

James attempted to rectify the Catholic question, and appointed Catholics to high civil and military offices, opened the corporations and the universities to them, had a papal nuncio at his court, and issued a declaration of Indulgence suspending the penal laws. When the Protestant bishops refused to have this declaration read from their pulpits he prosecuted them. Their acquittal was the signal for revolt, and James, deserted by all classes, fled to France leaving the English throne to William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...

, whom the Protestants invited from Holland. Meanwhile sweeping changes had been effected in Ireland by the viceroy, the Duke of Tyreconnell, a militant Catholic and a special favourite of King James. Protestant magistrates, sheriffs, and judges had been displaced to make room for Catholics; the army and corporations underwent similar changes; and the Act of Settlement was to be repealed. Protestants formed centres of resistance to the viceroy in Munster and Connaught, and, in Ulster, Derry and Enniskillen expelled the Catholics and closed their gates against the viceroy's troops. This was rebellion, for James, though repudiated in England, was still King of Ireland. In March, 1689, he arrived at Kinsale from France to subdue these rebels. But the task was beyond his strength. Derry and Enniskillen defied all his attacks, and a Wiliamite force, issuing from the latter town, almost annihilated a Jacobite army at Newton-Butler.

Battle of the Boyne

Disaffection became general among the Protestants when the Irish Parliament repealed the Act of Settlement and attained eighteen hundred persons who had fled to England through fear; and when, in August, a Williamite force of twenty thousand landed at Carrickfergus, the Protestants everywhere welcomed it. This great force, however, effected nothing, and in June, 1690, William himself came and encountered James on the banks of the Boyne. The battle was fought on 1 July, and resulted in the defeat of James. Hastening to Dublin he told the Duchess of Tyrconnell that the Irish soldiers had shamefully run away, to which the lady is said to have replied; "But your Majesty won the race." The retort was just. The Irish cavalry behaved with conspicuous gallantry, as did the greater part of the infantry. Some of the latter did run away, but not so fast as James himself, who fled taking the ablest of the Irish generals, Sarsfield, with him.

That the Irish were no cowards was soon shown by their defence of Athlone and the still more glorious defence of Limerick. After being compelled to raise the siege of the latter city, King Williams left for England, committing the civil authority to lords justices and the military command to General Ginkel.

In the following year Ginkel captured Athlone, owing to the carelessness of the Jacobite general, St-Ruth. On 12 July 1691, the last great battle of the war was fought at Aughrim. The Irish were not inferior to their opponents in numbers, discipline, or valour, and though overmatched in heavy guns they had the advantage of position. Nor was St-Ruth inferior to Ginkel in military capacity. His dispositions were excellent, and after several hours' desperate fighting Ginkel was driven back at every point. Just then St-Ruth was struck down by a cannon ball. Panic-stricken, the Irish fell back, allowing their opponents to advance and inflict on them a crushing defeat. The surrender of Galway and Sligo followed, and in a short time Ginkel and his whole army were before the walls of Limerick. When he had effectually surrounded it and made a breach in the walls, further resistance was seen to be hopeless, and Sarsfield and his friends made terms. By the end of the year the war was over, King William had triumphed, and Protestant ascendancy was secure.

Protestant Ascendancy (1691–1801)

Before the Stuart accession, Ireland was divided into thirty-four borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....

s. In 1613, forty new boroughs were created, all of them dominated by Protestants. The consequence of this was the reduction of the Catholic majority in the Irish parliament to a minority. By the end of the seventeenth century all Catholics, representing some 85% of Ireland's population then, were banned from the Irish parliament. As a result, political power rested entirely in the hands of a British settler-colonial, and more specifically Anglican, minority while the Catholic population suffered severe political and economic privations
Penal Laws (Ireland)
The term Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed under English and later British rule that sought to discriminate against Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters in favour of members of the established Church of Ireland....

.

By the late 18th century, many of the Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

 ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....

 had come to see Ireland as their native country. A Parliamentary faction led by Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...

 agitated for a more favourable trading relationship with England and for greater legislative independence for the Parliament of Ireland
Parliament of Ireland
The Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...

. However, reform in Ireland stalled over the more radical proposals to enfranchise Irish Catholics
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...

. This was enabled in 1793, but Catholics could not yet enter parliament or become government officials.

Oath of Allegiance

By the Treaty of Limerick
Treaty of Limerick
The Treaty of Limerick ended the Williamite war in Ireland between the Jacobites and the supporters of William of Orange. It concluded the Siege of Limerick. The treaty really consisted of two treaties which were signed on 3 October 1691. Reputedly they were signed on the Treaty Stone, an...

 the Catholic soldiers of King James were pardoned, protected against forfeiture of their estates, and were free to go abroad if they chose. All Catholics might substitute an oath of allegiance for the oath of supremacy, and were to have such privileges "as were consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II". King William also promised to have the Irish Parliament grant a further relaxation of the penal laws in force. This treaty, however, was soon torn to shreds, and in spite of William's appeals the Irish Parliament refused to ratify it, and embarked on fresh penal legislation. Under these new laws Catholics were excluded from Parliament, from the bench and bar, from the army and navy, from all civil offices, from the corporations, and even from the corporate towns. They could not have Catholic schools at home or attend foreign schools, or inherit landed property, or hold land under lease, or act as executors or administrators, or have arms or ammunition, or a horse worth £5. Neither could they bury their dead in Catholic ruins, or make pilgrimages to holy wells, or observe Catholic holidays. They could not intermarry with the Protestants, the clergyman assisting at such marriages being liable to death. The wife of a Catholic landlord turning Protestant got separate maintenance; the son turning Protestant got the whole estate; and the Catholic landlord having only Catholic children was obliged at death to divide his estate among his children in equal shares. All the regular clergy
Regular clergy
Regular clergy, or just regulars, is applied in the Roman Catholic Church to clerics who follow a "rule" in their life. Strictly, it means those members of religious orders who have made solemn profession. It contrasts with secular clergy.-Terminology and history:The observance of the Rule of St...

, as well as bishops and vicars-general should quit the kingdom. The secular clergy
Secular clergy
The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...

 might remain, but must be registered, nor could they have on their churches either steeple or bell.

In 1728, the Catholics were to the Protestants as five to one. A few Catholics managed to hold their estates with the collaboration of friendly Protestants; the remainder gradually sank to the level of cottiers
Cotter (farmer)
See also Canadian band The Cottars.Cotter, cottier or cottar is the Scots term for a peasant farmer formerly in the Scottish highlands. Cotters occupied cottages and cultivated small plots of land...

 and day-labourers, reduced to a standard of living far below what they had been used to. Many Catholics chose to emigrate in the hopes of finding a more congenial environment.

Irish Parliament and the Passing of Tolerance

In the Irish Parliament meanwhile a spirit of independence appeared. As the Parliament of the Pale it had been so often used for factious purposes that in 1496 Poynings' Law was passed, providing that henceforth no Irish Parliament could meet, and no law could be proposed, without the previous consent of both the Irish and English Privy Council
Privy Council of England
The Privy Council of England, also known as His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, was a body of advisers to the sovereign of the Kingdom of England...

s. Further, the English Parliament claimed the right to legislate for Ireland; and in the laws prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle (1665), and Irish woollen manufactures (1698), and that dealing with the Irish forfeited estates (1700), it asserted its supposed right.

When one member, Molyneux, protested, the English Parliament condemned him, and ordered his book to be burned by the common hangman. Moreover, it passed an Act in 1719
Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719
The Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1719 ....

 expressly declaring that it had power to legislate for Ireland, taking away also the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords
Irish House of Lords
The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from mediaeval times until 1800. It was abolished along with the Irish House of Commons by the Act of Union.-Function:...

. The fight made by Swift against Wood's halfpence showed that, though Molyneux was dead, his spirit lived; Lucas continued the fight, and Grattan
Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...

 in 1782 obtained legislative independence
Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782
The Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain passed on 17 April 1782. As suggested by the title, it served to repeal the entirety of the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719. It was itself repealed by the...

.

In 1778 by an Act enabling Catholics to hold all lands under lease; and in 1782 by a further Act allowing them to erect Catholic schools, with the permission of the Protestant bishop of the diocese, to own a horse worth more than £5, and to assist at Mass without being compelled to accuse the officiating priest. Nor were Catholic bishops any longer compelled to quit the kingdom, nor Catholic children specially rewarded if they turned Protestant. Not for ten years was there any further concession, and then an Act was passed allowing Catholics to erect schools without seeking Protestant permission, admitting Catholics to the Bar, and legalizing marriages between Protestants and Catholics. Much more important was the Act of 1793 giving the Catholics the Parliamentary and municipal franchise, admitting them to the universities and to military and civil offices, and removing all restrictions in regard to the tenure of land. They were still excluded from Parliament, from the inner Bar, and from a few of the higher civil and military offices.

Always in favour of religious liberty, Grattan would have swept away every vestige of the Penal code. But, in 1782, he mistakenly thought that his work was done when legislative independence was conceded. He forgot that the executive was still left independent of Parliament, answerable only to the English ministry; and that, with rotten boroughs controlled by a few great families, with an extremely limited franchise in the counties, and with pensioners and placement filling so many seats, the Irish Parliament was but a mockery of representation.

Like Grattan, Flood
Henry Flood
Henry Flood , Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became proficient in the classics...

 and Charlemont favoured Parliamentary reform, but, unlike him, they were opposed to Catholic concessions. As for Foster and Fitzgibbon, who led the forces of corruption and bigotry, they opposed every attempt at reform, and consented to the Act of 1793 only under strong pressure from Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

 and Dundas
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville PC and Baron Dunira was a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was the first Secretary of State for War and the last person to be impeached in the United Kingdom....

. These English ministers, alarmed at the progress of French revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

ary principles in Ireland, fearing a foreign invasion, wished to have the Catholics contented. In 1795 further concessions seemed imminent. In that year an illiberal viceroy
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, Lord Westmoreland
John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland
John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland KG, PC , styled Lord Burghersh between 1771 and 1774, was a British Tory politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who served in most of the cabinets of the period, primarily as Lord Privy Seal.-Background:Westmorland was the son of John Fane, 9th...

, was replaced by the liberal-minded Lord Fitzwilliam
William FitzWilliam, 4th Earl FitzWilliam
William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam PC , styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham's estates, making him one of the richest people in...

, who came understanding it to be the wish of Pitt that the Catholic claims were to be conceded. He at once dismissed from office a rapacious office-holder named Beresford, so powerful that he was called the "King of Ireland"; he refused to consult Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor of Ireland
The office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland was the highest judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 to 1801 it was also the highest political office of the Irish Parliament.-13th century:...

 Fitzgibbon
John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare
John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare PC , later known as Earl of Clare or Lord Clare, was Attorney-General for Ireland in 1783, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, in which capacity he was first promoted to the Irish peerage.He was a controversial figure in Irish history, being described...

 or Foster
John Foster, 1st Baron Oriel
John Foster, 1st Baron Oriel was an Irish peer and politician.He was the son of Anthony Foster of Louth, an Irish judge . He was elected Member of Parliament to the Irish House of Commons for Dunleer in 1761, a seat he held until 1769...

, the Speaker; he took Grattan and Ponsonby
William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby
William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby , PC was a leading Irish Whig politician, being a member of the Irish House of Commons, and after 1800, of the United Kingdom parliament. Ponsonby was the son of the Hon...

 into his confidence, and declared his intention to support Grattan's bill admitting Catholics to Parliament. The high hopes raised by these events were dashed to the earth when Fitzwilliam was suddenly recalled, after having been allowed to go so far without any protest from Portland
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland
William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, KG, PC was a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Prime Minister. He was known before 1762 by the courtesy title Marquess of Titchfield. He held a title of every degree of British nobility—Duke,...

, the home secretary, or from the premier, Pitt. The latter, disliking the Irish Parliament because it had rejected his commercial propositions in 1785, and disagreed with him on the regency in 1789, already mediated a legislative union, and felt that the admission of Catholics to Parliament would thwart his plans. He was probably also influenced by Beresford, who had powerful friends in England, and by the king
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

, whom Fitzgibbon had mischievously convinced that to admit Catholics to Parliament would be to violate his coronation oath. Possibly, other causes concurred with these to bring about the sudden and disastrous change which filled Catholic Ireland with grief, and the whole nation with dismay.

The new viceroy, Lord Camden
John Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden
John Jeffreys Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden KG, PC , styled Viscount Bayham from 1786 to 1794 and known as The Earl Camden from 1794 to 1812, was a British politician...

, was instructed to conciliate the Catholic bishops by setting up a Catholic college for the training of Irish priests; this was done by the establishment of Maynooth College. But he was to set his face against all Parliamentary reform and all Catholic concessions. These things he did with a will. He at once restored Beresford to office and Foster and Fitzgibbon to favour, the latter being made Earl of Clare. And he stirred up but too successfully the dying embers of sectarian hate, with the result that the Ulster factions, the Protestant "Peep-of-Day Boys" and the Catholic "Defenders
Defenders (Ireland)
The Defenders were a militant, vigilante agrarian secret society in 18th century Ireland, mainly Roman Catholic and from Ulster, who allied with the United Irishmen but did little during the rebellion of 1798.-Origin:...

", became embittered with a change of names. The latter, turning to republican and revolutionary ways, joined the United Irish Society; the former became merged in the recently formed Orange Society
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...

, taking its name from William of Orange and having Protestant ascendancy and hatred of Catholicism as its battle cries. Extending from Ulster, these rival societies brought into the other provinces the curse of sectarian strife. Instead of putting down both, the Government took sides with the Orangemen; and, while their lawless acts were condoned, the Catholics were hunted down. An Arms' Act, an Insurrection Act, an Indemnity Act, a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act
Habeas Corpus Act
Habeas Corpus Act may refer to several Acts of Parliament and Acts of Congress relating to Habeas Corpus:*Habeas Corpus Act 1640 of the Parliament of England*Habeas Corpus Act 1679 of the Parliament of England...

 placed them outside the pale of law. An undisciplined soldiery, recruited from the Orange lodges, were than let loose among them. Martial law, free quarters, flogging, picketing, half-hanging
Half-Hanging
Half-hanging is a method of torture, usually inflicted to force information from the victim, in which a rope is pulled tightly around the victim’s neck and then slackened when the victim becomes unconscious...

, destruction of Catholic property and life, outrages on women followed, until at last Catholic blood was turned into flame. Then Wexford rose
Wexford Rebellion
The Wexford Rebellion refers to the outbreak in County Wexford, Ireland in May 1798 of a United Irishmen rebellion against the English domination of Ireland. It was the most successful and most destructive of all the uprisings that occurred throughout Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1798,...

. Looking back, it now seems certain that, had Hoche
Lazare Hoche
Louis Lazare Hoche was a French soldier who rose to be general of the Revolutionary army.Born of poor parents near Versailles, he enlisted at sixteen as a private soldier in the Gardes Françaises...

 landed at Bantry in 1796, had even a small force landed at Wexford in 1798, or a few other counties displayed the heroism of Wexford, English power in Ireland would, temporarily at least, have been destroyed. But one county could not fight the British Empire, and the rebellion was soon quenched in blood.

Camden's place was then given to Lord Cornwallis, who came to Ireland for the express purpose of carrying a Legislative Union. Foster refused to support him and joined the opposition. Fitzgibbon, however, aided Cornwallis, and so did Castlereagh
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC , usually known as Lord CastlereaghThe name Castlereagh derives from the baronies of Castlereagh and Ards, in which the manors of Newtownards and Comber were located...

, who for some time had discharged the duties of chief secretary in the absence of Mr. Pelham
Henry Pelham
Henry Pelham was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death in 1754...

, and who was now formally appointed to the office. And then began one of the most shameful chapters in Irish history. Even the corrupt Irish Parliament was reluctant to vote away its existence, and in 1799 the opposition was too strong for Castlereagh. But Pitt directed him to persevere, and the great struggle went on. On one side were eloquence and debating power, patriotism, and public virtue, Grattan, Plunket, and Bushe, Foster, Fitzgerald, Ponsonby, and Moore, a truly formidable combination. On the other side were the baser elements of in Parliament, the needy, the spendthrift, the meanly ambitious, operated upon by Castlereagh, with the whole resources of the British Empire at his command. The pensioners and placemen who voted against him at once lost their places and pensions, the military officer was refused promotion, the magistrate was turned off the bench. And while anti-Unionists were unsparingly punished, the Unionists got lavish rewards. The impecunious got well-paid sinecures; the briefless barrister was made a judge or a commissioner; the rich man, ambitious of social distinction, got a peerage, and places and pensions for his friends; and the owners of rotten boroughs to large sums for their interests. The Catholics were promised emancipation in a united Parliament, and in consequence many bishops, some clergy, and a few of the laity supported the Union, not grudging to end an assembly so bigoted and corrupt as the Irish Parliament. By these means Castlereagh triumphed, and in 1801 the United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland opened its doors.

Catholic Emancipation

The next quarter of a century was a period of unrequited hope. Dr. Troy, the Archbishop of Dublin, had been a strong advocate of the Union, and had induced nine of his brother bishops to concede a veto on episcopal appointments, not uncommon in European monarchies. In return, he wanted Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...

 linked with the Union. Castlereagh was not averse; but Pitt was publicly non-committal and vague, though the Catholic Unionists had no doubt that he favoured linking concession with passage of the Union thereby creating a totally new dispensation for a United Kingdom. Disappointment ensued when nothing was done in the first session of the United Parliament, and it was increased when Pitt resigned office and was succeeded by Addington
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, PC was a British statesman, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804....

, a the narrow-minded Speaker. Cornwallis, however, assured Dr. Troy that Pitt had resigned, unable to overcome the reluctance of King George III, who believed it contravened the Act of Settlement, and his coronation oath. Pitt declared that he would never again take office if emancipation were not conceded. In spite of this, he became Premier again in 1804, no longer an advocate of emancipation having pledged never again to raise the question in Parliament during the lifetime of the king. To this pledge he was as faithful as he had been false to his former assurances; when Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

 presented the Catholic petition in 1805, Pitt opposed it. After 1806, when both Pitt and Fox died, the Catholic champion was Grattan, who had entered the British Parliament in 1805. In the vain hope of conciliating opponents he was willing, in 1808, to concede the veto. Dr. Troy and the higher Catholics acquiesced. The other bishops were unwilling, and rejected the offer of a state-paid clergy or state-appointed bishops. The agitation of the question, however, did not cease, and for many years it distracted Catholic plans and weakened Catholic effort. Further complications arose when, in 1814, the prefect of the Propaganda, Quarantotti, issued a rescript favouring the veto. He acted, however, beyond his powers in the absence of Pius VII, who was in France. When the Pope returned to Rome, after the fall of Napoleon, the rescript was disavowed.

In these years the Catholics badly needed a leader. John Keogh
John Keogh
-Biography:Keogh was a leading Irish campaigner who struggled to get Irish Roman Catholics the right to vote and the repeal of the Penal Laws. He was of an obscure family and made his considerable fortune in land speculation, brewing, and silk trading...

, the able leader of 1793, was then old, and Lords Fingall and Gormanstone, Mr. Scully and Dr. Dromgoole, were not the men to grapple with great difficulties and powerful opponents. An abler and more vigorous leader was required, one with less faith in petitions and protestations of loyalty. Such a leader was found in Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...

, a Catholic barrister whose first public appearance in 1800 was on an anti-Unionist platform. A great lawyer and orator, a great debater, of boundless courage and resources, he took a prominent part on Catholic committees, and from 1810 he held the first place in Catholic esteem. Yet the Catholic cause advanced slowly, and, when Grattan died in 1820, emancipation had not come. Nor would the House of Lords accept Plunket's Bill of 1821, even though it passed the House of Commons and conceded the veto. At last O'Connell determined to rouse the masses, and in 1823, with the help of Richard Lalor Sheil
Richard Lalor Sheil
Richard Lalor Sheil , Irish politician, writer and orator, was born at Drumdowney, Slieverue, County Kilkenny, Ireland...

, he founded the Catholic Association
Catholic Association
The Catholic Association was an Irish Roman Catholic political organisation set up by Daniel O'Connell in the early nineteenth century to campaign for Catholic emancipation within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was one of the first mass-membership political movements in...

. Its progress at first was slow, but gradually it gathered strength. Dr. Murray
Daniel Murray (archbishop)
Daniel Murray was a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.He was educated at Dr. Betagh's school, and at Salamanca, and ordained priest in 1790. After some years as curate in Dublin he was transferred to Arklow, and was there in 1798 when the rebellion broke out...

, the new Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, joined it, and Dr. Doyle
James Warren Doyle
Bishop James Doyle was a Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland, who used the signature “JKL”, an acronym from “James Kildare and Leighlin.” A campaigner for Catholic Emancipation up to 1829, he was also an educator, church organiser and the builder of Carlow cathedral.-Early...

, the great Bishop of Kildare; other bishops followed; the clergy and people also came in; and thus rose a great national organization, supervising from its central office in Dublin subsidiary associations in every parish; maintained by a Catholic rent; watching over local and national affairs, discharging, as Mr. Canning described it, "all the functions of a regular government, and having obtained a complete mastery and control over the masses of the Irish people". The Association was suppressed in 1825 by Act of Parliament; but O'Connell merely changed the name; and the New Catholic Association with its New Catholic rent continued the work of agitation as of old. Nor was this all. By the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 the forty-shilling freeholders obtained the franchise. These freeholders were in the power of the landlords. Protected by a powerful association, and encouraged by the priests and by O'Connell, the freeholders broke free. In Waterford, Louth, Meath, and elsewhere they voted for the nominees of the Catholic Association at elections, and humbled the landlords. They returned O'Connell himself for Clare in 1828. The Tory ministers, Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

 and Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...

 steered the passage of the Catholic Relief Bill of 1829. The forty-shilling freeholders, however, were temporarily disfranchised, and provisions excluding Catholics from some of the higher civil and military offices, prohibiting priests from wearing vestments outside their churches, bishops from assuming the titles of their sees, and clergy from obtaining charitable bequests. In other respects U.K. Roman Catholics were placed on a level with other denominations, and at last were fully admitted within to the benefits fruits of the constitution.

The Irish Catholics had several grievances still calling for redress: the established state Church
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...

, landlordism, and educational inequality. Mr. Gladstone commenced with the Church of Ireland. He introduced a Bill disendowing and disestablishing it. Commissioners were appointed to wind it up, taking charge of its property, then computed at more than £15,000,000. Of this sum, £11,000,000, was given to the disestablished Church, part to the holders of existing offices, part to enable the Church to continue its work. A further sum of nearly £1,000,000 was distributed between Maynooth College, deprived of its annual grant, and the Presbyterian Church deprived of the Regium Donum
Regium Donum
The Regium Donum was an annual grant formerly voted by Parliament to augment the stipends of the Presbyterian clergy in Ireland. The Regium Donum originally began in 1673 during the reign of Charles II. The grant was then renewed and increased by King William III in 1690 as a reward for the loyalty...

, the latter getting twice as much as the former. The surplus was to be disposed of by Parliament for such public objects as it might determine.

Free State and Republic (1922–present)

The Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 has had a powerful influence over the Irish state since its inception in 1922 although that influence has diminished somewhat in recent decades. The clergy's influence meant that the Irish state had very conservative social policies, banning, for example, divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

, contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...

, abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

 as well as encouraging the censoring of many books and films. In addition the Church largely controlled the State's hospitals, schools and remained the largest provider of many other social services.

With the partition of Ireland in 1922, 92.6% of the Free State's population were Catholic while 7.4% were Protestant. By the 1960s, the Protestant population had fallen by half. Although emigration was high among all the population, due to a lack of economic opportunity, the rate of Protestant emigration was disproportionate in this period. Many Protestants left the country in the early 1920s, either because they felt unwelcome in a predominantly Catholic and nationalist state, because they were afraid due to the burning of Protestant homes (particularly of the old landed class) by republicans during the civil war, because they regarded themselves as British and did not wish to live in an independent Irish state, or because of the economic disruption caused by the recent violence. The Catholic Church had also issued a decree, known as Ne Temere
Ne Temere
Ne Temere was a decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Council regulating the canon law of the Church about marriage for practising Roman Catholics....

, whereby the children of marriages between Catholics and Protestants had to be brought up as Catholics. After the end of World War II, the emigration rate of Protestants fell and they became less likely to emigrate than Catholics - indicating their integration into the life of the Irish State.

Politics

In the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

, now Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

, the church had a great influence on public opinion as it had supervised public education for about 90% of the population since at least the 1830s. Historically it was associated with the Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 movement until 1766, and with Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...

 after Catholic emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...

 was secured in 1829. The church was resurgent between 1829 and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...

 in 1869-71, when its most significant leaders included Bishop James Doyle, Cardinal Cullen and Archbishop MacHale. The hierarchy supported the democratic and mainly non-violent Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...

 in the 1880s, and its offshoots, and the policy of Irish Home Rule in 1886-1920. It did not support the Irish republican movement until 1921, as it espoused violence, in spite of support from many individual priests, and opposed the anti-Treaty side in the Irish civil war
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....

. Despite this relative moderation, Irish Protestants were concerned that a self-governing Ireland would result in "Rome Rule
Rome Rule
"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...

" instead of home rule, and this became an element in (or an excuse for) the creation of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

.

Major popular church events attended by the political world have included the Eucharistic Congress in 1932 and the Papal Visit
Pastoral trips of Pope John Paul II
During his reign, Pope John Paul II made 104 foreign trips, more than all previous popes combined. In total he logged more than . He consistently attracted large crowds on his travels, some amongst the largest ever assembled...

 in 1979. The last prelate with strong social and political interests was Archbishop McQuaid
John Charles McQuaid
John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. was the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland between December 1940 and February 1972.- Early life 1895-1914:...

, who retired in 1972.

Education

After independence in 1922, the Church remained heavily involved in health care and education, raising money and running institutions which were staffed by Catholic Orders, largely because the new state remained impoverished. Its main political effect was to continue to run schools where religious education was a major element. The hierarchy opposed the free public secondary schools service introduced in 1968 by Donogh O'Malley, in part because they ran almost all such schools. Some have argued that the church's strong efforts since the 1830s to continue the control of Catholic education was primarily to guarantee a continuing source of candidates for the priesthood, as they would have years of training before entering a seminary.

Health care

From 1930 hospitals were funded by a sweepstake
Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake
The Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake was a lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 as the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake to finance hospitals, and is often referred to as the Irish Sweepstake...

 (lottery) with tickets frequently distributed or sold by nuns or priests. On health matters it was seen as unsympathetic to women's needs and in 1950 it opposed the Mother and Child Scheme
Mother and Child Scheme
The Mother and Child Scheme was a healthcare programme in the Republic of Ireland that would later become remembered as a major political crisis involving primarily the Irish Government and Roman Catholic Church in the early 1950s....

.

Morality and censorship

It helped reinforce public censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 and maintained its own list of banned literature which influenced the State's list. Divorce allowing remarriage was banned in 1924 (though it had been rare), and selling artificial contraception was made illegal. The Church's influence slipped somewhat after 1970, impacted partly by the media and the growing feminist movement. For instance the Health (Family Planning) Act, 1979
An Irish solution to an Irish problem
The availability of contraception in the Republic of Ireland was illegal in the Irish Free State from 1935 until 1980, when it was legalized with strong restrictions, later loosened...

 showed the ability of the Catholic Church to force the government into a compromise situation over artificial contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...

, though unable to get the result it wanted; contraception could now be bought, but only with a prescription from a doctor and supplied only by registered chemists. In the 1983 Amendment to the constitution introduced the constitutional prohibition of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, which the Church supported, though abortion for social reasons remains illegal under Irish statute law. However the Church failed to influence the June, 1996, removal of the constitutional prohibition of divorce. While the church had opposed divorce allowing remarriage in civil law, its canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...

 allowed for a law of nullity
Nullity
Nullity may refer to:* Nullity , a legal declaration that no marriage had ever come into being* Nullity, the dimension of the null space of a mathematical operator or matrix...

 and a limited divorce "a mensa et thoro", effectively a form of marital separation.

Northern Ireland

The Government of Ireland Act of 1920
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...

 acted as the constitution of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, in which was enshrined freedom of religion for all of Northern Ireland's citizens. Here Roman Catholics formed a minority of some 35% of the population, which had mostly supported Irish nationalism and was therefore historically opposed to the creation of Northern Ireland.

The Roman Catholic schools' council was at first resistant in accepting the role of the government of Northern Ireland, and initially accepted funding only from the government of the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

 and admitting no school inspectors. Thus it was that the Lynn Committee presented a report to the government, from which an Education Bill was created to update the education system in Northern Ireland, without any co-operation from the Roman Catholic section in education. Instead, in regard to the Roman Catholic schools, the report relied on the guidance of a Roman Catholic who was to become the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Education — A. N. Bonaparte Wyse.
Many commentators have suggested that the separate education systems in Northern Ireland after 1921 prolonged the sectarian divisions in that community. Cases of gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...

 and preference in public services for non-Catholics led on to the need for a Civil Rights movement
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation which campaigned for equal civil rights for the all the people in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s...

 in 1967.

Vatican II

In both parts of Ireland Church policy and practice changed markedly after the Vatican II reforms of 1962. Probably the largest change was that Mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 could be said in vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

 languages and not in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and in 1981 the Church commissioned its first edition of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

.

Further reading

  • Anderson, Alan Orr, and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, eds. and trans. Adomnán's Life of Columba. 1961. Revised, 1991.
  • Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1995
  • Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. 2000.
  • Clancy, Thomas Owen, and Gilbert Márkus, OP. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. 1995.
  • Colgrave, Bertram, and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 1969.
  • Curtis, Maurice. The Splendid Cause: The Catholic Action Movement in Ireland. Dublin, 2008.
  • Curtis, Maurice. Influence and Control: The Catholic Action Movement in Ireland in the 20th Century. USA, 2009.
  • De Paor, Liam. Saint Patrick's World: The Christian Culture of Ireland's Apostolic Age. 1993. Reprint, 1996.
  • Flower, Robin. The Irish Tradition. 1947. Reprint, 1994.
  • Hughes, Kathleen. The Church in Early Irish Society. 1966.
  • Hughes, Kathleen. Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources. 1972.
  • Kenney, James F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical, An Introduction and Guide. 1929. Reprinted, 1993.
  • Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Early Medieval Ireland, 400–1200. 1995.
  • O'Loughlin, Thomas. Celtic Theology: Humanity, World, and God in Early Irish Writing. 2000.
  • Richter, Michael. Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition. 1988.
  • Ryan, John. Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Development. 1931. 2d edition, 1972. Reprint, 1992.
  • Sharpe, Richard, trans. Life of St. Columba. 1995.
  • Walker, G. S. M., ed. Sancti Columbani Opera. 1957. Reprinted, 1970.
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