Irishness and Catholicism

woodoo

I read an interesting article in the Irish times about someone who is not a catholic and how sometimes he felt like an outsider or not quite fully Irish.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0717/1224320251272.html

I was born a catholic but have recently renounced my links with that religion (well as much as the pope will allow me anyhow :rolleyes:). There does seem to be a belief in parts of Ireland that if you are an Irish catholic then you are 100% Irish but of you are protestant/other that somehow you are a little bit British/foreign. I would have heard accusations like this growing up.

With the problems the catholic church are going through in Ireland do people feel this is changing. I hope so. I would like to see that idea banished to the past and a much greater separation between religion and state/identity.

Are there grades of Irishness? With the GAA loving, Catholic, Irish speaking sitting smugly at the top of the tree?

Dubhlinner

Graham norton (Protestant) spoke of this affecting him.

I'm from Dublin and went to Prod schools. I don't think it was ever an issue here but I've no doubt down the country Prods were/are seen as slightly less Irish. Probably due to the war going on in the north

now that most young people are atheist(i don't care what the census says - they are atheist) and the end of the conflict up north it probably won't be an ongoing issue

laoch na mona

the prod thing is due to how Catholics were treated in the north
religion is not that important anymore and some of our greatest hero's were protestant i.e wolfetone
personally i can't understand how people who call themselves Irish don't want to learn the language

RichardAnd

The attitude towards protestants depends greatly upon location. I've lived in Dublin many years and hardly anyone has ever batted an eyelid if I tell them that I'm an Agnostic. Most people don't care and in fact, the issue of belief rarely comes up.

However, I spent the time between the ages of 10 and 17 in Clare and I can tell you first hand that the attitude is very different, even among younger people. I once, at age 15, told several of my class mates that I didn't believe in god and their reaction was that of profound shock. These guys did not go to mass nor did they act in a pious manner but simply telling them that I didn't believe what's in the Bible was simply astounding to them.

Further to the above, when I was younger still, I was placed in the daytime care of a very nice, elderly lady whilst my parents were at work. She was a typical Irish old woman and one thing I'll always remember is her view on the local Protestants, whom she referred to, along with all non-catholics, as "pagans." On top of that, when passing the local protestant church, she remarked that the congregation had no right to use the building as it had originally been a catholic church centuries ago. That might just seem the idiosyncrasies of an old woman but my school mates also seemed ill-disposed to the local Protestant Reverent even though none of them knew the man (a nice guy, I might add).

Just my experiences.

Dirk Gently

There is still a big rural connection between Catholicism and being Irish and yes they do look at themselves as being "more Irish" than a non believer. Plenty of people still believe you need to be both conservative and catholic to be considered truly Irish. Ironically I see it as a dilution of being Irish due to Catholics submitting to a corrupt foreign power in Rome interfering in the sovereign business of the state. I'd go so far as to call them collaborators even, especially if it wound them up a bit.

meh.

seamus

Irish history is taught in primary schools with a very anti-British slant. It's protrayed as a struggle between catholic Irish and protestant english/invaders, and as such it's pretty much ingrained into children's minds that "real" Irish people are catholic and anti-British/anti-protestant. It's taught that Irish people were oppressed because they were Catholic, and because people died for this, we should hold dear to catholicism and reject all anti-catholic notions at all cost.

Thankfully this is changing, but there's a long tradition in our education system reinforcing the idea that being irish is being catholic and being catholic is being properly irish. If you renounce your catholic faith, you disrespect those who died for it, etc. Typical nonsense.

Ignoring of course that ultimately it had little to do with religion and catholicism was always just a useful way to differentiate classes of people. There were plenty of rich catholic landowners and plenty of downtrodden Irish protestants.

The learning/speaking of Irish is a slightly different matter. There's a large distaste for it because of the way it's taught in schools. Few people have good memories of learning Irish, and without speaking it every day in a normal capacity it's never going to be learned properly and be used every day.
As someone who opposes Irish being mandatory at senior level, conversely I would like to see the state move towards changing all public primary schools to Gaelscoilenna. Not only would it massively improve our language skills, it would also normalise Irish speaking at the every day level.

GAA is again something else entirely. Some schools are big into GAA. Other schools don't play it at all. In some counties, GAA is everything and if you're not into GAA there must be something wrong with you.

Chuck Stone

Dubhlinner wrote: »

Graham norton (Protestant) spoke of this affecting him.

Apparently a lot of the Protestant community in West Cork are 'quite comfortable' in their own company. I've heard my brother's GF (a west Cork woman) say as much - perhaps it's a two way thing?

Some teachers indoctrinated children with a nationalism that amounted to hatred of Britain – and we wonder why violent republicanism still rears its ugly head.

Yeah sure, teachers are responsible for violent republicanism.

Brokentime

seamus wrote: »

Irish history is taught in primary schools with a very anti-British slant

Now you said it. Even back in primary school, I can remember my 6th class teacher almost foaming at the mouth in anger talking about the plantations back in the 16th century. Constant indoctrination of this fashion is/was sure to cause anti-English/protestant resentment and hatred later.

Dirk Gently

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Yeah sure, teachers are responsible for violent republicanism.

in fairness, I was practically a RA head coming out of primary school. I learned my times tables and that prods were murdering english bastards. Perhaps the curriculum has changed recently?

stefanovich

My father is English and my mother Irish. As a kid I moved here, London accent in tow. Never baptised (thanks to my parents). Started school in Limerick in quite a rough catholic school. They had multiple reasons to hate me but the scorn that the teachers and pupils showed me when I announced that I wasn't to partake in holy communion was something else.

I shortly after moved to a protestant school just to escape.

Typical comment: "I'll get the IRA after you you protestant bastard!"

Chuck Stone

Dirk Gently wrote: »

in fairness, I was practically a RA head coming out of primary school. I learned my times tables and that prods were murdering english bastards. Perhaps the curriculum has changed recently?

I went to a Catholic primary school in the north and don't remember any of that kind of thing (apart from the Catholic bullshit)

Regardless, inculcation of values and perpetuation of, or recreating, societal structures is one of the functions of schools - it's certainly not unique to Ireland.

junder

Dubhlinner wrote: »

Graham norton (Protestant) spoke of this affecting him.

I'm from Dublin and went to Prod schools. I don't think it was ever an issue here but I've no doubt down the country Prods were/are seen as slightly less Irish. Probably due to the war going on in the north

now that most young people are atheist(i don't care what the census says - they are atheist) and the end of the conflict up north it probably won't be an ongoing issue

Graham actually said it was easier being gay in the republic then Protestant

Jimoslimos

Dubhlinner wrote: »

now that most young people are atheist(i don't care what the census says - they are atheist) and the end of the conflict up north it probably won't be an ongoing issue

Actually it still does matter to some people, the joke up North "well are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?" isn't too far removed from the reality.

There is also an element of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", For some reason the majority of people here stuck with RC (I guess we're a conservative bunch that don't care much for change!) despite the COI by default becoming the established church. For that reason anti-RC laws were felt more strongly here than anywhere else.

Not so well known (or taught) initial Norman invasion was authorised by the Pope - funny that gets overlooked!

Chuck Stone

junder wrote: »

Graham actually said it was easier being gay in the republic then Protestant

Poor Graham - if only he'd been born several generations earlier.

It was discovered that his family were originally planters sent over from England to take over Irish land. Some members of his family had fought for the British Monarchy during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and taken part in a massacre of Catholics in Carnew Castle.

Wiki

Happyman42

The facts that I was taught about the plantation and subsequent events are pretty much the same as the facts that are accepted now. Interpretation of the facts will always be subjective to an extent.
What was contentious was the slant on our own civil war. Living on the border I had two teachers who where from Cork and Kerry respectively who strongly reflected their FG and FF backgrounds. I also had other teachers who wouldn't go near the subject. So all viewpoints where fairly well represented.
I was fortunate to go to secondary school at a time when catholicism was being challenged and I remember some great debates with our catholic chaplin but it was a parish run school at the end of the day, and there was loads of the Irish/Catholic thing, going on. We very definately got the 'the Irish are a Catholic Nation' drummed into us.
But in saying that, the education system we had produced the priest, the agnostic, the freedom fighter, the partitionist, the pacifist and it also produced those who didn't care one way or another. So I don't think I would 'blame' the education system in particular. It was more society in general that produced that kind of thinking.
Being closely involved with my two children's education in the same schools, there is a difference of night and day in how they are taught today. History is all very PC and sanitised now, which is just another point of view really. Personally I prefer students being allowed to debate in subjects like history and religion, after being made aware of the facts.
There is a very definite 'fear' about open discussion of our recent past (the church and the Troubles) in education and I think leaving a generation without the facts is failing them.

woodoo

I know quite a few protestants where i live and afaik they consider themselves as irish as i do. But i have never actually asked them.

It would be interesting to get the views of Irish protestants. Are they insulted if people think they are not 100% Irish? Or part British. Many of their ancestors may have come here 400, 500 hundred years ago. Is that something they consider as part of their identity.

I have a Welsh surname. I have no idea when it first came to Ireland but its not something i would even consider as part of my identity.

Manach

Being Catholic, I've always been proud of the on balance positive contribution made to the formation of the Irish nation by the Church and how it has contributed to a stable democratic society as part of the underlying Western World traditions up till the present day.

poeticseraphim

woodoo wrote: »

I read an interesting article in the Irish times about someone who is not a catholic and how sometimes he felt like an outsider or not quite fully Irish.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0717/1224320251272.html

I was born a catholic but have recently renounced my links with that religion (well as much as the pope will allow me anyhow :rolleyes:). There does seem to be a belief in parts of Ireland that if you are an Irish catholic then you are 100% Irish but of you are protestant/other that somehow you are a little bit British/foreign. I would have heard accusations like this growing up.

With the problems the catholic church are going through in Ireland do people feel this is changing. I hope so. I would like to see that idea banished to the past and a much greater separation between religion and state/identity.

Are there grades of Irishness? With the GAA loving, Catholic, Irish speaking sitting smugly at the top of the tree?

No i disagree. Infact i think it's the opposite now people don't fluant their catholicism.

I am not Christian i have my own spiritual beliefs i come from a pretty liberal background of educated people who maybe a generation or two ago would have been catholic. But a general spiritualism has taken it's place. And i would wager that is the case for the majority of my generation.

Not even my grandparents were terribly catholic and my grandmother would have been spiritual and close to her own faith she was fiercly critical of the wrong doings of the church as much as twenty years ago.

I had many friends of different backgrounds growing up who all were proudly Irish.

I knew a Jewish gaelgoir who was a member of the Fáinne and was a Rabbi. I know many protestants who feel completely Irish. I know Irish catholics who have converted to other faiths who still feel 100% Irish.

I know muslims and those from mixed backgrounds who feel Irish.

Similary there are those for whom Irishness if not a big deal who are catholics.

The two are very separate.

Infact i know some who consider christianity to still be a foreign religion and that it has nothing to do with Irishness.

I also know a radical nationalist who is atheist , infact a lot of Sinn Fein seem to be atheist.

Tea drinker

laoch na mona wrote: »

the prod thing is due to how Catholics were treated in the north
religion is not that important anymore and some of our greatest hero's were protestant i.e wolfetone
personally i can't understand how people who call themselves Irish don't want to learn the language

Agreed up until the gaelic thing, was never interested in learning a dead language. Not having a go at your good self but I find too many patriots are only for show and really couldn't give a toss about Ireland, only what they can get for themselves through whatever means. A bit of cupla focail thrown in greases the wheels for these guys.

Apart from that can we not stop going on and on about petty Catholic and Irish and priest threads I'm sick of listening to this while the country is going down the toilet. Yes it's great progress made but lets stop looking back and talking about our feelings.
The latest crap is people who leave Ireland are no longer Irish according to some people. Yeah no matter how bad your personal circumstances you have to stay and moan while the life seeps out of you. That's True Irish!

poeticseraphim

Brokentime wrote: »

Now you said it. Even back in primary school, I can remember my 6th class teacher almost foaming at the mouth in anger talking about the plantations back in the 16th century. Constant indoctrination of this fashion is/was sure to cause anti-English/protestant resentment and hatred later.

Sometimes i feel like a grew up in a different country ...I have heard this before yet never in my education did i experience it.

Admittedly my parents are the type to make certain that i was not indoctrined and that i was taught their values.


I believe people but find it shocking and surprising. What kind of schools were these???I do think parents must choose carefully when picking a school. It has much influence.

I find it offensive when people want to define Irishness in such narrow terms.

For me it is a connection with people around me and a sense of common ground and care for one another. That is nationhood for me. It's a sense of home. Lack of common ground and care leads to an absence of common culture and nation.

Marcellus Jerome Clarke

Protestants in Ireland are from the Scotch Irish (Ulster Scots) background, so it is perfectly reasonable to see them as not Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. Irish Catholics would be natives, People from the Ulster Scots background are more conservative and traditional and love the rural land more.

I don't see Protestants as Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. The majority of Protestants in Ireland have a different view on the constitutional position of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

bmaxi

Marcellus Jerome Clarke wrote: »

Protestants in Ireland are from the Scotch Irish (Ulster Scots) background, so it is perfectly reasonable to see them as not Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. Irish Catholics would be natives, People from the Ulster Scots background are more conservative and traditional and love the rural land more.

I don't see Protestants as Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. The majority of Protestants in Ireland have a different view on the constitutional position of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The majority of Protestants in the Republic are not from a Scots/Irish background but from an English/Anglican background. I grew up among Protestants in a working class area of North Dublin and they were just as Irish as the rest of us. I still have several friends, one of whom is an Anglican priest. They may have had different social traditions, such as Sunday observance etc. but they were just as likely to wear the shamrock or fly the tricolour. The Church of Ireland has a thriving Irish language community and ceremonies in Irish are regularly held in Christ Church. We have had two Protestant presidents.
The whole idea of Catholics being "more Irish" is just so much bull**** propagated by the Catholic church as another control mechanism. It has been the aim of the Catholic church to remove all opposition in this country and there is no better example of this than Ne Temere, which was designed to dilute the dissenter population of whatever faith to such an extent that it would just die and they nearly succeeded. To have people professing this nonsense in 2012 is pure, unadulterated ignorance, if Protestants feel less Irish than the rest of us it's because we told them so.

road_sweeper

junder wrote: »

Graham actually said it was easier being gay in the republic then Protestant

graham norton grew up in what is probabley the most protestant town in all of ireland, i doubt he felt that different , his story sounds like one his agent told him would fit a particular cliched narrative

road_sweeper

bmaxi wrote: »

The majority of Protestants in the Republic are not from a Scots/Irish background but from an English/Anglican background. I grew up among Protestants in a working class area of North Dublin and they were just as Irish as the rest of us. I still have several friends, one of whom is an Anglican priest. They may have had different social traditions, such as Sunday observance etc. but they were just as likely to wear the shamrock or fly the tricolour. The Church of Ireland has a thriving Irish language community and ceremonies in Irish are regularly held in Christ Church. We have had two Protestant presidents.
The whole idea of Catholics being "more Irish" is just so much bull**** propagated by the Catholic church as another control mechanism. It has been the aim of the Catholic church to remove all opposition in this country and there is no better example of this than Ne Temere, which was designed to dilute the dissenter population of whatever faith to such an extent that it would just die and they nearly succeeded. To have people professing this nonsense in 2012 is pure, unadulterated ignorance, if Protestants feel less Irish than the rest of us it's because we told them so.

the former landed gentry were of an anglican ( high church ) - english backround , the protestants of more modest wealth and means tended to be presbyterian ( low church ) though many were also anglican

the vast majority of protestants in northern ireland are presbyterian and of scottish ancestry , presbyterianism is far more anti catholic than anglicanism , in fact opposition to rome is the central plank of the calvinist faith , this explains why irish immigrants to scotland encountered such prejudice in comparison to the kind of welcome they were met with in other parts of their own country ( at the time )


as for the OP,s thesis, catholics in scotland were traditionally not seen as true scots and this attitude to still quite prevalent , irelands attitude is by no means unique

road_sweeper

Marcellus Jerome Clarke wrote: »

Protestants in Ireland are from the Scotch Irish (Ulster Scots) background, so it is perfectly reasonable to see them as not Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. Irish Catholics would be natives, People from the Ulster Scots background are more conservative and traditional and love the rural land more.

I don't see Protestants as Irish in the way that Irish Catholics are. The majority of Protestants in Ireland have a different view on the constitutional position of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

let me ask you a question

can someone not be irish in the way irish catholics are and still be irish ?

road_sweeper

bmaxi wrote: »

The majority of Protestants in the Republic are not from a Scots/Irish background but from an English/Anglican background. I grew up among Protestants in a working class area of North Dublin and they were just as Irish as the rest of us. I still have several friends, one of whom is an Anglican priest. They may have had different social traditions, such as Sunday observance etc. but they were just as likely to wear the shamrock or fly the tricolour. The Church of Ireland has a thriving Irish language community and ceremonies in Irish are regularly held in Christ Church. We have had two Protestant presidents.
The whole idea of Catholics being "more Irish" is just so much bull**** propagated by the Catholic church as another control mechanism. It has been the aim of the Catholic church to remove all opposition in this country and there is no better example of this than Ne Temere, which was designed to dilute the dissenter population of whatever faith to such an extent that it would just die and they nearly succeeded. To have people professing this nonsense in 2012 is pure, unadulterated ignorance, if Protestants feel less Irish than the rest of us it's because we told them so.

in fairness , the ancestors of most protestants in ireland would have been staunchly pro union prior to 1922 , they were the benficarys of british rule in ireland in the way catholics in this country were not , its not simply down to catholics making some baseless assumption that protestants in ireland had british leanings , its not so long ago that they absolutely did

Black Swan

MOD COMMENT:
Please be advised that there are forums better suited to the discussion of "Irishness and Catholicism" than Politics. This thread will be moved to Christianity LOCKED, so that the destination mods my review it for appropriateness.