Marianne Elliott, revisionism and historiography

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I have to disagree on one small point: we do have another reference point and that is what it is like to live in the UK today. IMO it is better to look at the current situation and not what it was like in the 19th century. I am sure you would agree that the ordinary working class were treated very badly all over Britain in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries not just in Ireland. Things have improved significantly in Britain and I can only suppose that it would have been the same for an Ireland with some form of devolved government. In my experience the working and middle classes have much the same freedoms in both countries. The rich and powerful still live by different rules (nothing has changed in that respect).

I am truly astonished at this statement and that you "can only suppose" anything of this kind and that such a "supposition" can be taken as a reference point. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and the history of NI since 1922 is one of horrific experience for the minority Catholic population. The history of NI under British control is nothing to praise. There is neither time nor room here to document the experience but the minority Catholic population tried for years to get Westminster to pay attention to the gerrymandering, the joblessness, the lack of housing etc to no avail. Westminster didn't want to know. The Civil Rights marches of the 1960s were met with violence. How you can praise the UK within this context is baffling to me.

As for the working class in the rest of Britain - their treatment in the nineteenth century was abysmal but the Irish fared far worse both in terms of political representation and economics. Even the voting rights system was better geared to England [the property value requirement for franchise was much lower in England than Ireland, thus the Irish had less voting rights even after Catholic Emancipation] - I think you really need to check all this out before drawing your conclusions or "supposing" anything further.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

I am truly astonished at this statement and that you "can only suppose" anything of this kind and that such a "supposition" can be taken as a reference point. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and the history of NI since 1922 is one of horrific experience for the minority Catholic population. The history of NI under British control is nothing to praise. There is neither time nor room here to document the experience but the minority Catholic population tried for years to get Westminster to pay attention to the gerrymandering, the joblessness, the lack of housing etc to no avail. Westminster didn't want to know. The Civil Rights marches of the 1960s were met with violence. How you can praise the UK within this context is baffling to me.

There can be no doubt that Catholics were treated very badly in the Northern Ireland sectarian state created after the signing of the Treaty that split Ireland in two. But part of the problem was that the 6 county Catholics were abandoned by the rest of Ireland. This can be confirmed by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster" in which she states in Chapter 11.1:

"The state of Northern Ireland came into being in 1921 amid confusion and violence. The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side.......But most of the confusion was on the nationalist side. They remained as split after 1920 as before and had no contingency plans to deal with the new situation, short of recurrent appeals for help to Dublin. 'Surely this cannot be happening' just about sums up their reaction to partition and all hopes were centred on the Boundary Commission to rescue them.....It was only in that year (1925) that the delayed Boundary Commission reported, by which stage even the Dublin government, battling with its own post civil war difficulties, had lost interest. The leaked report of October 1925 left most of the existing territory of NI intact...........and since the leak itself caused such a furore, Cosgrove's government in Dublin acquiesced in the ultimate suppression of the report. The border would remain as it was in 1920. The Catholics in Northern Ireland had been abandoned."

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

There can be no doubt that Catholics were treated very badly in the Northern Ireland sectarian state created after the signing of the Treaty that split Ireland in two. But part of the problem was that the 6 county Catholics were abandoned by the rest of Ireland. This can be confirmed by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster" in which she states in Chapter 11.1:

"The state of Northern Ireland came into being in 1921 amid confusion and violence. The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side.......But most of the confusion was on the nationalist side. They remained as split after 1920 as before and had no contingency plans to deal with the new situation, short of recurrent appeals for help to Dublin. 'Surely this cannot be happening' just about sums up their reaction to partition and all hopes were centred on the Boundary Commission to rescue them.....It was only in that year (1925) that the delayed Boundary Commission reported, by which stage even the Dublin government, battling with its own post civil war difficulties, had lost interest. The leaked report of October 1925 left most of the existing territory of NI intact...........and since the leak itself caused such a furore, Cosgrove's government in Dublin acquiesced in the ultimate suppression of the report. The border would remain as it was in 1920. The Catholics in Northern Ireland had been abandoned."

I'm sorry but I consider that to be a nonsense argument. Abandoned or not, the State of Northern Ireland was entirely under British rule and there was gross discrimination against the minority population. End of.

Marianne Elliot has little credibility with me - I know her work and it is just another revisionist diatribe IMO.

MarchDub

Data_Quest

I think you have strayed far from your original post and from the original topic - so I really don't think this is going in any direction that makes sense to me. If you want to continue to argue about life inside the UK maybe you should start a new thread. Just a suggestion.

McArmalite

Data_Quest wrote: »

There can be no doubt that Catholics were treated very badly in the Northern Ireland sectarian state created after the signing of the Treaty that split Ireland in two. But part of the problem was that the 6 county Catholics were abandoned by the rest of Ireland. This can be confirmed by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster" in which she states in Chapter 11.1:

"The state of Northern Ireland came into being in 1921 amid confusion and violence. The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side.......But most of the confusion was on the nationalist side. They remained as split after 1920 as before and had no contingency plans to deal with the new situation, short of recurrent appeals for help to Dublin. 'Surely this cannot be happening' just about sums up their reaction to partition and all hopes were centred on the Boundary Commission to rescue them.....It was only in that year (1925) that the delayed Boundary Commission reported, by which stage even the Dublin government, battling with its own post civil war difficulties, had lost interest. The leaked report of October 1925 left most of the existing territory of NI intact...........and since the leak itself caused such a furore, Cosgrove's government in Dublin acquiesced in the ultimate suppression of the report. The border would remain as it was in 1920. The Catholics in Northern Ireland had been abandoned."

" The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side " The unionists and british forces were carrying out pogroms long before the 1920's and indeed since it. The Ulster Volunteers were formed in 1912, the Irish Volunteers in response in 1913. Larne gun-running occurred in April 1914, the Howth gun running in July 1914 and so on.

One of the great propaganda tools of conquest and annexation is to blame the victim for their own persecution. Our friend obviously here obviously believes the onus is always on the nationalists/oppressed to somehow find the magic recipe to change the attitude of the oppressor regardless of how beligerent they act.

Sort of - nationalists didn't have the right approach, nationalists were too impatient, they failed to understand the unionists ' fears ', the british would have been fairer and generous if approached in the right manner, blah, blah, blah and other completely inaccurate and illogical rubbish :rolleyes:

Data_Quest

McArmalite wrote: »

" The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side " The unionists and british forces were carrying out pogroms long before the 1920's and indeed since it. The Ulster Volunteers were formed in 1912, the Irish Volunteers in response in 1913. Larne gun-running occurred in April 1914, the Howth gun running in July 1914 and so on.

One of the great propaganda tools of conquest and annexation is to blame the victim for their own persecution. Our friend obviously here obviously believes the onus is always on the nationalists/oppressed to somehow find the magic recipe to change the attitude of the oppressor regardless of how beligerent they act.

Sort of - nationalists didn't have the right approach, nationalists were too impatient, they failed to understand the unionists ' fears ', the british would have been fairer and generous if approached in the right manner, blah, blah, blah and other completely inaccurate and illogical rubbish :rolleyes:

I was just quoting what I thought was a good source. If you want to check her credentials then follow this link. Your views (and those of MarchDub) are very interesting but in direct contradiction to an author who is "internationally recognised as one of Ireland's leading historians."

If I cannot trust this source then please recommend who I should be reading.

brianthebard

In fairness of course the university that she works for is going to say she's one of Ireland's leading historians. Personally I've never heard of her, which also means I can't say whether you can trust her books as a source or not, although I feel you probably can. What McArmalite and Marchdub are saying is that her work holds a particular bias, which is might do. Once you are aware of this and read other books in conjunction with her work (as you should for all topics really) then you will begin to build an overall picture of the different opinions out there, and thus be able to make up your own mind.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

Data_Quest

I think you have strayed far from your original post and from the original topic - so I really don't think this is going in any direction that makes sense to me. If you want to continue to argue about life inside the UK maybe you should start a new thread. Just a suggestion.

I have responded to other peoples' posts and tried to cover any point that was raised which has guided the direction of this thread. Not very structured I know so I have no idea where this is going

I would be happy if people responded to the original port.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I was just quoting what I thought was a good source. If you want to check her credentials then follow this link. Your views (and those of MarchDub) are very interesting but in direct contradiction to an author who is "internationally recognised as one of Ireland's leading historians."

If I cannot trust this source then please recommend who I should be reading.

I think Brian's answer about bias is very helpful in that any reading of history ought to be done with knowledge of the author's bias and classification within the field. What her work attempts to do- in her own words - is to bring about mutual understanding amongst the belligerent factions in NI. A fine aspiration but this is not history IMO, her work is something else, and some of her claims are really outlandish. Like the one about the Penal laws not being anti-Catholic.

Here is a book review on the book you quote from -

Marianne Elliott was born a Catholic in Ulster, and this history of her people--The Catholics of Ulster--will change the world's view of the nationalist Catholics in that province of Northern Ireland. Elliott's revisionist [my bold] claims are many, and they are large. She denies the proposition that there was any such thing as a Gaelic Catholic race. She argues that Catholic gentry disappeared not because they were exiled and dispossessed by their Protestant neighbors, but because they were converted. She claims that the Penal Laws were not intentionally anti-Catholic. She believes that the English were not substantially to blame for the Potato Famine. And she claims that the IRA has never enjoyed much popular support. These arguments are part of a detailed, comprehensive history of Ireland's tangled Troubles that she makes as clear as one could hope for. Elliott's unwillingness to reduce Ulster's story to any simple opposition between good and bad is unwavering.
--Michael Joseph Gross

brianthebard

Lol she said the penal laws were not anti-catholic? No wonder I haven't heard of her, she's a bit mad....

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

Lol she said the penal laws were not anti-catholic? No wonder I haven't heard of her, she's a bit mad....

No that is incorrect what she says is this:

"The penal laws were passed in a brief period of heightened political tension between 1695 and 1707 after the reign of James II had shown how vulnerable was the 17th century land settlement and when the Protestant succession to the English throne was by no means secured. The Irish parliament was angry at William III's generous terms in the Treaty of Limerick, and even before it was ratified it passed the first penal law. The 1695 acts prohibited Catholics from carrying arms, keeping horses valued at more than five pounds, sending their children abroad for education and teaching school. The aim was to prevent Catholics from assisting or communicating with the foreign enemy."

So she obviously contends that the penal laws were intentially against Catholics: to suggest otherwise is misleading.

However, she also says that:

"(Recent historians) argue that there was no systematic penal 'code'; that legislation was piecemeal and erratic , produced by genuine political crises and rarely fully implemented; that in terms of social relationships Ireland differed little from contempory Europe; that far from being decimated the Catholic Church actually flourished in the period."

MarchDub

I maintain that her work is seriously flawed - and revisionist - because of bias, culling and downright ignoring certain facts that do not fit her agenda. An agenda which is more geared towards reconciling conflict than historical accuracy. This review in History Ireland better describes the serious defects in Marienne Elliott's work and the bias that she repeatedly encapsulates in her treatment of the Irish experience.


http://www.historyireland.com/volume...ews/?id=113545

Quotes from the review:

"Her account of Bloody Sunday shocked me: ‘Although, as I write, there is yet another public inquiry under way to establish exactly what happened on that day, it looks as if the soldiers may have over-reacted to the taunts and missiles of a youthful Catholic crowd and shot dead fourteen unarmed civilians’. I thought that soft tone also underplayed her relation of the terror and atrocities of conquest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Chichester, for example, was ruthless in his massacre of the innocent: ‘We have burnt and destroyed along the lough, even within four miles of Dungannon, where we killed man, woman, child, horse, beast, and whatsoever we found’. Colonisation is adorned with a morality and legality it hardly deserves and the powerless conquered, struggling to make the best of a bad situation, struggling to practise their religion, are classed ‘rebels’ when they revolt. Is there not a smack of the argument of empire in the book?"


"And on the subject of the penal laws, although we have learned from Maureen Wall and Patrick Corish not to view them by the letter of the statute book, Elliott creates a new myth by undertoning the suffering they caused."


"This book fails to underline strongly the helplessness of the Catholic people in the North from 1921 to 2000. The Orange Order’s continual important role, and especially in the Drumcree problem, is largely ignored. I think the work and vision of John Hume and Gerry Adams in devising the ‘Peace Process’ should have been included, as also the external influences of the European Union and the USA in bringing about social changes. The context she gives of the hunger strikes is patchy. No mention of the horrific punishments imposed on them for their protest which were rightly condemned by Cardinal Ó Fiaich. The long sustained murderous campaign of the UDA and the modern UVF is not mentioned and the serious state terror of collusion and murder is not roundly condemned."

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

I maintain that her work is seriously flawed - and revisionist - because of bias, culling and downright ignoring certain facts that do not fit her agenda. An agenda which is more geared towards reconciling conflict than historical accuracy. This review in History Ireland better describes the serious defects in Marienne Elliott's work and the bias that she repeatedly encapsulates in her treatment of the Irish experience.


http://www.historyireland.com/volume...ews/?id=113545

Quotes from the review:

"Her account of Bloody Sunday shocked me: ‘Although, as I write, there is yet another public inquiry under way to establish exactly what happened on that day, it looks as if the soldiers may have over-reacted to the taunts and missiles of a youthful Catholic crowd and shot dead fourteen unarmed civilians’. I thought that soft tone also underplayed her relation of the terror and atrocities of conquest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Chichester, for example, was ruthless in his massacre of the innocent: ‘We have burnt and destroyed along the lough, even within four miles of Dungannon, where we killed man, woman, child, horse, beast, and whatsoever we found’. Colonisation is adorned with a morality and legality it hardly deserves and the powerless conquered, struggling to make the best of a bad situation, struggling to practise their religion, are classed ‘rebels’ when they revolt. Is there not a smack of the argument of empire in the book?"


"And on the subject of the penal laws, although we have learned from Maureen Wall and Patrick Corish not to view them by the letter of the statute book, Elliott creates a new myth by undertoning the suffering they caused."


"This book fails to underline strongly the helplessness of the Catholic people in the North from 1921 to 2000. The Orange Order’s continual important role, and especially in the Drumcree problem, is largely ignored. I think the work and vision of John Hume and Gerry Adams in devising the ‘Peace Process’ should have been included, as also the external influences of the European Union and the USA in bringing about social changes. The context she gives of the hunger strikes is patchy. No mention of the horrific punishments imposed on them for their protest which were rightly condemned by Cardinal Ó Fiaich. The long sustained murderous campaign of the UDA and the modern UVF is not mentioned and the serious state terror of collusion and murder is not roundly condemned."

Interesting review thanks. Father Raymond Murray raises some valid criticisms of the book: one of them being that the subject in question is too great for one person. He rightly points out to some serious omissions in her book but he does not condemn he work outright.

However, learning from what people has said on this thread, Father Raymond Murray will bring his bias to the table as well: ie I assume because he is a priest he is going to have a strong bias in favour of the Catholic Church (in fact he even gives Cardinal Ó Fiaich a positive mention in his short review) and judging by the titles of his books a strong bias against the British Government: "State Violence in Northen Ireland" and "The SAS in Ireland".

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

Interesting review thanks.

We could go on ad infinitum exchanging the opinions of reviews and counter exchanging your reactions – that is an endless tunnel. Let me say that my opinion on Marianne Elliott is not at all based on reviews to her book – I only gave you these references to show you where she stands in the discipline. The views of her detractors notwithstanding, she is widely regarded as being revisionist and has based her work on downplaying the position or even the validity of nationalist Ireland. Her purpose - as stated by herself - is not necessarily historical accuracy – it is purposely to bend minds to reconciling the differences in NI society. While this might be a laudable aspiration – it is not the job of a historian to do this and places her work beyond historiography.

When I first read her work more than 10 years ago I thought it seriously flawed – based on my own knowledge and research of Irish history. I still consider it to be so. As I have said she aims to use her work to soften the wide boundaries in Northern Ireland society. But IMO this is the very reason her work is distorted - and should be placed under another banner. I do not take her seriously as an historian, how could anyone given her repeated stated purpose? – and for that work she has been awarded and accepted an OBE by the Brits.

brianthebard

Hai, I moved these posts because I think they are an interesting discussion but too far off the original topic. Don't want to order things too much but I would suggest a real discussion of Elliott's work as part of the field of Irish history in general, rather than dismissal, of her or any other historian, unless of course they've been widely discredited. Hope that's ok with everyone.

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

Hai, I moved these posts because I think they are an interesting discussion but too far off the original topic. Don't want to order things too much but I would suggest a real discussion of Elliott's work as part of the field of Irish history in general, rather than dismissal, of her or any other historian, unless of course they've been widely discredited. Hope that's ok with everyone.

Fine by me. Let me start by explaining where I am coming from in all this (my bias if you like) and hopefully we can expand this discussion to dispel a few myths together.

From my perspective I was not really interested in history in secondary school (mea culpa) and the history that I remember being taught (by the Christian Bothers) was all about the British/Irish Protestants as being the bad guys and the Catholic/Irish as the oppressed, down trodden good guys. I don't remember much in the way of any middle ground (but then again I was probably not paying that much attention). It is only in later life that I have started to take an interest in history and I find that a revised view needs to be taken that is not black and white (ie the English all bad and the Irish all good). So if that is the revisionism being talked about then I am all for it.

We were talking about the penal laws earlier so can I start with a few simple assuptions that I currently have on the penal laws which have been reinforced by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster". Feel free to point out any of these assuptions as being incorrect if I have strayed too far in my interpretation:

1. You have to look at the Williamite Wars in Ireland with a wider European perspective than a battle of English/Irish/Protestants versus Irish/French/Catholics. For example, I believe that the Catholic Church in Rome was actually supporting William at the time (and I think may even have sent some troops to Ireland to support William). Also there woud have been some English Royalists on the Irish/French/Catholic side supporting James. Now this may not be any revaltion to anyone who had studied the history of the period in detail but I think it certainly would be to the average Irish person in the street (if they were interested).

2. The Irish Catholic landowners supported James because they thought that they might get back some of their land that had been handed out to the Protestant planters after the Cromwellian wars a few decades earlier. If James had won then I suspect that the Irish Catholic leaders would have persecuted the Protestants and drafted similar penal laws as were drafted against the Catholics (to the victors go the spoils).

3. The penal laws were obviously very damaging to Catholics but if you look at the context of why they came into being they are understandable ie the Catholics lost the war and Irish Protestests in power wanted to ensure that Catholics were in no position to start another war (the threat of James coming back with more French troops was a valid concern at the time).

4. The irish penal laws against the Catholics were very harsh and some dreadful atrocities were carried out in their name but this was happening all over Europe to the losers of wars (eg to pick a counter example the persecution of the Huguenots in France under Loius XIV). Marianne Elliot controversially argues that the penal laws as applied in Ireland (to quote Hamlet) "were more honoured in the breach than the observance" and that Catholicism actually flourished in Ireland during the 100 years after the penal laws were drafted.

5. Some of the penal laws applied to Dissenters not just to Catholics.

6. The Vatican changed its policy and supported James a few years after the Battle of the Boyne.

brianthebard

Data_Quest wrote: »

Fine by me. Let me start by explaining where I am coming from in all this (my bias if you like) and hopefully we can expand this discussion to dispel a few myths together.

From my perspective I was not really interested in history in secondary school (mea culpa) and the history that I remember being taught (by the Christian Bothers) was all about the British/Irish Protestants as being the bad guys and the Catholic/Irish as the oppressed, down trodden good guys. I don't remember much in the way of any middle ground (but then again I was probably not paying that much attention). It is only in later life that I have started to take an interest in history and I find that a revised view needs to be taken that is not black and white (ie the English all bad and the Irish all good). So if that is the revisionism being talked about then I am all for it.

Thanks for the reply DQ. You're not the first person to say they were not interested in history in secondary school, I don't blame you for that. On the question what is revisionism, it is simply a school of history where historians attempt to counter previous pre and/or misconceptions and open up debate on the topic. At times this has been used as an insult, ie that someone is using this to turn history around too much. Whether this is the case with Elliott is an open question, hence why the thread is so interesting. So you are right that is what revisionism is, and your also right that it is no bad thing.

We were talking about the penal laws earlier so can I start with a few simple assuptions that I currently have on the penal laws which have been reinforced by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster". Feel free to point out any of these assuptions as being incorrect if I have strayed too far in my interpretation:

1. You have to look at the Williamite Wars in Ireland with a wider European perspective than a battle of English/Irish/Protestants versus Irish/French/Catholics. For example, I believe that the Catholic Church in Rome was actually supporting William at the time (and I think may even have sent some troops to Ireland to support William). Also there woud have been some English Royalists on the Irish/French/Catholic side supporting James. Now this may not be any revaltion to anyone who had studied the history of the period in detail but I think it certainly would be to the average Irish person in the street (if they were interested).

2. The Irish Catholic landowners supported James because they thought that they might get back some of their land that had been handed out to the Protestant planters after the Cromwellian wars a few decades earlier. If James had won then I suspect that the Irish Catholic leaders would have persecuted the Protestants and drafted similar penal laws as were drafted against the Catholics (to the victors go the spoils).

3. The penal laws were obviously very damaging to Catholics but if you look at the context of why they came into being they are understandable ie the Catholics lost the war and Irish Protestests in power wanted to ensure that Catholics were in no position to start another war (the threat of James coming back with more French troops was a valid concern at the time).

4. The irish penal laws against the Catholics were very harsh and some dreadful atrocities were carried out in their name but this was happening all over Europe to the losers of wars (eg to pick a counter example the persecution of the Huguenots in France under Loius XIV). Marianne Elliot controversially argues that the penal laws as applied in Ireland (to quote Hamlet) "were more honoured in the breach than the observance" and that Catholicism actually flourished in Ireland during the 100 years after the penal laws were drafted.

5. Some of the penal laws applied to Dissenters not just to Catholics.

6. The Vatican changed its policy and supported James a few years after the Battle of the Boyne.

These are all good points and I agree that we must study the penal laws in European terms. However I should point out that they applied to Britain and Ireland as a whole, which changes the situation a bit. For a start it means that they weren't necessarily designed to persecute the majority of the Irish population, but they did have that effect. Also it means that they more than likely could not have been reversed at the time without Ireland gaining independence, which didn't happen.

I think what the issue here is whether we believe Elliott or not. While I don't think there were English soldiers scouring the country for crimes under these laws every single day from their inception, its clear that they were enforced and did have a significant impact on people's lives. Whether Catholicism flourished or not is in a way besides the point, since other nonconformist faiths also survived. The laws were most strict when first drafted and then began to lapse when it became clear that the threat had subsided.
In fact to say that Catholicism flourished is a bit of a red herring on Elliott's behalf.

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

These are all good points and I agree that we must study the penal laws in European terms. However I should point out that they applied to Britain and Ireland as a whole, which changes the situation a bit. For a start it means that they weren't necessarily designed to persecute the majority of the Irish population, but they did have that effect. Also it means that they more than likely could not have been reversed at the time without Ireland gaining independence, which didn't happen.

I think what the issue here is whether we believe Elliott or not. While I don't think there were English soldiers scouring the country for crimes under these laws every single day from their inception, its clear that they were enforced and did have a significant impact on people's lives. Whether Catholicism flourished or not is in a way besides the point, since other nonconformist faiths also survived. The laws were most strict when first drafted and then began to lapse when it became clear that the threat had subsided.
In fact to say that Catholicism flourished is a bit of a red herring on Elliott's behalf.

I will have to think about your point on Catholicism flourising in the 100 years after the Penal laws being a red herring. My initial reaction is that if the Penal laws were effective and implemented to the letter of the law then we would have seen a marked reduction in Catholicism in the 18th century.

There is one point I am not clear on though: The penal laws were passed by the Irish Paliament but were originally ratified by the English parliament? Was this true in all cases or were some modified to suit the Irish case?

I reproduce part of a statute here which I would have been happy to sign up to - again showing my bias

English Statute 3 Will & Mary, c.2 (1691)
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
DECLARATION AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION
Sec. 5-6 cont.
I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.

brianthebard

All bills passed in the Irish parliament were required to be ratified in the English one afaik. This was a colonial issue.
I think if the British crown had genuinely wanted to abolish other faiths then it would have made them punishable by imprisonment or death. The penal laws were quite repressive but more comparable imo to apartheid than something intended to abolish a crime-they were designed to segregate rather than annihilate.

MarchDub

brianthebard wrote: »

All bills passed in the Irish parliament were required to be ratified in the English one afaik. This was a colonial issue.
I think if the British crown had genuinely wanted to abolish other faiths then it would have made them punishable by imprisonment or death. The penal laws were quite repressive but more comparable imo to apartheid than something intended to abolish a crime-they were designed to segregate rather than annihilate.

The Irish Parliament really ceased to have any power since the passage of Poynings Law of 1494 - since that time all laws passed in Westminster automatically became law in Ireland and all laws made by the Dublin parliament had to be ratified in London in order to be legitimate. In other words Ireland had a puppet government only.

I agree the Penal laws were more akin to apartheid [among other issues] but there was nothing new in this - they followed on a long tradition of attempted segregation in Ireland beginning with the initial colonization and expressed most decidedly by the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 - where even Irish poets were forbidden to mingle with the English Norman settlers and, not only marriage, but all sexual relations between the native Irish and the English settlers was outlawed. The statutes failed of course, but the philosophy behind them did not die.

There were Penal laws against Presbyterians [not Protestant Church of Ireland people] in the early eighteenth century - but they did not involve land ownership or property as the laws against Catholics did , but were concentrated around the issue of political representation. The toleration Act of 1719 overturned most of the contentious issues for Presbyterians. The Presbyterians did have a legitimate gripe though because they were brought to Ireland in order to guarantee a Protestant majority in the Ulster region and were almost immediately obliged to take the Black Oath to demonstrate their loyalty. As “dissenters” they came under suspicion but they did not face the level of dispossession or disenfranchisement that Catholics did.

To return to a previous issue - Marianne Elliott has made claims that the Penal Laws against Catholics did not involve the issue of religion or religious practice. In this sense she tries to prove that they were not “anti-Catholic”, i.e. in the sense that they were not concerned with religiosity. But to prove her thesis she creates false assumptions and then knocks down that created "truth" i.e., she “reveals” that the Mass was not forbidden. No one of any standing in Irish history circles has ever claimed that the Mass was forbidden. But there were certainly laws against religion – Bishops were told to leave the country and priests were required to register. And the issue of religious practice did come in for condemnation, for one, in the Act to Prevent the Growth of Popery of 1704 Catholicism is referred to as “superstition” and Catholic holy places of worship are to be closed. Most especially, Lough Derg is ordered to be closed – it was then a major place of pilgrimage - as are all holy wells to be closed or destroyed. Large gatherings for Catholic religious purposes are expressly outlawed as “unlawful assemblies.” If this can’t be described as anti-Catholic in a religious sense, then I don’t know what can.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I will have to think about your point on Catholicism flourising in the 100 years after the Penal laws being a red herring. My initial reaction is that if the Penal laws were effective and implemented to the letter of the law then we would have seen a marked reduction in Catholicism in the 18th century.

Maybe you are misunderstanding the central objective of the Penal Laws. The purpose of the Penal Laws was to take power and wealth away from Catholic citizens and in this they were supremely successful. By the end of the eighteenth century there were no Catholics in public office of any kind, including most of the professions -especially law and the army. Only 5% of the land of Ireland was in Catholic ownership. In other words, Irish Catholics had become non-citizens in their own country.

For anyone to claim that the Penal laws were not enforced is absolute nonsense. Really. They kept Catholics out of parliament, denied them all voting rights and kept them out of the professions, They also were responsible for the mass transference of land ownership to Protestant hands - this was especially effective in those parts of Ireland where Catholics had managed, until the early eighteenth century, to hold on to land.

All of this is well documented - as are the many attempts at redress, including the mostly Protestant led failed 1798 rising which sought to make a more equal new Ireland for "Catholic, Protestant and dissenter". The last of the Penal Laws, preventing Catholics from sitting in Parliament took enormous effort to overturn by Daniel O’Connell in 1829.

Data_Quest wrote: »

I reproduce part of a statute here which I would have been happy to sign up to - again showing my bias ]

English Statute 3 Will & Mary, c.2 (1691)
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
DECLARATION AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION
Sec. 5-6 cont.
I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the virgin Mary or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.

What you are quoting here is the oath of requirement to take any public office - it matters not whether you or I would be willing to take it or our own personal feelings on transubstantiation - the issue is that this was pivotal to keeping Catholics out of power of any kind. It was purposely drafted and worded so that no practicing Catholic could in good conscience take it. It was an act of discrimination, plain and simple.

donaghs

Can someone summarize the point of the original post? It's like mid-thread response to an earlier post?

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

Maybe you are misunderstanding the central objective of the Penal Laws. The purpose of the Penal Laws was to take power and wealth away from Catholic citizens and in this they were supremely successful. By the end of the eighteenth century there were no Catholics in public office of any kind, including most of the professions -especially law and the army. Only 5% of the land of Ireland was in Catholic ownership. In other words, Irish Catholics had become non-citizens in their own country.

For anyone to claim that the Penal laws were not enforced is absolute nonsense. Really. They kept Catholics out of parliament, denied them all voting rights and kept them out of the professions, They also were responsible for the mass transference of land ownership to Protestant hands - this was especially effective in those parts of Ireland where Catholics had managed, until the early eighteenth century, to hold on to land.

All of this is well documented - as are the many attempts at redress, including the mostly Protestant led failed 1798 rising which sought to make a more equal new Ireland for "Catholic, Protestant and dissenter". The last of the Penal Laws, preventing Catholics from sitting in Parliament took enormous effort to overturn by Daniel O’Connell in 1829.



What you are quoting here is the oath of requirement to take any public office - it matters not whether you or I would be willing to take it or our own personal feelings on transubstantiation - the issue is that this was pivotal to keeping Catholics out of power of any kind. It was purposely drafted and worded so that no practicing Catholic could in good conscience take it. It was an act of discrimination, plain and simple.

It was down to choice really. Because of my bias I have little sympathy for any Catholic who did not convert to the Protestant faith if it meant saving their land and family from poverty. The English and Irish Protestants gave the Irish Catholics a choice of substituting one superstition for a slightly modified other superstition. Fair enough in my book when you consider what Louis XIV did to the French Protestants: The penalties for preaching or attending a Protestant assembly were severe: life terms in the galleys for men, imprisonment for women, and confiscation of all property were common.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

It was down to choice really. Because of my bias I have little sympathy for any Catholic who did not convert to the Protestant faith if it meant saving their land and family from poverty. The English and Irish Protestants gave the Irish Catholics a choice of substituting one superstition for a slightly modified other superstition. Fair enough in my book when you consider what Louis XIV did to the French Protestants: The penalties for preaching or attending a Protestant assembly were severe: life terms in the galleys for men, imprisonment for women, and confiscation of all property were common.

That’s your answer? Well you’re right about a few things – bias is controlling your thinking and you are seriously not interested in history except as a tool for justify your own prejudices. I really see no point in any further discussion.

convert

Data_Quest wrote: »

No that is incorrect what she says is this:

"The penal laws were passed in a brief period of heightened political tension between 1695 and 1707 after the reign of James II had shown how vulnerable was the 17th century land settlement and when the Protestant succession to the English throne was by no means secured. The Irish parliament was angry at William III's generous terms in the Treaty of Limerick, and even before it was ratified it passed the first penal law. The 1695 acts prohibited Catholics from carrying arms, keeping horses valued at more than five pounds, sending their children abroad for education and teaching school. The aim was to prevent Catholics from assisting or communicating with the foreign enemy."

So she obviously contends that the penal laws were intentially against Catholics: to suggest otherwise is misleading.

However, she also says that:

"(Recent historians) argue that there was no systematic penal 'code'; that legislation was piecemeal and erratic , produced by genuine political crises and rarely fully implemented; that in terms of social relationships Ireland differed little from contempory Europe; that far from being decimated the Catholic Church actually flourished in the period."

Cullen was one of the first historians to argue that the Penal Laws were 'piecemeal' and introduced to specific threats and you can see this when you look at the years in which the statutes were enacted - late 1690s and early 1700s (1695-1708/09); then there were more statutes passed in the 1710s and then things eased off, with acts being randomly passed in the 1720s, 30s and 40s to prevent Catholics entering into law enforcement, etc. If the statues had indeed being well thought out and part of a bigger plan, then is it not fair to suggest that these statutes would have been passed initially rather than being passed or re-passed in a bid to ensure their enforcement?

MarchDub wrote: »

Maybe you are misunderstanding the central objective of the Penal Laws. The purpose of the Penal Laws was to take power and wealth away from Catholic citizens and in this they were supremely successful. By the end of the eighteenth century there were no Catholics in public office of any kind, including most of the professions -especially law and the army. Only 5% of the land of Ireland was in Catholic ownership. In other words, Irish Catholics had become non-citizens in their own country.

There's been a lot of recent work by Connolly, Dickson, Harvey, McGrath, Bartlett, Power, Whelan, Osborough and Kelly, to name just a few, who are beginnig to challenge the figures laid down by Simms regarding the statistic of 5%. It's worthwhile having a read as they bring to light some of the inaccuracies which arose during Simms' statistical analyses.

MarchDub wrote: »

For anyone to claim that the Penal laws were not enforced is absolute nonsense. Really. They kept Catholics out of parliament, denied them all voting rights and kept them out of the professions, They also were responsible for the mass transference of land ownership to Protestant hands - this was especially effective in those parts of Ireland where Catholics had managed, until the early eighteenth century, to hold on to land.

Yes, the Penal Laws were quite rigorously adhered to when it came to the political aspects of the statues; however, if you look at family case studies, such as the Bellews from Mount Bellew, you'll get a great insight into the lives of Catholics on a local level and see that they actually managed to continue in their every day lives quite normally and succeeded in retaining their land and their position in society despite the Penal Laws.

I'm not denying that life for Catholics in eighteenth-century Ireland was difficult, it was, and in some cases extremely so, but I feel that it's time to put aside this belief that Catholics were extremely downtrodden in every aspect of life during the century in question and look at those who succeeded in surving despite the Penal Laws. There have been recent studies which have shown that many Catholics disregarded the statutes and sent their children abroad for a foreign education, that some actually succeeded in increasing the quantity of land which they held during the eighteenth-century and that they served in foreign armies abroad. Despite being unable to sit in Parliament, many Catholic families retained their position in society and were in a position, once the statutes were repealed, to assume prominent position in both local and national law enforcement and politics once again.

brianthebard

donaghs wrote: »

Can someone summarize the point of the original post? It's like mid-thread response to an earlier post?

It is, I split the topics.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

That’s your answer? Well you’re right about a few things – bias is controlling your thinking and you are seriously not interested in history except as a tool for justify your own prejudices. I really see no point in any further discussion.

I at least have been honest in stating my biases before making my points you have not. I can only assume by your dogmatic statements that you are part of the former Roman Catholic Anti-British establishment (priest/religous/civil servant/teacher). Your approach to history is what made me dislike the subject in secondary school in the 70s and 80s. So I agree I do not want to debate the issue with you any further until you state what your biases are.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I at least have been honest in stating my biases before making my points you have not. I can only assume by your dogmatic statements that you are part of the former Roman Catholic Anti-British establishment (priest/religous/civil servant/teacher). Your approach to history is what made me dislike the subject in secondary school in the 70s and 80s. So I agree I do not want to debate the issue with you any further until you state what your biases are.

I wasn't going to reply to you again but your statement is so very outrageous that I must. Your assumptions are beyond belief and demonstate your ignroance on a grand scale. It says more about you than it does about me - and your interest in history is not scholarly but just feeding your own bitterness. Get over it.

I am a member of no Irish establishment - former or otherwise - and have no religious leanings whatsoever. If you only knew how laughable your "assumptions:" are. Get your act together here lad, your bile is spilling into your brain at a bad rate.

MarchDub

convert wrote: »

Yes, the Penal Laws were quite rigorously adhered to when it came to the political aspects of the statues; however, if you look at family case studies, such as the Bellews from Mount Bellew, you'll get a great insight into the lives of Catholics on a local level and see that they actually managed to continue in their every day lives quite normally and succeeded in retaining their land and their position in society despite the Penal Laws.

I'm not denying that life for Catholics in eighteenth-century Ireland was difficult, it was, and in some cases extremely so, but I feel that it's time to put aside this belief that Catholics were extremely downtrodden in every aspect of life during the century in question and look at those who succeeded in surving despite the Penal Laws. There have been recent studies which have shown that many Catholics disregarded the statutes and sent their children abroad for a foreign education, that some actually succeeded in increasing the quantity of land which they held during the eighteenth-century and that they served in foreign armies abroad. Despite being unable to sit in Parliament, many Catholic families retained their position in society and were in a position, once the statutes were repealed, to assume prominent position in both local and national law enforcement and politics once again.

Yes, that is well known - the case of Daniel O'Connell is one. He was educated abroad and was able to assume a career in law after the ban for Catholics was lifted. That is not the point I was making - we [granted] had a period of some myth surrounding the Penal Laws and how they worked on the ground. But that was not the major point of the laws - they were made to take power and wealth from Catholics and they did succeed on a large scale. The exceptions were just that. Exceptions.

As for the piecemeal nature of the laws - many laws follow this pattern. Even civil rights laws which are part of an overall plan are not done in one lump at one time.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

I wasn't going to reply to you again but your statement is so very outrageous that I must. Your assumptions are beyond belief and demonstate your ignroance on a grand scale. It says more about you than it does about me - and your interest in history is not scholarly but just feeding your own bitterness. Get over it.

I am a member of no Irish establishment - former or otherwise - and have no religious leanings whatsoever. My education was not at Catholic schools. If you only knew how laughable your "assumptions:" are. Get your act together here lad, your bile is spilling into your brain at a bad rate.

It is not your fault that you remind me of a bitter and twisted old Christian Brother that taught me at school. I note that you did not respond to the anti British accusation.

brianthebard

Calm it down people, there's no need for name calling or questioning others credentials. Mod.