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Grandad Protestant with VERY Irish surname... is this unusual?

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Comments

  • #32
    ifconfig
    Registered Users Posts: 880 ✭✭✭ifconfig


    A slightly different angle on this discussion.

    In my family tree on my father's side I have found that in some time within the period of 1760-1785 or so they converted from Protestantism (established church, I assume) to R.C.
    Obviously this pre-dated the era when the R.C. church introduced the Ne Temere decree by a long shot.
    Also it was technically in a period when Penal laws were still in force.
    It was also a long while before Catholic emancipation.

    This was in Co.Louth where the demographics were such that the Catholic population was very much the majority.
    There appeared to be a small number of very wealthy landed Protestants.
    My family appeared to be leaseholders rather than landholders.
    Mind you they appared to have enough leased land to be above the thresholds whereby they could vote by the 1820s, etc.

    Has anyone else found this kind of religious conversion in their family tree during the late 18th century ?


  • #33
    owenc
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5,524 ✭✭✭owenc


    ifconfig wrote: »
    A slightly different angle on this discussion.

    In my family tree on my father's side I have found that in some time within the period of 1760-1785 or so they converted from Protestantism (established church, I assume) to R.C.
    Obviously this pre-dated the era when the R.C. church introduced the Ne Temere decree by a long shot.
    Also it was technically in a period when Penal laws were still in force.
    It was also a long while before Catholic emancipation.

    This was in Co.Louth where the demographics were such that the Catholic population was very much the majority.
    There appeared to be a small number of very wealthy landed Protestants.
    My family appeared to be leaseholders rather than landholders.
    Mind you they appared to have enough leased land to be above the thresholds whereby they could vote by the 1820s, etc.

    Has anyone else found this kind of religious conversion in their family tree during the late 18th century ?

    Yep mines, well my mothers family. I looked up the origin of the surname and of course it came out as scottish, so i went and started the tree and went back too 1800's and they were catholics the whole way back i started to wonder!:confused: So i continued and eventually found out that they had converted to catholisim 300 years ago!:eek: Weird, do you know is that common.


  • #34
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    We should not overlook the idea that some religious conversions were sincere.


  • #35
    MarchDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    In the days before Ne Temere - 1904 or thereabouts - and the Catholic Church wading into how families raised their children, it was a tradition in Ireland [in Dublin anyway] for the boys to follow the religion of the father, and the girls to follow that of the mother in a mixed religious marriage. I know this from my own family and other Dublin families. In fact my grandfather used to comment frequently on how better the 'old' arrangement was when it was the families who made those decisions and not the men in black.

    I seem to recall that this practice is also mentioned by Conor Cruise O'Brien in his biography of Edmund Burke and his upbringing.

    It was not therefore unusual for brothers and sisters of mixed religious parents to have different religions and if one of the parents died for all to go to the church of the surviving parent. I think this accounts for the change in religion in some family trees. It does in mine anyway.


  • #36
    ifconfig
    Registered Users Posts: 880 ✭✭✭ifconfig


    Agreed MarchDub , I've got that on good authority too regarding the fairly commonplace practice (pre ne temere) of sons and daughters in a mixed marriages being brought up in either religion.

    In the records I've been tracing I found what looks like fairly unanimous conversion, i.e. both daughter and sons whose male line was previously Protestant were baptised in Catholic church (in the late 1700s).

    I am inclined to also entertain P.Breathnach's suggestion that , in some cases, these were also genuine conversions.

    Mind you, a conversion from Protestant to Catholic while Penal laws were still not fully repealed and while the R.C. church did not exert any appreciable power would seem to be reasonably remarkable.

    Without getting into the details, another family who it seems may have had similar origins to ours appeared to also convert from Protestantism to Catholicism around 1843 (before famine but during time that Catholic emancipation had started to take some effect). In one case I found a fairly remarkable baptismal record for an individual who was over 60 years of age and the baptism cert sub-notes from the cleric stated that he was over 60 yrs a Protestant and was renouncing his religion, at that age to become a Catholic.

    On one hand I can entertain that this was a genuine conversion from one religion to the other yet another thought occurred to me.
    Is there any sense that there were any people who were, in effect, "crypto Catholics" in Ireland during the 18th/19th century ? In Spain and other regions there was "crypto Judaic" people (people who were secretly Jews but who publicly professed a different religion to escape persecution or to allow them succeed.
    My father in law told me that, Humanity Dick Martin, the famous MP for Connaught who brought issues of animal cruelty to the fore was a Catholic who, took the oath and became a Protestant, on his father's advice so as to succeed in the prevailing environment at that time in Irish history.

    -ifc


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  • #37
    owenc
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5,524 ✭✭✭owenc


    MarchDub wrote: »
    In the days before Ne Temere - 1904 or thereabouts - and the Catholic Church wading into how families raised their children, it was a tradition in Ireland [in Dublin anyway] for the boys to follow the religion of the father, and the girls to follow that of the mother in a mixed religious marriage. I know this from my own family and other Dublin families. In fact my grandfather used to comment frequently on how better the 'old' arrangement was when it was the families who made those decisions and not the men in black.

    I seem to recall that this practice is also mentioned by Conor Cruise O'Brien in his biography of Edmund Burke and his upbringing.

    It was not therefore unusual for brothers and sisters of mixed religious parents to have different religions and if one of the parents died for all to go to the church of the surviving parent. I think this accounts for the change in religion in some family trees. It does in mine anyway.

    I'd have to agree with that i think that would be the best solution, or just let them choose when they grow up not the way some people do:rolleyes: as it dosn't really work i mean my grandmother (mothers family catholic were presbyterian.) tried to tell my mother what religion i should be, and things like that wouldn't work out like for me being catholic would've been hell as i can't stick the way they go on (no offence just saying why i would hate it) they way they force everything down your throat and their services are all spiritual and very boring the presbyterian services are really homely everyone knows everyone not like in the catholic church where its like 500 grannies stuck in one building lol , really something somebody my age would hate, plus i would hate to be assiosiated with gaa and all that.... anyway. btw what is the name for your own family i.e your fathers family, as when i tell people my ancestry i usually give my own family i.e fathers what is that?


  • #38
    il gatto
    Registered Users Posts: 3,021 ✭✭✭il gatto


    My paternal grandmother was Catholic and shared the same surname as my CoI maternal grandmother. Not unusual at all. Likewise Catholics having very Anglo-Saxon names. The twists and turns of history mean anything is possible.
    Yours, GianLuigi Sachs Gandhi (I jest).


  • #39
    owenc
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5,524 ✭✭✭owenc


    owenc wrote: »
    I'd have to agree with that i think that would be the best solution, or just let them choose when they grow up not the way some people do:rolleyes: as it dosn't really work i mean my grandmother (mothers family catholic were presbyterian.) tried to tell my mother what religion i should be, and things like that wouldn't work out like for me being catholic would've been hell as i can't stick the way they go on (no offence just saying why i would hate it) they way they force everything down your throat and their services are all spiritual and very boring the presbyterian services are really homely everyone knows everyone not like in the catholic church where its like 500 grannies stuck in one building lol , really something somebody my age would hate, plus i would hate to be assiosiated with gaa and all that.... anyway. btw what is the name for your own family i.e your fathers family, as when i tell people my ancestry i usually give my own family i.e fathers what is that?

    Edit nvm found out it was parental.


  • #40
    roashter
    Registered Users Posts: 171 ✭✭roashter


    Just to go back to the thead title "Grandad Protestant with VERY Irish surname... is this unusual?", I can remember reading a book about the Shankill Butchers who were an infamous loyalist paramilitary group in Belfast and the name of their leader was one Lenny Murphy !!

    I remember being astonished by this, but I suppose I was a bit naive to assume that if your name was Murphy you were a guaranteed Catholic.


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