Religious oppression in Ireland

Hotblack Desiato

At independence Ireland was, legally whatever about socially, as liberal or illiberal as the rest of the UK and most of Europe. Then it all started to go wrong.

Abortion - illegal under the 1861 Act (still in force) - no surprise there. But in the 1960s and 70s the rest of Europe started to liberalise their laws, Ireland today is very much an outlier with a similar position to a muslim theocracy.

Divorce was legal in the Free State. Later outlawed by FF, then made unconstitutional in the 1937 constitution. Not repealed until 1995. Still very restrictive, and (stupidly) the conditions were written into the amendment so can't be changed without another referendum.

Contraceptives were legal in the Free State initially, later banned, allowed on prescription in 1979 (to married couples only!), condoms allowed in pharmacies 1985 but many refused to stock them, yes this was at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Law liberalised in 1995.
As late as 1993 a pharmacist in Rathmines (of all places) refused sell my then girlfriend the pill, she had a valid prescription. 'We don't do those'. I can only imagine what smalltown Ireland was like.

Censorship - same as UK and most European countries in 1922, was tightened and lay catholic groups were encouraged to submit texts for banning. All Irish writers of note in the 1950s were banned. Banning publications on grounds of having articles or ads relating to abortion continued into the 1990s.

Blasphemy law - like most countries we had a blasphemy law, unlike many we didn't repeal it. It was later declared unconstitutional, then Dermot Ahern in 2004/5 decided, yes in a western nation in the 21st century, to introduce a new blasphemy law. It is still in force.

The most commonly felt, and entirely legal, means of religious oppression today is the forced indoctrination of children (and discrimination against minority religions and non-religious) in 96% of primary schools. The state pays teachers to indoctrinate kids, and permits the religious patrons to exclude kids from their schools on the basis of religion.

Benny_Cake

Huntergonzo wrote: »

Yes generally speaking the banning of material is unquestionably a form of oppression because it restricts contrary views and makes people obedient rather than curious.

Just as a matter of interest I recently went looking for a book by John Cooney called 'John Charles McQuaid: Ruler Of Catholic Ireland', I tried several large and small book shops in Blanchardstown and Dublin city centre but couldn't find it anywhere and I was told in one of the larger shops that it was hard to get in Ireland and would have to ordered in from the UK, I eventually got it off Amazon but I haven't started reading it yet.

Now I'm not an avid reader and I generally don't read books about religion so I'm just wondering would this simply be because the book isn't in demand (although I was told in a couple of places that people do ask for it) or could there be more sinister forces at work?

The book came out in 1999 so it's been out quite a while, I bought a copy in Dublin some years back (possibly Waterstones) so it certainly was available. It's a fine book let down by a salacious abuse claim, but worth reading. There are plenty of books in any bookshop (maybe not Veritas) which are far more critical of the Catholic church so there is absolutely nothing sinister going on.

Peregrinus

Basically this. It's an old book, and booksellers these days tend not to carry large stocks of books which, by now, will be slow sellers - there's too much capital tied up in them. (A book of recipes by John Charles McQuaid, now, that would be a different matter.)

Also it was published by O'Brien Press; if it was being suppressed through "religious oppression in Ireland" you would expect a foreign publisher. It may be that O'Brien, too, as a relative small outfit, doesn't keep too much working capital tied up in stocks of slow sellers.

But it's still in print; you can buy it off their website, either in paperback or as an e-book.

Huntergonzo

Ah fair enough, look I didn't really think there anything in it, just thought because McQuaid was such a prominent figure in recent Irish history that it wouldn't be hard to find in book shops. But again they aren't the sort of books I normally buy, so I had no idea what to expect.

Seanachai

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

At independence Ireland was, legally whatever about socially, as liberal or illiberal as the rest of the UK and most of Europe. Then it all started to go wrong.

Abortion - illegal under the 1861 Act (still in force) - no surprise there. But in the 1960s and 70s the rest of Europe started to liberalise their laws, Ireland today is very much an outlier with a similar position to a muslim theocracy.

Divorce was legal in the Free State. Later outlawed by FF, then made unconstitutional in the 1937 constitution. Not repealed until 1995. Still very restrictive, and (stupidly) the conditions were written into the amendment so can't be changed without another referendum.

Contraceptives were legal in the Free State initially, later banned, allowed on prescription in 1979 (to married couples only!), condoms allowed in pharmacies 1985 but many refused to stock them, yes this was at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Law liberalised in 1995.
As late as 1993 a pharmacist in Rathmines (of all places) refused sell my then girlfriend the pill, she had a valid prescription. 'We don't do those'. I can only imagine what smalltown Ireland was like.

Censorship - same as UK and most European countries in 1922, was tightened and lay catholic groups were encouraged to submit texts for banning. All Irish writers of note in the 1950s were banned. Banning publications on grounds of having articles or ads relating to abortion continued into the 1990s.

Blasphemy law - like most countries we had a blasphemy law, unlike many we didn't repeal it. It was later declared unconstitutional, then Dermot Ahern in 2004/5 decided, yes in a western nation in the 21st century, to introduce a new blasphemy law. It is still in force.

The most commonly felt, and entirely legal, means of religious oppression today is the forced indoctrination of children (and discrimination against minority religions and non-religious) in 96% of primary schools. The state pays teachers to indoctrinate kids, and permits the religious patrons to exclude kids from their schools on the basis of religion.

I remember my father telling me that the local barber used to hide the condoms in a child of Prague statue. They were probably smuggled down from the North.

recedite

The Fethard Boycott is an interesting piece of social history. Basically two religions fought for control of one family, without caring that they were destroying the family.
It was unthinkable at the time that the family could live happily as neither protestant nor catholic, and not have to show total allegiance to one religion or the other.
The event was like a microcosm of Irish society as a whole. The National school system was set up in 1831 to be multi-denominational, but the two main religions saw this as a threat to the power they held over their respective followers, and so they divvied out the national schools between them to create a segregated school system where each could practice their own form of indoctrination.
Even the way the island ended up being divided into 26 + 6 counties is largely a result of the rigid segregation of people over hundreds of years, orchestrated by their religious "leaders".
Apart from the school system, its easy enough to ignore church power nowadays, but not so long ago they could (and would) break anyone who defied them.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

JohnBee

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Until recently, in the Mater Hospital, certain clinical drug trials, that required females to be on contraception due to the risk of birth defects, were not permitted by the nuns!

They feared Peter would turn them away at the Pearly Gates if they permitted such terrible sins.

recedite

Very much so, especially the maternity hospitals. And the "ethos" has influenced policy in matters such as sterilisation, contraception information, abortion information, abortion itself (ie at what point the mothers life is at a substantial risk) Also caesarean and symphysiotomy. I think policies are converging more nowadays, but where there was a choice, in Dublin for example, the Rotunda was always known as more "liberal" in these matters than Holles St.
For some maternity hospitals, it was most important to maintain the future breeding potential of their clients, whatever the cost to those women's personal health, hence the symphysiotomy scandals. Here's the current board of National Maternity Hospital. How many priests can you spot?

Hotblack Desiato

JohnBee wrote: »

Until recently, in the Mater Hospital, certain clinical drug trials, that required females to be on contraception due to the risk of birth defects, were not permitted by the nuns!

They feared Peter would turn them away at the Pearly Gates if they permitted such terrible sins.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/three-who-stopped-the-cancer-tests-25960150.html

THE people whose advice delayed the treatment of lung cancer patients at a major hospital are a priest, a nun and a businessman.
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The three members of the board of Dublin's Mater Hospital were key to the decision to stop trials of the drug for lung cancer patients.

They objected because female patients who get could get pregnant would have to take contraceptives under the treatment.

The subcommittee of the board - Fr Kevin Doran, Sr Eugene Nolan and John Morgan - were delegated the task of examining the conditions attached to testing the drug.

They looked to see if the conditions contravened the hospital's Catholic ethos.

The drug to be tested may prolong the lives of lung cancer patients by several months.

But it emerged last night that these patients, who have already exhausted all other forms of treatment, will have to wait until October 18 before knowing if the trials are approved.

Yes, that Kevin Doran.

MrPudding

kunst nugget wrote: »

I kind of get what frostyjacks is getting at - we can't transfer the guilt of the ill treatment of woman in this country solely to the Catholic Church - society at large had its part to play. I've heard horror stories over the years of people being disowned by their parents and getting kicked out of the house because they got pregnant and it had nothing to do with getting a visit from the priest - even with the mores of the day being what they were, it's hard to believe the coldness and cruelty displayed by some people towards their children.

frostyjacks wrote: »

The people who sent their daughters to the laundries, and the men who knocked them up. Do people think priests drove round in vans, abducting single mothers and taking them to the laundries? They were sent there.

I like the way you are ignoring why people sent their daughters to these places. Whilst you are of course correct that family members sent their daughters to these places I am sure you know very well why they did it. Do you think that society decided all by itself that unmarried mothers were something to be ashamed of? Do you think that parents decided all by themselves to disown their children or kick them out over a pregnancy?

Perhaps the church didn't send those poor children to the laundries, but they certainly were responsible for setting up environment where people felt they was what they had to do. They spent decades spinning their disgusting 'truth' and setting themselves up as the unquestionable authority. They didn't have to round the girls up, they had the people so brainwashed and scared of them that the work was done for them.

They are guilty. They were and continued to be a dispicable and disgusting organisation that poison every society they stick their noses into.

MrP

Peregrinus

MrPudding wrote: »

. . . perhaps the church didn't send those poor children to the laundries, but they certainly were responsible for setting up environment where people felt they was what they had to do. They spent decades spinning their disgusting 'truth' and setting themselves up as the unquestionable authority. They didn't have to round the girls up, they had the people so brainwashed and scared of them that the work was done for them.

They are guilty. They were and continued to be a dispicable and disgusting organisation that poison every society they stick their noses into.

MrP

Well, it's not a simple as that. Ireland became a much more puritan society, and much more judgmental of sexual transgression, in the decades after the Famine, and remained so until comparatively recently. We can hardly blame the Famine on church teaching, and we can see how that traumatic experience could have focussed attention on the need for effective social control of "irresponsible" procreation.

I suspect this was a kind of two-way thing. Society became more puritan in response to the experience of the Famine and other social and economic circumstances. The church, a social institution (and, in Ireland, a very "democratic" institution in the sense that its leadership wasn't drawn from any social elite or political establishment) reflected that, and then acted as a "feedback" mechanism which reinforced the phenomenon. But it wouldn't have been such an effective mechanism for so long if the social, economic etc circumstances which favoured puritanism has not persisted.

looksee

MrPudding wrote: »

I like the way you are ignoring why people sent their daughters to these places. Whilst you are of course correct that family members sent their daughters to these places I am sure you know very well why they did it. Do you think that society decided all by itself that unmarried mothers were something to be ashamed of? Do you think that parents decided all by themselves to disown their children or kick them out over a pregnancy?

Perhaps the church didn't send those poor children to the laundries, but they certainly were responsible for setting up environment where people felt they was what they had to do. They spent decades spinning their disgusting 'truth' and setting themselves up as the unquestionable authority. They didn't have to round the girls up, they had the people so brainwashed and scared of them that the work was done for them.

They are guilty. They were and continued to be a dispicable and disgusting organisation that poison every society they stick their noses into.

MrP

You could argue that previously women who were pregnant out of marriage were turned out to starve or prostitute themselves on the streets. So the laundries were an answer to that. Eventually it became less disgraceful to be pregnant out of marriage and the laundries began to be seen as overly harsh and repressive.

The women who became nuns were not all volunteers; it was equally a way of getting rid of a troublesome daughter, or gaining kudos for having a daughter in the Church. Or a woman with a personality of self-righteousness and 'holiness'. Or indeed a solution for a woman who did not want to be passed from paternal authority to a husband's authority. It was a recipe for disaster. They took their frustration and anger out on the people in their charge.

It was not so much the church that caused the reaction to 'fallen women' as society, it would be just as - probably more - accurate to blanket blame men for getting the women pregnant, then opting out of all responsibility.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, it's not a simple as that. Ireland became a much more puritan society, and much more judgmental of sexual transgression, in the decades after the Famine, and remained so until comparatively recently. We can hardly blame the Famine on church teaching, and we can see how that traumatic experience could have focussed attention on the need for effective social control of "irresponsible" procreation.

And yet any form of contraception was still frowned upon, and family sizes remained high, so you can hardly say the famine caused people to think deeply about population sustainability.

Significantly there were a ridiculous number of RC churches built during the 1840's, perhaps the biggest church building boom ever seen in this country.
There are two ways of looking at this;
1) The cynical exploitation of the cheap labour of starving people.
2) A charitable act of providing gainful employment to starving people so that they could buy food. At the same time the landed gentry were also building follies and the British govt commissioned roads and harbours.
It was not the done thing at the time to dole out free money to people, without making them work.

Either way, the RCC emerged from the famine years in a much stronger position than before.

The roads and harbours did turn out to be useful, it has to be said.

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

We can hardly blame the Famine on church teaching

The church, a social institution (and, in Ireland, a very "democratic" institution in the sense that its leadership wasn't drawn from any social elite or political establishment) reflected that, and then acted as a "feedback" mechanism which reinforced the phenomenon.

WTF?
Where has any roman catholic church been 'democratic'? Where has the Irish roman catholic church been 'democratic'?
Its leadership was drawn from an elite all right, the elite emanating out of Maynooth.

Peregrinus

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

WTF?
Where has any roman catholic church been 'democratic'? Where has the Irish roman catholic church been 'democratic'?
Its leadership was drawn from an elite all right, the elite emanating out of Maynooth.

You miss the point. In other countries, church leadership at the time was largely drawn from an existing political/social elite, and it tended to reflect the political/social priorities of the class from which it was drawn. But in the Irish Catholic church, leaders were drawn from very ordinary and unpriviliged backgrounds. (They may have acquired privilege through being elevated to leadership positions, but that's a different thing.)

My suggestion is that the puritanism of the Irish catholic church wasn't an external thing, originating from the top. It reflected the concerns and preoccupations and experiences of the class from which the leaders were drawn, which was a pretty ordinary class. Which helps to explain why people were so receptive to puritan teachings. (As opposed to, say, church teachings against republicanism/militant nationalism, which got much less traction.)

PS: You think reference to the Famine is a straw man in understanding social attitudes in Ireland in the nineteenth century? Seriously?

kunst nugget

MrPudding wrote: »

They are guilty. They were and continued to be a dispicable and disgusting organisation that poison every society they stick their noses into.

MrP

I would never deny that - I'm just saying that we can't whitewash people's complicity in allowing their daughters be sent to those types of institutions or kicking them out of their homes. I knew a girl whose parents who had no connection with the Catholic Church who was sent packing by her family when she became pregnant after being raped and I know of people who were saved from those types of institutions because their parents fought for them when they became pregnant.

Cabaal

Came across this delightful book from 1930's

Your Husband Comes First in the House’: a (Catholic) Guide for The Young Wife (1938)

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/08/15/the-good-wife/

Everything you needed to know about being a good Catholic wife in 1938 but were afraid to ask.

Your husband comes first in the house. His will should prevail. Therefore you belong to him more than to your parents (p. 23).

You are beginning a new life which you have entered through sacred doors. It was not a mere ceremony which took place before God’s altar. God’s hands were extended over you in blessing for the holy task which lies before you (p. 3)

And, in the context of the recent debate Ireland has had on abortion, here’s a section called ‘A Murderess’

When the mother’s life is endangered by the birth of the child, the life that is coming may not be destroyed. Even the doctor may not do this. He may do all that is possible to save the mother’s life except anything that would directly destroy the life of the child … Woe to the mother who is a murderess! (p. 26).

Really delightful!

PopePalpatine

Well, at least we now know which year Jugendschutz want to take us back to.

robindch

Cabaal wrote: »

Your Husband Comes First

I'm sure a copy editor didn't mean to include that single entendre

recedite

Your Husband Comes First

Not sure which of the subsections that is from, the writing is too small... is it "Behind the Shop" or "The Young Husband" :pac:

Translated from the German in 1938, so that puts it firmly into the nazi ideology bracket. Apparently it was not uncommon to see people walking round Irish towns wearing swastika lapel badges in those days. Probably more of an anti-brit thing than anything, but there you go.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Translated from the German in 1938, so that puts it firmly into the nazi ideology bracket. Apparently it was not uncommon to see people walking round Irish towns wearing swastika lapel badges in those days. Probably more of an anti-brit thing than anything, but there you go.

Actually, no. It may have been translated in 1938 but it's pre-Nazi - came out in about 1925. One of a slew of edifying pamphlets authored by Dr Martin Kreuser, whose impressive output actually declined once the Nazis came to power (though this may have been a coincidence).

frostyjacks

recedite wrote: »

Not sure which of the subsections that is from, the writing is too small... is it "Behind the Shop" or "The Young Husband" :pac:

Translated from the German in 1938, so that puts it firmly into the nazi ideology bracket. Apparently it was not uncommon to see people walking round Irish towns wearing swastika lapel badges in those days. Probably more of an anti-brit thing than anything, but there you go.

Why would it have been an anti-Brit thing in 1938? They didn't go to war until the following year. Many Brits themselves were admirers of the Nazis around that time.

Peregrinus

frostyjacks wrote: »

Why would it have been an anti-Brit thing in 1938? They didn't go to war until the following year. Many Brits themselves were admirers of the Nazis around that time.

By 1938 pretty well everyone expected Britain and Germany to go to war, and soon. Irridentist republicans in Ireland, who had taken little interest in Naziism at first, started to pal up with Nazis once it became clear that Nazi and British interests were inimical.

Having said that, I've never heard that swastika badges were "not uncommon" in Ireland in the '30s.

Absolam

Is it a Catholic thing? Most of the references at first glance seem to be Christian rather than particularly Catholic?

Peregrinus

Well, the English translation was issued by Messenger Publications, an adjunct to the Irish Messenger, a Catholic magazine. In the 1930s it claimed to be the most widely-read magazine in Ireland. Messenger Publications issued a stream of mostly devotional books which were marketed through the magazine.

The magazine is still going (it's now the Sacred Heart Messenger), and the publications arm is still going also.

frostyjacks

Peregrinus wrote: »

By 1938 pretty well everyone expected Britain and Germany to go to war, and soon. Irridentist republicans in Ireland, who had taken little interest in Naziism at first, started to pal up with Nazis once it became clear that Nazi and British interests were inimical.

Having said that, I've never heard that swastika badges were "not uncommon" in Ireland in the '30s.

This is news to me also.

recedite

Nazis were very adept at cultivating nationalist and separatist groups within other countries, and encouraging them to fight their own governments. Notably Croats against Yugoslavia, Ukrainians against Russia, Flemish and Bretons against France and Belgium. Irish republicans were seen as a resource to be used against Britain and/or Ireland; just part of that strategy. A large part of the SS were recruited from such nationalists after occupation. When the war ended, many of the Croat, Flemish and Breton SS men were secretly channelled to Ireland by RC religious orders such as De La Salle. No other European country was safe for them to retire to. One SS guy Albert Folens actually ended up teaching here, and no matter what school you attended in Ireland, you were probably educated through his Folens' publishing company books. Another, Yann Goulet became a reasonably well known sculptor.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Having said that, I've never heard that swastika badges were "not uncommon" in Ireland in the '30s.

I'm struggling unsuccessfully to find an online source for this, but I heard it anecdotally from people who are now dead. Its the kind of thing that tends to disappear from the historical record, people remember what they want to remember. I found this though. All those badges on display at the funeral must have come from somewhere.
Of course, nobody alive today is related to any of those swastika-wearing people.
We are all relatives of the heros who fought in the GPO in 1916

Peregrinus

Neither of them was ever a member of the SS.

Folens was a member of the Flemish Legion, but resigned when that body was incorporated into the SS because he was unwilling to take an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Since before the war, Goulet was a member of the Breton National Party. Far from having Nazi sympathies, though, he was a Communist and a member of the French Section of the Workers' International. When the BNP split in 1941 with the formation of an explicitly Nazi alternative (the Breton National-Social Workers Movement) he remained with the rump of the BNP. He was also the head of Bagadou Stourm, a Breton Nationalist militia but, again, he declined to join a rival nationalist militia (Bezen Perrot) which placed itself under German command. The BS was certainly guilty of collaboration, but was never part of the SS, or under SS or German command.

Folens and Goulet are both good examples of radical nationalists who co-operated with the Nazis, not out of any sympathy with Naziism, but because they thought it was pragmatic. ("My enemy's enemy is my friend".) That's not to defend them, but they do need to be distinguished from people who were actually attracted to Naziism.

I'm not aware that religious orders were instrumental in bringing either of them to Ireland, and in Goulet's case it's wildly unlikely - he and Catholicism did not have a good relationship. Besides, he travelled quite openly, and through the UK. He wasn't a wanted man at the time.