A Protestant Ireland

turnikett1

Mo chairde. Been reading an AMAZING book lately, it's called "The Isles", by Norman Davies. It's an expansive big book that spans the whole history of Britain and Ireland, the peoples that inhabited them and their relationship with one another. It's great because the author makes a point of being anti-Anglocentric. It spans from the dawn of humans in Britain and Ireland right up until the present day, without going into too much detail I would highly highly recommend it, it's absolutely phenomenal. My favourite history book that I've read (and I've read a lot!)

Now, I am reading about Tudor Britain and Ireland and the Protesant Reformation. The author makes a point that in Wales, the locals adopted Protestantism and as a result the Welsh language was standardized from having been translated from the Bible and also, many schools funded by the now reformed Church were set up which taught education to the common folk in both Welsh and English. So, at the cost of their religion the Welsh managed to (somewhat) save their language. You can see this today in certain areas of Wales where Welsh is very prominent as is the identity of the Welsh language.

The opposite, happened in Ireland. We got to save keep our religion, but, largely at the cost of our language. As a result of defying Protestantism, the Irish language had no standard nor a medium with which to express and perserve itself, and of course being Catholic made only matters worse with regards to the English who would continue this cultural oppression (it's argued that Wales and Scotland had a much fairer treatment as a result of adopting Protestantism). This of course wasn't the sole factor in the decline of Irish. The Famine was probably the biggest blow. However this was definitely the big trigger in the doom of Irish, only to be exasperated by other factors in the years to come.

It got me thinking - what if Ireland had adopted Protestantism en masse? Would our language be more spoken today? Would the English have treated us better? Wouldn't we have suffered less post-independence, having rid ourselves from the cruel, conservative dictatorship of the Roman Catholic Church? Would our Proestant work ethic have driven us to greater economic propserity and combatted corruption?

It also begs me to ask a different question - what would life be like if we had stayed a part of the United Kingdom? Arguably we would have better infrastructure, less corruption and wouldn't have suffered the Troubles but at the cost of much of our language and culture (I will safely assume anyways). Personally, I'm not against an equal union of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales it's just very unfortunate that it ended up being completely Anglocentric...

Thoughts, opinions, comments!

Boldberry

Surely we would have been better off Protestant considering the hell the Catholic Church put this country through.

turnikett1

Boldberry wrote: »

Surely we would have been better off Protestant considering the hell the Catholic Church put this country through.

I'm apt to think that too. Although the Irish probably wouldn't have been as much craic with hard working Protestant ethic...! See: Protestant countries (Germany, England, Sweden, etc) vs Catholic ones (Ireland, Spain, Poland, etc). lol I definitely know which of the 2 are more banter! But this is beyond the point :P

Seriously though, Ireland probably would have been better off. I seethe when I think of what the Catholic Church has done to this country, absolutely despicable.

robp

turnikett1 wrote: »

Wouldn't we have suffered less post-independence, having rid ourselves from the cruel, conservative dictatorship of the Roman Catholic Church?

You will be taken more serious if you adopt a more informed and less misguided view of Irish history.

turnikett1 wrote: »

Would our Proestant work ethic have driven us to greater economic propserity and combatted corruption?

There is no link between economic prosperity and protestantism or any common religion infact. Some predominantly catholic regions have been economic powerhouses for huge spans of History like Italy and France while some protestant areas have been economic backwaters until very recently like Finland.

turnikett1 wrote: »

Arguably we would have better infrastructure, less corruption and wouldn't have suffered the Troubles but at the cost of much of our language and culture (I will safely assume anyways). Personally, I'm not against an equal union of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales it's just very unfortunate that it ended up being completely Anglocentric...

I don't see why Ireland would have better infrastructure. As long as Ireland was not part of SE England it would have been considered a marginal area. The UK is probably less corrupt then Ireland but there is only a marginal difference. There really is no major distinction there.

robp

turnikett1 wrote: »

I'm apt to think that too. Although the Irish probably wouldn't have been as much craic with hard working Protestant ethic...! See: Protestant countries (Germany, England, Sweden, etc) vs Catholic ones (Ireland, Spain, Poland, etc). lol I definitely know which of the 2 are more banter! But this is beyond the point :P

Germany is no more Protestant than Catholic. its equally both. There is no link between religion and dryness.

turnikett1

robp wrote: »

You will be taken more serious if you adopt a more informed and less misguided view of Irish history.

Ok, fine. Exaggerated on my part. Does Catholic dominated society sound better? Whatever fits, you get my point regardless.

robp wrote: »

There is no link between economic prosperity and protestantism or any common religion infact. Some predominantly catholic regions have been economic powerhouses for huge spans of History like Italy and France while some protestant areas have been economic backwaters until very recently like Finland.

This is true. Although I would argue that France was a powerhouse as a result of being a colonial power and Finland a backwater as a result of being a colony a large part of it's history. As far as my knowledge goes, Italy has always been economically disadvantaged until recent times. But, you probably know more about this than me. Care to expand?

robp wrote: »

I don't see why Ireland would have better infrastructure. As long as Ireland was not part of SE England it would have been considered a marginal area. The UK is probably less corrupt then Ireland but there is only a marginal difference. There really is no major distinction there.

I just would've assumed that post-WW2 if we were still a part of the UK, we would've prospered with it as part of the post-WW2 boom. I don't think Ireland as a whole would've been considered a "marginal area" by Britain if we were still a part of the UK - Dublin was after all considered the "2nd city of the UK".

robp wrote: »

Germany is no more Protestant than Catholic. its equally both. There is no link between religion and dryness.

I know, I wasn't entirely serious with that comment! Scots for example, Protestants but great craic :P Again disregard that comment, I was only messing. I just want to hear other people's opinions on what a Protestant Ireland would look like

robp

turnikett1 wrote: »

Ok, fine. Exaggerated on my part. Does Catholic dominated society sound better? Whatever fits, you get my point regardless.

Yes Catholic dominated to a point but there was always some accommodation for CoI people and to a lesser extent Jews. Such tolerance was lacking in 18th Ireland towards non-CoI faiths.

turnikett1 wrote: »

This is true. Although I would argue that France was a powerhouse as a result of being a colonial power and Finland a backwater as a result of being a colony a large part of it's history. As far as my knowledge goes, Italy has always been economically disadvantaged until recent times. But, you probably know more about this than me. Care to expand?

Well the ownership of colonies is itself a sign of economic might. In recent history Italy has been a poorer country but not always. I would argue if we go back to 1490s Italy was was educated developed place in the planet. The Renaissance occurred in Italy not northern Europe. After Italy it was Germany, followed by France and Spain.

Financial concentration and expertise – fractional reserve banking and instruments of commercial credit – began two centuries before Luther arose in 1517 – and not in northern Europe but in northern Italy. - See more at: http://thechristians.com/?q=node/1068#sthash.h2aFxqkF.dpuf

As the essay on the topic pointed out many of the most productive and capitalist areas of Europe – the Rhine Valley, Belgium, a large part of Holland – remained all or mostly Catholic.

turnikett1 wrote: »

I just would've assumed that post-WW2 if we were still a part of the UK, we would've prospered with it as part of the post-WW2 boom. I don't think Ireland as a whole would've been considered a "marginal area" by Britain if we were still a part of the UK - Dublin was after all considered the "2nd city of the UK".

There are certainly advantages in such a scenario. As you say the post war boom would have been good for Ireland and we would have also avoided the disastrous The Anglo-Irish Trade War.

The title of the 'Second City of the Empire' is contented. Some say Liverpool other say Birmingham or Bristol. In Ireland we say it was Dublin. So much has changed in the intervening 450 years its not an easy call to predict how Dublin of a Protestant Ireland would have been regarded in the wider UK.

Reekwind

turnikett1 wrote: »

I don't think Ireland as a whole would've been considered a "marginal area" by Britain if we were still a part of the UK - Dublin was after all considered the "2nd city of the UK".

This is an old goat of mine. Dublin was considered the 'second city of the Empire' by Dubliners. Other cities that have claimed at one time or the other to be the 'second city' include: Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol :rolleyes:

More to your point, Dublin wasn't even the most advanced economic city in Ireland at the time. Belfast was streets ahead of it in terms of infrastructure and industry. The same could be said for most of the island: virtually all industry was concentrated in the north-east with the rest of the island being, indeed, a "marginal area".

Which always amuses me in these sorts of threads. Britain left Ireland an economic backwater, the product of centuries of negligent and haphazard rule, yet we are supposed to believe that continued British rule would have showered us with industry and infrastructure?

The opposite, happened in Ireland. We got to save keep our religion, but, largely at the cost of our language. As a result of defying Protestantism, the Irish language had no standard nor a medium with which to express and perserve itself

Where's the link? Irish got by for centuries without the need for standardisation and was only killed off in the 19th C by a combination of demographic catastrophe and administrative action. If religion was an issue then what explains Irish's survival in the preceding three centuries of Protestant rule?

...and of course being Catholic made only matters worse with regards to the English who would continue this cultural oppression (it's argued that Wales and Scotland had a much fairer treatment as a result of adopting Protestantism)

Except that English cultural (and physical) imperialism had begun long before the rejection of Rome. Anti-Irish legislation can be dated to the earliest days of the English/Norman rule in Ireland and long pre-dates Henry VIII. Again, I don't see why this should change when Catholic Englishmen had no higher opinion of the Irish than Protestant Englishmen

turnikett1 wrote:

This is true. Although I would argue that France was a powerhouse as a result of being a colonial power and Finland a backwater as a result of being a colony a large part of it's history. As far as my knowledge goes, Italy has always been economically disadvantaged until recent times. But, you probably know more about this than me. Care to expand?

France's industrial take-off occurred in the early/mid-19th C. It post-dated the loss of most French colonies to Britain/USA and pre-dated its later African adventures. I don't see the connection there.

As for Italy, that was the birthplace of a small thing called the commercial revolution. Most of the institutions and standards that were to prove essential for capitalism's growth were developed here. The Italians were pretty much inventing the modern banking system generations before Luther started rummaging around for nails.

Even then, northern Italy has always been as industrialised as any European country. Cavour's Turin, for example, was as industrialised a city as any in Europe at the time. Even today Piedmont is a major industrial centre. What made Italy poor as a unified nation was the impoverishment of the agricultural south... yet I've not seen anyone suggest that it was the absence of Protestants that stymied the latter.

But then you only need look at Germany to witness the silliness of the 'Protestant work ethic' theory. The western regions of Germany (particularly the Ruhr) have long been amongst the most industrialised and advanced in the country. They've also long been predominately Catholic. Funny that.

Manach

An interesting history book which goes into more support of Reekwind's post is "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science" by Hannam. It shows the gradual but upward progression in European intellectual pre-dated the Reformation and one of its wellsprings was Northern Italy/Venician Republic.

Fratton Fred

This notion of a protestant work ethic is certainly something I don't believe in, at best, it passed me by!

Ipso

Fratton Fred wrote: »

it passed me by!

Probably due to no work ethic

Peregrinus

turnikett1 wrote: »

It got me thinking - what if Ireland had adopted Protestantism en masse? Would our language be more spoken today? Would the English have treated us better? Wouldn't we have suffered less post-independence, having rid ourselves from the cruel, conservative dictatorship of the Roman Catholic Church? Would our Proestant work ethic have driven us to greater economic propserity and combatted corruption?

Interesting questions. A couple of thoughts, in no particular order.

1. Scotland did embrace Protestantism, but Scots Gaelic had declined in pretty much the same way as Irish has.

2. The decline in Scots Gaelic, like the decline in Irish, happened over an extended period, but the bulk of it happened in the nineteenth century, by which time the Welsh had largely abandoned Anglicanism for Methodism. We might ask why Presbysterian Scotland lost its language while Methodist Wales didn’t, but the answer doesn’t appear to be anything to do with Anglicanism or Catholicism.

3. Cornwall and Man embraced and retained Anglicanism, but their languages declined.

4. In short, I don’t think there’s any very clear correlation between conformity to the established church and retention of language.

5. Would the English have treated us better if we had embraced Anglicanism? I think the question makes more sense if turned around; would we have embraced Anglicanism if the English had treated us better? An English policy of anglicising Ireland long predates the Reformation - attempts to impose English language and culture on the Irish were English policy from way back. This naturally led to tension, and to social and cultural divisions between natives and settlers. And I think the division between the English-imposed political establishment and the alienated and aggrieved natives over whom they ruled was the real obstacle to the Reformation in Ireland. The English population had a loyalty to, and a trust in, and an affinity with the king and the local landowner, and they would follow their leadership in matters of religion. The Irish had no such loyalty, trust or affinity, or at least didn’t have it in a sufficient degree to lead them to accept the Reformation.

As for “cruel, conservative dictatorship of the Catholic church”, I think there’s a degree of hyperbole in there. The Catholic church’s dominant role in, e.g., education was established by the UK government in the nineteenth century; there is no reason to think that it would have diminished had we remained in the UK after 1922. And, whatever about the church’s influence on social policy in the new state - censorship, divorce, etc - you can’t really blame it for economic policy, which I suggest was our most significant failure. And I think that the resulting insecurity and lack of confidence was at least partly responsible for much of the stifling conservatism of Ireland during the first fifty years or so after independence.

And if you’re going to assign blame to the church for the failures of the Irish state, should you assign credit to the church for the successes? Ireland was the only new democracy established in the years after the Great War not to fall victim to fascism in the 1930s, which I think is an acheivement we should acknowledge. Did the church have any role there?

turnikett1 wrote: »

It also begs me to ask a different question - what would life be like if we had stayed a part of the United Kingdom? Arguably we would have better infrastructure, less corruption and wouldn't have suffered the Troubles but at the cost of much of our language and culture (I will safely assume anyways).

Well, I have to point out that we were part of the UK from 1801 to 1922, and before that we were ruled colonially by the British, and neither period was characterised by good infrastructure, low levels of corruption, etc. Yes, of course governments standards were different at the time, but if we compare how Ireland was governed with how England was governed at the same time, Ireland was very badly governed. Foreign observers, e.g. de Tocqueville, commented on the striking fact that England was one of the best-governed countries in Europe, and Ireland one of the worst. Despite being much poorer than the rest of the UK, for instance, Ireland was a substantial net contributor to UK revenues; the UK collected more tax in Ireland than they spent here.

And if we look at the part of Ireland which remained in the UK after 1922, for most of the period since then it was astonishingly badly-governed. (And it certainly didn’t avoid the Troubles.)

So the thesis that Ireland would be better-governed if it had remained part of the UK doesn’t really fit with the evidence of how Ireland actually was governed by the British.

turnikett1 wrote: »

Personally, I'm not against an equal union of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales it's just very unfortunate that it ended up being completely Anglocentric...

It may be unfortunate, but given the balance of power, wealth and population and the location of the court in London was it not inevitable?

orangesoda

sure the troubles would still have occured to some extent, the catholics weren't getting equal rights, i can't imagine that being any different if the rest of ireland had stayed in the union

Peregrinus

Well, is it too obvious to point out that the Troubles occurred while Ireland was in the UK? And that the part of Ireland which left the UK has subsequently been much less troubled by Troubles than the part which remained in the UK?

I think what the OP is inviting us to imagine is an Ireland in which there was no militant separatist movement, and therefore no Troubles, and therefore no independence/secession. But we have to ask ourselves, what would have to have happened for there to have been no militant separatist movement? And I suspect the only realistic answer is, the British would have to have governed Ireland a lot better than in fact they did.

The OP asks, if the Irish had embraced Protestantism, would this have improved British-Irish relations to the extent that Ireland would have been better governed, so averting the development of a separatist movement? And I have already suggested that the answer is that the British would have had to have governed Ireland better before the Reformation for the Irish to have accepted the English Reformation.

But we can also ask another speculative question; if there hadn't been an English Reformation - if Katherine of Aragon had borne sons who survived, say - so that England and Ireland both remained Catholic, would that have facilitated a better relationship, making for better government, making for no separatism? My guess is no, it wouldn't, but it's a fun speculation.

catbear

As others have pointed out membership of a particular sect is no guarantee of material success and anyone thinking it should has a rather unchristian view of humanity.

In Ireland although we identify with catholicism in practice we're increasingly more protestant. The sense of individual conscience is very much a protestant ethos whereas the RCC has guidelines, hence while we may now have family planning which was resisted by the RCC we still have an RCC inspired ban on abortion. The right to abortion is not left to the individual conscience to decide

And incase anyone thinks the RCC has gone away they've only just lost its appeal against family planning in the Philipines. To the RCC large families were preferable regardless of the strain on resources and the poverty entailed.

Ireland probably straddles both RCC and Protestant values. To be clear many protestants view the Church of England as just a watered down RCC and not truly reformed.

Peregrinus

catbear wrote: »

In Ireland although we identify with catholicism in practice we're increasingly more protestant. The sense of individual conscience is very much a protestant ethos whereas the RCC has guidelines, hence while we may now have family planning which was resisted by the RCC we still have an RCC inspired ban on abortion. The right to abortion is not left to the individual conscience to decide

I wouldn’t be so sure. The primacy of personal conscience is a long-established Catholic teaching, strongly articulated by, e.g., St Thomas Aquinas.

And while it’s true to say that “the right to abortion is not left to the individual conscience to decide”, it doesn’t follow that this is “an RCC-inspired ban”. After all, the rights to murder and theft are not left to the individual conscience to decide; would you describe those laws as Christian-inspired bans on killing and taking?

As far as personal morality goes, differences between Catholicism and Protestantism tend to be marginal, and often transient. On most of the issues addressed by the law - murder, theft, prostitution, fraud - they line up pretty neatly. On something like contraception they differ just at the moment, though a hundred years ago they lined up, and I suspect in rather less than a hundred years' time they’ll line up again. On abortion, they pretty much line up currently - there is no Protestant tradition which suggests that the rightness or wrongness of abortion is a matter of personal choice (and I note that NI abortion laws are pretty much as restrictive - in fact, more restrictive - than RoI abortion laws).

Where there is a relevant difference between the Protestant and Catholic ethical traditions, though, is in relation to the proper role of the state. The Catholic tradition is that the proper role of the state is to secure the common good, and this is what laws should be directed towards. The Protestant tradition is that the role of the state is to foster and promote virtue, and this is what laws should be directed towards.

We can see this in, for example, laws about prostitution. In Catholic countries, it’s generally not illegal, and is frequently licensed and regulated. This was true even in Catholic theocracies like the Papal states. Sure, the Catholic tradition is that prostitution is profoundly immoral, but that doesn’t mean the state has to criminalise or restrict it; the common good may not require laws against prostitution any more than it requires laws against immoralities like, say, adultery. In fact, the common good may require regulation and licensing of prostitution (to protect prostitutes, for example, or to control disease.) And, again, you’ve got thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas explaining why the state should tolerate prostitution. But in Protestant countries (or historically Protestant countries) it’s much more likely to be restricted or outright criminalised, and you have thinkers like Luther and Calvin saying that the state should not be fostering or approving of definite evils like prostitution, and should not be complicit in prostitution through licensing and regulation. Even if laws against prostitution are ineffective, in this view, they make an important moral statement. And we see this also in areas like the licensing of alcohol sales, the toleration of gambling, etc - historically Protestant countries tend to be much more puritan in their laws than historically Catholic countries. (And don’t get me started on the US’s “war on drugs”.)

Ireland is a bit of an exception here - laws to, e.g., ban contraception because Contraception Is Wicked And Evil are, ironically, indicative of a characteristically Protestant understanding of the role of law. And I suspect this probably has to do with the enormous British influence on our legal and political culture. We take a Protestant approach to enforcing Catholic morality through law.

catbear

I disagree about attitudes towards prostitution, traditional protestant European countries have some of the most progressive attitudes, public nursing homes for former prostitutes in Holland for example. If anything there tends to be openness about it.
I do agree with you about the Victorian application of catholicism in Ireland, after all the RCC reestablishment was funded directly from London with the cooperation of Rome. They were a realively cheap security subcontractor to help suppress any French revolution style peasent uprisings.

Peregrinus

catbear wrote: »

I disagree about attitudes towards prostitution, traditional protestant European countries have some of the most progressive attitudes, public nursing homes for former prostitutes in Holland for example. If anything there tends to be openness about it.

They do now but that's a recent development. Until after WWII the Netherland was noted for the repressive bourgeois respecability of its laws and social conventions (the word "bourgeois" was in fact coined to describe the Netherlanders by the Catholic French neighbours). The liberalisation of Dutch laws and culture is associated with a dramatic decline in Dutch Protestantism.

catbear wrote: »

I do agree with you about the Victorian application of catholicism in Ireland, after all the RCC reestablishment was funded directly from London with the cooperation of Rome. They were a realively cheap security subcontractor to help suppress any French revolution style peasent uprisings.

Yes. Much of the social and institutional strength of the Catholic church in Ireland was in fact established under British rule, and with official support. The thesis that the Catholic Church would have less influence in Ireland if Ireland had remained in the UK is not well-supported by the evidence.

turnikett1

Interesting points everyone! Thanks for the contribution, I stand corrected of my previous thoughts. Funny enough, as much as I love history, I have never been interested in Irish and British history until recently (until I started reading this book I talk about) and I have no idea why either, it's absolutely fascinating

robp wrote: »

The title of the 'Second City of the Empire' is contented. Some say Liverpool other say Birmingham or Bristol. In Ireland we say it was Dublin. So much has changed in the intervening 450 years its not an easy call to predict how Dublin of a Protestant Ireland would have been regarded in the wider UK.

Reekwind wrote: »

This is an old goat of mine. Dublin was considered the 'second city of the Empire' by Dubliners. Other cities that have claimed at one time or the other to be the 'second city' include: Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol :rolleyes:

More to your point, Dublin wasn't even the most advanced economic city in Ireland at the time. Belfast was streets ahead of it in terms of infrastructure and industry. The same could be said for most of the island: virtually all industry was concentrated in the north-east with the rest of the island being, indeed, a "marginal area".

I had figured as much. I always thought Belfast to be the historically more important city in British eyes at least, in fact I vaguely remember reading something that Belfast was to be the proposed capital of an Ireland that had been granted Home Rule? I had always been told that Dublin was the 2nd capital city by other Irish people so that probably explains why I was lead to believe that... :P Doesn't excuse me for not thinking a bit more independently though.

Reekwind wrote: »

Where's the link? Irish got by for centuries without the need for standardisation and was only killed off in the 19th C by a combination of demographic catastrophe and administrative action. If religion was an issue then what explains Irish's survival in the preceding three centuries of Protestant rule?

I think rather the point the author was trying to make - and I admit I should have expanded more on this - is that Protestantism provided a cultural injection to Wales that was not present in Ireland. Secular Welsh culture then thrived with like I said more schools and a standardized language whereas in Ireland Protestant backed Gaelic schools and other forms of education were shunned while religious duties and literature was still largely done through Latin. This in turn, made it harder to stop the eventual onslaught of the English language in the years to come. I think it's a fair point. I definitely agree that Irish declined for a vast array of reasons and not just religion... demographic catastrophe and administrative action for sure, but I don't think it's outlandish to think it had a part in Ireland and Wales

Reekwind wrote: »

Except that English cultural (and physical) imperialism had begun long before the rejection of Rome. Anti-Irish legislation can be dated to the earliest days of the English/Norman rule in Ireland and long pre-dates Henry VIII. Again, I don't see why this should change when Catholic Englishmen had no higher opinion of the Irish than Protestant Englishmen

Peregrinus wrote: »

Would the English have treated us better if we had embraced Anglicanism? I think the question makes more sense if turned around; would we have embraced Anglicanism if the English had treated us better? An English policy of anglicising Ireland long predates the Reformation - attempts to impose English language and culture on the Irish were English policy from way back. This naturally led to tension, and to social and cultural divisions between natives and settlers. And I think the division between the English-imposed political establishment and the alienated and aggrieved natives over whom they ruled was the real obstacle to the Reformation in Ireland. The English population had a loyalty to, and a trust in, and an affinity with the king and the local landowner, and they would follow their leadership in matters of religion. The Irish had no such loyalty, trust or affinity, or at least didn’t have it in a sufficient degree to lead them to accept the Reformation.

Completely right.

Peregrinus wrote: »

1. Scotland did embrace Protestantism, but Scots Gaelic had declined in pretty much the same way as Irish has.

2. The decline in Scots Gaelic, like the decline in Irish, happened over an extended period, but the bulk of it happened in the nineteenth century, by which time the Welsh had largely abandoned Anglicanism for Methodism. We might ask why Presbysterian Scotland lost its language while Methodist Wales didn’t, but the answer doesn’t appear to be anything to do with Anglicanism or Catholicism.

4. In short, I don’t think there’s any very clear correlation between conformity to the established church and retention of language.

Like mentioned above, it's definitely not the defining factor or even a major one, especially as how it seemingly applied to Wales and Ireland, but I think it's fair to say that it was a factor in the development of both of these respective languages. I am under no illusions though, cultural imperialism on England's behalf is why Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and Manx are all minority languages now (with Manx and Cornish being near extinct! But interestingly enough, going through a revival of sorts)

Peregrinus wrote: »

And if you’re going to assign blame to the church for the failures of the Irish state, should you assign credit to the church for the successes... Ireland was the only new democracy established in the years after the Great War not to fall victim to fascism in the 1930s, which I think is an acheivement we should acknowledge. Did the church have any role there?

Well do you think it did? If so, how?

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, I have to point out that we were part of the UK from 1801 to 1922, and before that we were ruled colonially by the British, and neither period was characterised by good infrastructure, low levels of corruption, etc. Yes, of course governments standards were different at the time, but if we compare how Ireland was governed with how England was governed at the same time, Ireland was very badly governed. Foreign observers, e.g. de Tocqueville, commented on the striking fact that England was one of the best-governed countries in Europe, and Ireland one of the worst. Despite being much poorer than the rest of the UK, for instance, Ireland was a substantial net contributor to UK revenues; the UK collected more tax in Ireland than they spent here.

And if we look at the part of Ireland which remained in the UK after 1922, for most of the period since then it was astonishingly badly-governed. (And it certainly didn’t avoid the Troubles.)

So the thesis that Ireland would be better-governed if it had remained part of the UK doesn’t really fit with the evidence of how Ireland actually was governed by the British.

Again valid points. I was thinking in terms of the post-WW2 boom and change in government standards in the modern era and so on. But you're right, you only need to look at Northern Ireland to see what the story was. Although I do wonder, would the Protestant rule over Catholics in Ireland still be as imbalanced and unfair to this very day if we had stayed part of the union?

Peregrinus wrote: »

It may be unfortunate, but given the balance of power, wealth and population and the location of the court in London was it not inevitable?

Definitely was! Sadly...

As you can probably tell I'm not too well read up on this but I love learning about it. Can't believe I was so ignorant about Irish history... I remember hearing words such as "Tudors", "Plantations" and letting out a groan! Now I spend all my days at work reading about it

So what DOES everyone think a Protestant Ireland would have turned out to be? The same? Better off or worse? How and why? etc... Cheers

Peregrinus

turnikett1 wrote: »

Well do you think [the Catholic church had a role in sustaining democracy in Ireland in the 1930s]? If so, how?

I suspect it did, actually, at least to this extent; the Catholic church generally, and the Irish Catholic church in particular, was intensely conservative (with a small ‘c’) in that they always preferred the devil they knew over the horrors of revolution. The church in Spain might have supported the Falangists, and the church in Italy never set themselves against the Fascists, but both O’Duffy and the Blueshirts (who had the trappings of fascism) and the IRA (who employed many of the tactics and strategies of fascism) were, at best, cold-shouldered by the church in Ireland. And, given the status of the church in Ireland at the time, I have to think this was at least part of the reason why O’Duffy in particular never got much traction.

turnikett1 wrote: »

So what DOES everyone think a Protestant Ireland would have turned out to be? The same? Better off or worse? How and why? etc... Cheers

It’s a fascinating question, but to answer it we have to come up with some explanation of why, in this alternative history, Ireland is Protestant. Something in Ireland has to be different at the time the Reformation comes along for Ireland to accept the Reformation. What is that something? Whatever it is, it’s likely to have effects which go beyond acceptance of the Reformation.

And we also have to come up with a scenario as to how Ireland accepts the Reformation. Is it a bloodless coup, as it were, like in most Scandinavian countries, with the national church switching almost overnight from Catholic to Protestant? Or is there a conflict between Catholics and Protestants which the Protestants win? Does Ireland become a battleground in the Thirty Years War? And, when the dust settles, is Ireland uniformly Protestant, or is there a Catholic minority? And, if the latter, how are they treated? Tolerated? Repressed? Protected, as long as they don’t get too uppity?

Basically, I think by tweaking your assumptions about how the Reformation plays out in Ireland, you can get almost any outcome you like.

Still, let’s play the game. Assume that the Irish church is Anglicanised smoothly and bloodlessly, and the result an Ireland largely Anglican, with a few Presbyterians in the black north who are tolerated because, if it’s good enough for Scotland, it can’t be intolerable in Ireland. The Anglican establishment in Ireland (and indeed in England) is much more secure as a result, and therefore less repressive. When the kerfuffle over James II happens, James does not expect to find particular support in Ireland and never comes here; the Battle of the Boyne never happens, or it happens in Scotland. In the eighteenth century there isn’t the same suspicion of disloyalty in Ireland, and so there isn’t the same need for penal legislation to protect the Anglican establishment. Irish Presbyterians benefit from this.

Nevertheless, Ireland continues to be governed colonially, and for the benefit of Britain. It is not a well-governed country, and therefore not a happy one. Enlightenment critiques of monarchical government find a ready audience in Ireland (as they do in the American colonies) and in due course a republican movement develops. It does not become associated with Catholicism, but rather with Presbyterianism and with the industrialised Ulster middle classes and, in due course, the urban working classes. But it’s not identified with Catholicism and the disloyalty associated with Catholicism. Because there is no need to “dilute” disloyal separatist Catholics within a larger political entity, the Act of Union never happens.

In the nineteenth century there’s a spectrum of republican, liberal and chartist opinion in Ireland which looks to the US and France for inspiration. With the growth of nationalism in Europe in the nineteenth century it acquires a nationalist characteristic, and so looks not to a British-and-Irish republic (or liberal constitutional monarchy) - Britain and Ireland are still separate states, remember - but to an Irish republic/constitutional monarchy, either independent of or in some kind of equal relationship with a similar British state.

The famine happens as scheduled - why wouldn’t it? - and it is mishandled by the British administration as disastrously as it was in the real world. There is the same consequent economic crisis, emigration and depopulation. When the dust settles the politicised classes have been considerably radicalised, and blame for the mishandling of the famine is laid at the door of Ireland’s subordinate, unequal relationship with Britain. An Irish government, accountable to Irish people, would not have failed so badly, the argument goes. Separatism is greatly strengthened. With the disparity in population and economic development between Britain and Ireland, an equal partnership between the two countries does not seem realistic.

The upshot is that, in this scenario, by the late nineteenth century we still have a separatist movement informed by liberal, republican and nationalist ideals, and fuelled by a sense of grievance over colonial misgovernment. (Given the colonial nature of British rule in Ireland, there’s no real reason to think that Ireland was only misgoverned because it was Catholic.) The only difference is that there is no Act of Union, and therefore there are still Irish political institutions, like a Parliament, through which separatist opinion can express its voice and seek influence. Possibly, as a result of that, we don’t have militant revolutionary separatism, because a constitutional path is open. But equally possibly we have it sooner, if the British response to a separatist Irish parliament in, say, 1848 is to supress it.

catbear

Ironically it was catholic queen who started the whole plantation business, laois being Queens county with maryborrough as it main town.

dubhthach

Tbh Ireland was hardly catholic when it came to societal mores before the reformation. One only has to look at the prevalance of civil marriage and the general sexual mores of Gaelic society to see that it didn't really "gel" with what we consider a "catholic society".

Now if the Gaelic elite had actually became protestant as part of the whole surrender and regrant system (some did such as "The O'Brien" but it was mostly in name only). There could been a possibility of a surviving native land holding elite, this would probably have led to very different outcome for the Irish language.

dubhthach

The problem with using "Scots Gaelic" (Gaidhlig) as a proxy, is that both the King and the actual nobility/court had been "anglisced" to "Scots" by the late 15th century, as a result "Scots" became the prestige language, only to be replaced in turn by English after the union of the two crowns under James. So when Knox and other "reformers" arrived in Scotland they preached and printed the bible not in Gaelic (that only came later ironically based on Irish translation of bible by Church of Ireland) but in Scots.

In comparison at the same time the vast bulk of the "nobility" in Ireland be it "Gaelic" or "Cambro-Norman" in origin actually spoke Irish as default language, even among some of the great families of the Pale.

Manach

I am sure the "Catholic society" was still one that attempted to live up the doctrines of said Church and made a reasonable attempt at providing a reasonable groundwork of agreed belief that could be designated Catholic.

Another side alternative history would be the effective of a Catholic England. Given the violence that was used in cases to destroy the native Catholic beliefs (Pilgrimages of Grace suppression), if these had been unsuccessful then an England more in tune with a mostly Catholic Europe would have had a lesser impetus to garrison as much Ireland and would be seem less of a colonial force. A major impetus for the 17th C old-English Lords rebellions were religious based by an attempt to enforce an alien religion on them with associated penalties.

CrabRevolution

The "Dublin was the second city of the empire" thing always surprises me in how many people seem to fall for it. Anyone want to guess where the following wikipedia article refers to?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_City_of_the_Empire

Then you have this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool#Second_city_of_Empire

Fully aware that wikipedia isnt a definitive source for anything, but kinda shows that only Dubs (back then) and unionist revisionist types (these days) really believed Dublin was the 2nd city of the Empire.

Fratton Fred

I would have thought the second city of the empire stuff has something to do with the attempts to make sackville street one of the premier retail streets in Europe. More a branding exercise than an actual fact as it were.

rugby addict

Had Ireland remained part of the common wealth, the country would be vastly different today.
During WW2 Shannon airport or Foynes would have become a vitally important air base for the war in the Atlantic.
Cobh harbor and Berehaven serious naval bases.
There would likely have been a network of high quality roads for transporting American soldiers.
And possibly some war industries.

Judgement Day

rugby addict wrote: »

Had Ireland remained part of the common wealth, the country would be vastly different today.
During WW2 Shannon airport or Foynes would have become a vitally important air base for the war in the Atlantic.
Cobh harbor and Berehaven serious naval bases.
There would likely have been a network of high quality roads for transporting American soldiers.
And possibly some war industries.

Not sure what this has to do with the discussion but it's all over the place anyway as Ireland didn't leave the British Commonwealth until 1949.

catbear

rugby addict wrote: »

Had Ireland remained part of the common wealth, the country would be vastly different today.
During WW2 Shannon airport or Foynes would have become a vitally important air base for the war in the Atlantic.
Cobh harbor and Berehaven serious naval bases.
There would likely have been a network of high quality roads for transporting American soldiers.
And possibly some war industries.

Ireland's neutrality was strategically important to the allies. Once the south access to the Irish sea had been mined then all naval efforts could concentrate on protecting the convoys and didn't have to worry about defending the relinquished treaty ports. Plus Irish labour that wouldn't be constripted was vital in the d-day preparations.

Jawgap

rugby addict wrote: »

Had Ireland remained part of the common wealth, the country would be vastly different today.
During WW2 Shannon airport or Foynes would have become a vitally important air base for the war in the Atlantic.
Cobh harbor and Berehaven serious naval bases.
There would likely have been a network of high quality roads for transporting American soldiers.
And possibly some war industries.

More likely there would have been a string of flying boat and bomber bases built along the West Coast, with Berehaven and the Foyle serving as naval bases.

troops wouldn't have been transhipped through the country, but we may have had some bivouacked here (US and / or Canadians) and probably would have hosted some training areas - basically what happened in NI but on a larger scale.

catbear wrote: »

Ireland's neutrality was strategically important to the allies. Once the south access to the Irish sea had been mined then all naval efforts could concentrate on protecting the convoys and didn't have to worry about defending the relinquished treaty ports. Plus Irish labour that wouldn't be constripted was vital in the d-day preparations.

I think our neutrality was a pain in the h0le for the Allies, tbh. I think they'd have preferred to have Foynes as a flying boat base and the Treaty Ports.

What we really missed out on, and what fecked us up royally, was (a) the Marshall Plan money and (b) getting the Yanks onside for discussions over NI........one of the great 'what-ifs' of our history........

catbear

This is for another thread but I contend that Irish neutrality favoured the allies. Compared to the UK the free state was sparsely populated and would have stretched defenses enormously. Ireland remaining neutral shut off Britains left flank, traditionally the soft entry route for the French.

robp

Jawgap wrote: »

What we really missed out on, and what fecked us up royally, was (a) the Marshall Plan money and (b) getting the Yanks onside for discussions over NI........one of the great 'what-ifs' of our history........

I think Ireland was part of the Marshall plan.

Manach

robp wrote: »

I think Ireland was part of the Marshall plan.

Offhand, I don't recall reading that was so - which would be strange given how much the state is short of a few bob.

rugby addict

Judgement Day wrote: »

Ireland didn't leave the British Commonwealth until 1949.

Sorry about that, the simplified version I was taught appears to be totally wrong

Jawgap

robp wrote: »

I think Ireland was part of the Marshall plan.

Kind of.....out of a $13 billion programme we accessed

"$128 million in loans, $18 million in grants, and $1.25 million in technical assistance, as well as appropriating "counterpart funds" through [Ireland's] own budget to parallel the monies received. These funds were used both to purchase American goods, otherwise not obtainable because of the dollar shortage, and costly capital improvements within Ireland."

From Ireland and the Marshall Plan, 1947-57, by Bernadette Whelan,

Peregrinus

rugby addict wrote: »

Had Ireland remained part of the common wealth, the country would be vastly different today.
During WW2 Shannon airport or Foynes would have become a vitally important air base for the war in the Atlantic.
Cobh harbor and Berehaven serious naval bases.
There would likely have been a network of high quality roads for transporting American soldiers.
And possibly some war industries.

On the other hand, Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Limerick would have been blitzed, and much greater numbers of Irishmen would likely have died in the fighting. The human cost aside, the economic cost would likely exceed the benefit from any investment in air bases and (doubtful) investment in "high quality roads for transporting American soldiers".

fryup

why were the irish so loyal to Catholicism??

you'd think a large sway of the country would turn to protestantism, if only to make life easier for themselves..but no

was it just plain belligerence?? or was there more to it than that?

robp

fryup wrote: »

why were the irish so loyal to Catholicism??

you'd think a large sway of the country would turn to protestantism, if only to make life easier for themselves..but no

was it just plain belligerence?? or was there more to it than that?

If you consider how deeply the Irish landscape is imbued with monasteries, locals saints, relics and pilgrimages which fitted into Catholicism but not protestantism the reformed faith must have seemed to lack authenticity. It must have seemed to be a jarring break from tradition.

eire4

catbear wrote: »

This is for another thread but I contend that Irish neutrality favoured the allies. Compared to the UK the free state was sparsely populated and would have stretched defenses enormously. Ireland remaining neutral shut off Britains left flank, traditionally the soft entry route for the French.

Not to mention while we were neutral we did give the allies indirect asistance. Weather reports, allowing over flights of our territory, sending down allied pilots back etc.

catbear

fryup wrote: »

why were the irish so loyal to Catholicism??

you'd think a large sway of the country would turn to protestantism, if only to make life easier for themselves..but no

was it just plain belligerence?? or was there more to it than that?

Catholicism as reintroduced by Westminster was a bulwark against the excesses of the republican French revolution. The irish peasants got their old religion back but it was aligned to and working for the London establishment. The papacy had lost its strong position in France and would later lose the papal state over which the pope was prince. Being given the peasantry of ireland to govern by a former enemy was odd but welcome and they took to the task of repressing Republican sentiment with gusto.

Manach

Would that be the same Irish republicans that launched so many fruitless revolts. Catholicism was part of the tradition of the Island in spite of many attempts to crush it, and proved resistant to whatever passing fads the bold patriots were professing.

catbear

Manach wrote: »

Would that be the same Irish republicans that launched so many fruitless revolts. Catholicism was part of the tradition of the Island in spite of many attempts to crush it, and proved resistant to whatever passing fads the bold patriots were professing.

Republicanism crossed the religious groups, there was even a Protestant IRA cell in belfast up until the 60s. The irish republics catholic theocratic tendency allienated many secular republicans, London had succeeded through religion in fracturing the republican cause. Ultimately it was always about suppression.

Manach

From my reading of the various liberation groups (Irish or otherwise), they have plenty of competing ideologies that can provide the fracture points. The RCC had a tendency to support a more conservative approach as it would have been more stable country long term and hence supported somewhat the more democratic alternatives in the 19thC; for instance elements of the Home Rule party.

catbear

Manach wrote: »

From my reading of the various liberation groups (Irish or otherwise), they have plenty of competing ideologies that can provide the fracture points. The RCC had a tendency to support a more conservative approach as it would have been more stable country long term and hence supported somewhat the more democratic alternatives in the 19thC; for instance elements of the Home Rule party.

The RCC initially opposed the rising. Ireland was always Rome's backdoor to regaining britain. Once it was certain that they could influence domestic policy they accepted the republic. The viceroys residence was first considered for the papacy but was more diplomatically let to the US.

Jawgap

catbear wrote: »

This is for another thread but I contend that Irish neutrality favoured the allies. Compared to the UK the free state was sparsely populated and would have stretched defenses enormously. Ireland remaining neutral shut off Britains left flank, traditionally the soft entry route for the French.

Well, if you're talking of a potential French / Spanish invasion, we would have been Britain's right flank and the French's left.......

Anyhoooo, we weren't a traditional soft entry route - how many times was it tried? The French and Spanish liked to stir up trouble for the British here in the same way they like to do it in the Caribbean, the Americas and the East Indies......nothing more than that.

eire4 wrote: »

Not to mention while we were neutral we did give the allies indirect asistance. Weather reports, allowing over flights of our territory, sending down allied pilots back etc.

Our neutrality may have favoured the Allies in relative terms, but lets not pretend it was more than it was. I wonder for each aircrew returned (or not interned), how many sailors and merchant seamen died in the Atlantic Gap for the want of air cover that could have been provided from the west coast.

And yes, we provided food, but how much hardship do you think might have been caused if the British had not facilitated us importing fuel and other imports necessary to the running of the country.

Never mind the passive defence of the country provided by the RAF and the RN, that made invasion by anyone impossible.

As for the Catholic Church, you can ascribe all the motives you want to it, but to my mind it was nothing but a grubby power grab. The institution and the clerics possessed significant power over the population and they were not going to give that up under any circumstances. They used the religion to scare the populace into line and as long as any rebel movement co-operated with them, they would enjoy their support - just as they have always done since the Dark Ages and the rise of the 'castellans.'

If anything independence made the RCC worse, because the counterweight of the British was gone. They grabbed and kept control of healthcare and education provision for another two to three generations before we began to wrest it from them. These were two important levers (especially education) to keep the population in its place.

The RCC was against any kind of state welfare provision because it meant people would be less than dependent on them for handouts and you have to wonder if the old age pension had not been brought in before independence, how long would it have taken before something like would have been introduced post-independence?

Here we have Dev, the head of the democratically elected government of the country kneeling to kiss McQuaid's ring.....



IMO, that one photo sums up all you need to know about rebels and the RCC

catbear

Can't disagree with any of the RCC stuff, a former kingmaker of Europe relegated to a damp agrarian peasantry on the edge.

I would counter on the convoy defense that strategically aircover couldn't have been enhanced further by using Irish bases. By concentrating on the north passage efforts were maximised from bases in Scotland and NI.

drquirky

eire4 wrote: »

Not to mention while we were neutral we did give the allies indirect asistance. Weather reports, allowing over flights of our territory, sending down allied pilots back etc.

Wow. Some effort! Maybe best to just admit the government at the time were a pack of cowards and closest fascists afraid to fight in WWII. Your neutrality in this war is a stain on your country.

fryup

robp wrote: »

If you consider how deeply the Irish landscape is imbued with monasteries, locals saints, relics and pilgrimages which fitted into Catholicism but not protestantism the reformed faith must have seemed to lack authenticity. It must have seemed to be a jarring break from tradition.

yes, but the england & scotland were imbued with the same symbolism and yet they adopted protestanism....so what was it about the irish mindset that was so hostile towards it?

Jawgap

catbear wrote: »

Can't disagree with any of the RCC stuff, a former kingmaker of Europe relegated to a damp agrarian peasantry on the edge.

I would counter on the convoy defense that strategically aircover couldn't have been enhanced further by using Irish bases. By concentrating on the north passage efforts were maximised from bases in Scotland and NI.

Irish based aircraft would have closed off or at least reduced the southern end of the gap, and helped developed other routes which would have fed into Allied strategy in this area which was based on avoidance - more routes (or more variations to routes) offered more options for avoidance.

catbear

fryup wrote: »

yes, but the england & scpopend were imbued with the same symbolism and yet they adopted protestanism....so what was it about the irish mindset that was so hostile towards it?

This is where terms get interesting. For many protestants the church of England is just watered down catholicism and not truly reformed.
Yet many RCC Irish understand the Irish branch of that church as being entirely protestant when in fact it's just another pyramidal power structure like Rome with Canterbury as its headquarters.
Like the pope crowning emporers of europe the archbishop of Canterbury crowned the monarches of England.
Republicanism is a shared treat to tradition RCC and Anglican power.

robp

fryup wrote: »

yes, but the england & scotland were imbued with the same symbolism and yet they adopted protestantism....so what was it about the irish mindset that was so hostile towards it?

I am not sure they were/are. Particularly so in England where there was a completely different early history of Christianity. So they had a very different starting point. If you consider in Ireland the very stone structure of early medieval churches was seen as a precious and holy relic of various local saints we can get a sense of how deep the tradition was. Also in England like many places protestantism was imposed on people from the top. This may have been possible in England where a ruling class with legitimacy existed but in Ireland the ruling class was noticeable different and foreign. England was forced to dampen efforts to enforce protestantism here as they risked driving the Old English and Gaelic Irish together. Something which of course later happened.

This is where terms get interesting. For many protestants the church of England is just watered down catholicism and not truly reformed.
Yet many RCC Irish understand the Irish branch of that church as being entirely protestant when in fact it's just another pyramidal power structure like Rome with Canterbury as its headquarters.
Like the pope crowning emporers of europe the archbishop of Canterbury crowned the monarches of England.
Republicanism is a shared treat to tradition RCC and Anglican power.

Republicanism is something that came hundreds of years later. Its not an issue to the reformation era.