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| St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland | How the Catholic Faith Came to Ireland | Irish Catholics Come to America |
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HOW THE CATHOLIC FAITH CAME TO IRELAND
Part 1
The Trickling of the Faith Before the Time of St. Patrick
Part 1
The Trickling of the Faith Before the Time of St. Patrick
Traditionally, the humble Saint Patrick has been credited with converting the entire Irish race from paganism in the very short period between 432 and 461. It would be romantic and even gratifying if this were indeed the case. Nevertheless, we have to admit that there were certainly some isolated pockets of Christians in Ireland before Patrick arrived as a missionary in the country and that the saint worked as an evangelist only in parts of the island. However, what cannot be disputed is the fact that nobody achieved anywhere near the numbers of conversions as those of St. Patrick. Even if he did not convert every single soul, he converted a phenomenal amount! Before we look at the work of St. Patrick, let us briefly examine the probable sources that allowed the Faith to trickle into Ireland, little by little.
The Roman Empire never reached Ireland; so when the Edict of Milan in 313 AD allowed tolerance for the Levantine-originated religion of Christianity and then the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD enforced it as the state religion of the Empire; covering much of Europe (including Roman Britain); the indigenous Indo-European pagan traditions of the Gaels in Ireland remained normative. Aside from this independence, Gaelic Ireland was a highly decentralized tribal society, so mass conversion to a new system would prove a drawn out process.
The earliest stages of Christianity in Ireland during its 5th century arrival are somewhat obscure, however, native Christian figures including Ailbe, Abbán, Ciarán and Declán, later venerated as saint by the Christians, are known. These were typically in Leinster and Munster. The early stories of these people mention journeys to Roman Britain, Roman Gaul and even Rome itself. Indeed, Pope Celestine I is held to have sent Palladius to evangelize the Gaels (Irish) in 431, but this did not gather much steam.
Christianity trickled into Ireland, presumably in the fourth and early fifth centuries, by a slow and gradual process of unplanned growth, from the European Continent—from Gaul (present day France) and perhaps even the Iberian peninsula (Spain) and/or Britain. British captives carried off by Irish raiders are one possible means of entry; contacts made by the Irish emigrants in Britain are another; and trade relations with Gaul, Roman Britain or Spain are yet another. Some continental literati (the educated classes) may even have sought refuge in Ireland during the barbarian invasions of what is now France, at the start of the fifth century, bringing their Christian religion with them.
As we enter the twenty-first century―the communications era par excellence―we are so familiar with high-speed trains, chartered flights and scheduled airlines that our world is, indeed, a ‘global village’. It is possible nowadays to breakfast at home in Ireland and to sit down to lunch on the same day three thousand miles away in New York! Because of this we assume that the early Irish generations were totally cut off from the outside world by the cruel seas, which surrounded Ireland, that they were completely isolated and mostly insular. This is not an accurate picture of life in ancient times. In fact, the sea then united rather than divided peoples on the whole Atlantic seaboard of Europe.
Ancient Irish mariners sailed in curraghs, wooden-framed craft covered in hides and capable of negotiating stormy seas with agility and in safety. Irish boats of similar (though somewhat later) construction were, we know, able to reach Iceland, a journey of about a thousand miles, within six days! We learn from Giraldus Cambrensis that in 1185 Ireland was considered “about one short day’s sailing from Wales”, half a day’s journey across the North Channel “between Ulster and Galloway in Scotland”, and “three ordinary days” sailing from Spain. In the twelfth century, vessels were, of course, more sophisticated than the early coracles. But even in the period before Christ, some tiny sailing boats had been given rudders and other navigational aids. A delightful little model ship, in the Irish National Museum, shows how large these sea-going vessels could be. The boat has nine benches for eighteen oarsmen in total, a rudder, a mast, three booms, a punting pole and an anchor. In seaworthy craft such as this, the ancient Celts took to the seas, searching for places on which to prey, in which to settle, or with which to trade.
The primitive Irish were expert plunderers. We know, for example, that Patrick was captured in a great raid which netted “many thousands of people” [St. Patrick’s Confessions, §1], some of them, at least, lukewarm Christians, according to Patrick’s diagnosis of their common spiritual condition. Doubtless a number of his fellow captives would actually have been committed Christians and a few may, indeed, even have been priests. Doubtless, too, as Gildas (c. 500-570) informs us, this was not the only raid made on Britain by the grassatores Hiberni (‘the Irish thugs’). One local king, Niall Noígiallach (“of the Nine Hostages”), the son of a ruler with the nickname “Lord of the Slaves” and a woman, who was herself probably a British slave-girl, is said to have made seven marauding expeditions across the Irish Sea. Looted Roman coins have been found in abundance all along the northern and eastern coasts of Ireland. The advent of Christian slaves, then, possibly played a part in the introduction of Christianity into the island. And, since rulers in a country could obviously acquire the most slaves, it follows that enslaved Christians might well have had access to the most influential people in the land of their captivity.
The ancient Irish were expansionists. From the end of the third century onwards the Scotti, as the inhabitants of Ireland were generally called, established a number of colonies on the island of Great Britain: in north-western and south-western Wales, Cornwall and western Scotland. Communications between these immigrants and Christian Britons and members of the Roman imperial forces could possibly have led to the conversion of some of them and ultimately to a haphazard spread of the Faith to Ireland; particularly to the south and east coasts opposite the settlements in Wales and Cornwall.
The Irish had strong trading links with Roman Britain and Gaul and some dealings with Iberia. While they were unfamiliar with “the interior parts” of the island, the Roman historian and senator, Tacitus (c 55-120 AD), tells us that British or Gallic merchants had a reasonably good knowledge of Ireland’s “harbors and approaches” and there is good evidence that Roman traders reached not just the coastal harbors, but points well inland along large rivers like the Nore and the Barrow. It seems that wine and oil (and possibly wheat) were carried in considerable quantities from the European mainland continent to Ireland. Archaeologists have discovered ample evidence of a wine trade, especially in the south of the country. It is probably no coincidence that the Corcu Loegde of the modern west Cork, who later claimed to be the first Irish Christians, carried on an extensive wine trade with France. The Irish also imported pottery, metal-work and bric-à-brac from Roman Gaul and Britain. In exchange for these commodities, they exported copper and gold, slaves, hides, cattle and wolfhounds. While evangelization is not the primary motive of the commercial traveler, and while French wine-shippers were doubtless more intent on filling Irish stomachs with liquor than Irish souls with religion, it is possible that foreign merchants used the opportunities afforded by their business contacts to interest some Irish people in Christianity.
It is a distinct possibility that some Christian literati or “learned men” fled to Ireland during the invasion of Gaul by Germanic barbarians at the beginning of the fifth century. The Leiden Glossary, a twelfth-century document based on a sixth or seventh-century account, written in Gaul but now lost, claims that such a migration took place: “All the learned men on this side of the sea took flight, and in transmarine parts, namely in Ireland and wherever they betook themselves, brought about a very great increase of learning to the inhabitants of those regions.” That civilized men would have fled to Ireland, in fear of barbarian invaders, is not beyond belief. The island would thus have gained some good and benefit from from the “ill-wind” of barbarian invasions that blew across the European continent, and would have become the recipient of whatever body of knowledge these men possessed. These Gallic literati would probably have maintained their identity for a considerable period of time among the pagan Irish. Patrick’s mention of “rhetoricians” [St. Patrick’s Confessions, §13] may be a reference to these scholarly fugitives.
It seems, too, that the ancient Hisperica Famina (Western Sayings) may have been written by seventh-century scholars in Ireland. Modern authorities widely believe that the “Western Sayings” is of Irish origin and probably from a monastic environment. An examination of the contents of the document reinforces speculation that it originated in Ireland as it portrays a country where the natives communicate in Irish. The work is in strange and unfamiliar language and gives the appearance of having been composed as a lesson-book for students of advanced Latin. Scholars suggests that this famous work may have been produced in Ireland by descendants of the early fifth-century, fugitive Gallic men of letters mentioned in the Leiden Glossary.
One, some, or all of the avenues detailed above, may have contributed to Christianity trickling into pagan Ireland. Of its presence in the country by the start of the fifth century we can be in no doubt for there is indisputable, mainly cumulative, evidence that Christianity had, in some small degree, reached Ireland before St. Patrick began his mission of mass conversions in 432.
The Roman Empire never reached Ireland; so when the Edict of Milan in 313 AD allowed tolerance for the Levantine-originated religion of Christianity and then the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD enforced it as the state religion of the Empire; covering much of Europe (including Roman Britain); the indigenous Indo-European pagan traditions of the Gaels in Ireland remained normative. Aside from this independence, Gaelic Ireland was a highly decentralized tribal society, so mass conversion to a new system would prove a drawn out process.
The earliest stages of Christianity in Ireland during its 5th century arrival are somewhat obscure, however, native Christian figures including Ailbe, Abbán, Ciarán and Declán, later venerated as saint by the Christians, are known. These were typically in Leinster and Munster. The early stories of these people mention journeys to Roman Britain, Roman Gaul and even Rome itself. Indeed, Pope Celestine I is held to have sent Palladius to evangelize the Gaels (Irish) in 431, but this did not gather much steam.
Christianity trickled into Ireland, presumably in the fourth and early fifth centuries, by a slow and gradual process of unplanned growth, from the European Continent—from Gaul (present day France) and perhaps even the Iberian peninsula (Spain) and/or Britain. British captives carried off by Irish raiders are one possible means of entry; contacts made by the Irish emigrants in Britain are another; and trade relations with Gaul, Roman Britain or Spain are yet another. Some continental literati (the educated classes) may even have sought refuge in Ireland during the barbarian invasions of what is now France, at the start of the fifth century, bringing their Christian religion with them.
As we enter the twenty-first century―the communications era par excellence―we are so familiar with high-speed trains, chartered flights and scheduled airlines that our world is, indeed, a ‘global village’. It is possible nowadays to breakfast at home in Ireland and to sit down to lunch on the same day three thousand miles away in New York! Because of this we assume that the early Irish generations were totally cut off from the outside world by the cruel seas, which surrounded Ireland, that they were completely isolated and mostly insular. This is not an accurate picture of life in ancient times. In fact, the sea then united rather than divided peoples on the whole Atlantic seaboard of Europe.
Ancient Irish mariners sailed in curraghs, wooden-framed craft covered in hides and capable of negotiating stormy seas with agility and in safety. Irish boats of similar (though somewhat later) construction were, we know, able to reach Iceland, a journey of about a thousand miles, within six days! We learn from Giraldus Cambrensis that in 1185 Ireland was considered “about one short day’s sailing from Wales”, half a day’s journey across the North Channel “between Ulster and Galloway in Scotland”, and “three ordinary days” sailing from Spain. In the twelfth century, vessels were, of course, more sophisticated than the early coracles. But even in the period before Christ, some tiny sailing boats had been given rudders and other navigational aids. A delightful little model ship, in the Irish National Museum, shows how large these sea-going vessels could be. The boat has nine benches for eighteen oarsmen in total, a rudder, a mast, three booms, a punting pole and an anchor. In seaworthy craft such as this, the ancient Celts took to the seas, searching for places on which to prey, in which to settle, or with which to trade.
The primitive Irish were expert plunderers. We know, for example, that Patrick was captured in a great raid which netted “many thousands of people” [St. Patrick’s Confessions, §1], some of them, at least, lukewarm Christians, according to Patrick’s diagnosis of their common spiritual condition. Doubtless a number of his fellow captives would actually have been committed Christians and a few may, indeed, even have been priests. Doubtless, too, as Gildas (c. 500-570) informs us, this was not the only raid made on Britain by the grassatores Hiberni (‘the Irish thugs’). One local king, Niall Noígiallach (“of the Nine Hostages”), the son of a ruler with the nickname “Lord of the Slaves” and a woman, who was herself probably a British slave-girl, is said to have made seven marauding expeditions across the Irish Sea. Looted Roman coins have been found in abundance all along the northern and eastern coasts of Ireland. The advent of Christian slaves, then, possibly played a part in the introduction of Christianity into the island. And, since rulers in a country could obviously acquire the most slaves, it follows that enslaved Christians might well have had access to the most influential people in the land of their captivity.
The ancient Irish were expansionists. From the end of the third century onwards the Scotti, as the inhabitants of Ireland were generally called, established a number of colonies on the island of Great Britain: in north-western and south-western Wales, Cornwall and western Scotland. Communications between these immigrants and Christian Britons and members of the Roman imperial forces could possibly have led to the conversion of some of them and ultimately to a haphazard spread of the Faith to Ireland; particularly to the south and east coasts opposite the settlements in Wales and Cornwall.
The Irish had strong trading links with Roman Britain and Gaul and some dealings with Iberia. While they were unfamiliar with “the interior parts” of the island, the Roman historian and senator, Tacitus (c 55-120 AD), tells us that British or Gallic merchants had a reasonably good knowledge of Ireland’s “harbors and approaches” and there is good evidence that Roman traders reached not just the coastal harbors, but points well inland along large rivers like the Nore and the Barrow. It seems that wine and oil (and possibly wheat) were carried in considerable quantities from the European mainland continent to Ireland. Archaeologists have discovered ample evidence of a wine trade, especially in the south of the country. It is probably no coincidence that the Corcu Loegde of the modern west Cork, who later claimed to be the first Irish Christians, carried on an extensive wine trade with France. The Irish also imported pottery, metal-work and bric-à-brac from Roman Gaul and Britain. In exchange for these commodities, they exported copper and gold, slaves, hides, cattle and wolfhounds. While evangelization is not the primary motive of the commercial traveler, and while French wine-shippers were doubtless more intent on filling Irish stomachs with liquor than Irish souls with religion, it is possible that foreign merchants used the opportunities afforded by their business contacts to interest some Irish people in Christianity.
It is a distinct possibility that some Christian literati or “learned men” fled to Ireland during the invasion of Gaul by Germanic barbarians at the beginning of the fifth century. The Leiden Glossary, a twelfth-century document based on a sixth or seventh-century account, written in Gaul but now lost, claims that such a migration took place: “All the learned men on this side of the sea took flight, and in transmarine parts, namely in Ireland and wherever they betook themselves, brought about a very great increase of learning to the inhabitants of those regions.” That civilized men would have fled to Ireland, in fear of barbarian invaders, is not beyond belief. The island would thus have gained some good and benefit from from the “ill-wind” of barbarian invasions that blew across the European continent, and would have become the recipient of whatever body of knowledge these men possessed. These Gallic literati would probably have maintained their identity for a considerable period of time among the pagan Irish. Patrick’s mention of “rhetoricians” [St. Patrick’s Confessions, §13] may be a reference to these scholarly fugitives.
It seems, too, that the ancient Hisperica Famina (Western Sayings) may have been written by seventh-century scholars in Ireland. Modern authorities widely believe that the “Western Sayings” is of Irish origin and probably from a monastic environment. An examination of the contents of the document reinforces speculation that it originated in Ireland as it portrays a country where the natives communicate in Irish. The work is in strange and unfamiliar language and gives the appearance of having been composed as a lesson-book for students of advanced Latin. Scholars suggests that this famous work may have been produced in Ireland by descendants of the early fifth-century, fugitive Gallic men of letters mentioned in the Leiden Glossary.
One, some, or all of the avenues detailed above, may have contributed to Christianity trickling into pagan Ireland. Of its presence in the country by the start of the fifth century we can be in no doubt for there is indisputable, mainly cumulative, evidence that Christianity had, in some small degree, reached Ireland before St. Patrick began his mission of mass conversions in 432.
HOW THE CATHOLIC FAITH CAME TO IRELAND
Part 2
St. Patrick turns the trickle into a deluge!
Part 2
St. Patrick turns the trickle into a deluge!
The Early Christian Period
The period between the years of 400 – 800, is known as the “Early Christian period” in Irish history when the first Christians started to arrive, most likely from Britain and Gaul (France). The early Christian period in Ireland was not well documented (or at all) so we are left with more questions than answers of how life would have been like in early Christian Ireland.
Before Christianity was introduced to Ireland the Irish were largely practicing Druids, who built some of the most impressive ritual sites found in Europe, such as the famous passage tomb of Newgrange, built in the Stone Age period of ancient Ireland. The Druids built monuments all over Ireland, a sign of how important their own beliefs and worshipping of the sun had been to them.
Who brought Christianity to Ireland?
A chronicle published, in 433, by St. Prosper, an important member of the Roman Catholic Church at the time, tells of the first Christian mission to Ireland: “Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine, and sent as the first Bishop to the Irish believing in Christ.”
Many people interrupt this entry as Palladious was the first canonical Bishop to Ireland. This leads to the belief that four “Palladian bishops” who ministered in the southern part of Ireland (Munster) were the first Christians to settle. The four Bishops are believed to be St Ailbe of Emly, St Ciaran of Saigir, St Abban of Moyarny, and St Declan of Ardmore.
The Arrival of Palladius
Saint Palladius set sail for Ireland arriving at Hy-Garchon, known today as Wicklow, in 431AD but his stay would be very short lived. The inhabitants of Hy-Garchon banished him from their land so he left and set sell again. Palladius next landed at the Orkney Islands in Scotland and never return to Ireland again.
Saint Patrick Arrives in Ireland
After Patrick was enslaved in Ireland he escaped and returned to his home in Britain where he became a cleric. He would later return to the northern and western part of Ireland as a Christian Missionary. Although there is exact date recorded for the arrival of St Patrick in Ireland many estimate it to be approx 432AD.
Described in the Book of Armagh, mythologized version of events, is the earliest copy of St. Patrick’s Confessio (Confessions) which describes his dream:
“I saw, in a vision in the night, a man whose name was Victoricus coming as it were from Ireland with so many letters they could not be counted. He gave me one of these, and I read the beginning of the letter, the voice of the Irish people. While I was reading out the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that moment the voice of those who were beside the wood of Voclut, near the western sea. They called out as it were with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.’ This touched my heart deeply, and I could not read any further; I woke up then. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord granted them what they were calling for.”
St. Patrick landed on a small island off the coast Skerries coast which is now named Inish-Patrick and near here St. Patrick converted the son of Irish Chieftain, Benignus to Christianity. It’s believed St. Patrick founded a monastery on the island which flourished until the invasion of the Vikings.
At Saul, in modern day County Down, St. Patrick converted a local pagan Chieftain by the name of Díchu mac Trichim, who gave a barn converted into a church as a gift to St. Patrick.
St. Patrick continued on his mission in Ireland for approximately another 30 years and was responsible for converting many of the local Chieftains, who were pagans and also establishing places of worship.
Converting Pagans to Christianity
Although the mission of Palladius in Ireland failed, St. Patrick was much more successful. At first people were wary of his arrival and perceived him as some kind of a warrior or pirate, but as they met St. Patrick and discovered his gentle approach, they gave little reluctance to be baptized and converted over as Christians.
St. Patrick may have used a number of ways to convert Irish pagans to Christianity with one popular belief being that he used the Shamrock to teach about the Irish about the Holy Trinity. Another example was using something the pagan were familiar with such as “hole stones” and using them on large stone crosses. Whether or not if these are true or not the converting of pagans was not an overnight success, it would take years to happen, along with the help of other Christians, who were was converted by St. Patrick.
Some important figures to rise from the popularity of Christianity in Ireland would include St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Enda, St. Brendan, St. Finnian of Clonard, and Columcille.
Later Christianity in Irish History
The newly arrived Christians in Ireland would play an important role in Irish society and the history of Ireland for years to come. Catholicism flourished in Ireland producing many disciples who built monasteries all over Ireland. The monasteries would teach languages, literature, and art becoming so famous that Scholars from all over Europe would flock to Ireland to study.
By the 12th century, the English became involved in Irish affairs after the invasion of the Anglo-Normans. New laws were being introduced to oppress the Irish Roman Catholics, such as the Crown of Ireland Act, 1542, which ordered all Irish monasteries to be shut down and, within 10 years, the first Tudor plantations appeared in Ireland, but it wasn’t until the Ulster Plantations, that saw Scottish Protestants come to Ireland, to take ownership of land over from the Irish Catholics.
Oliver Cromwell’s invasions in 1649 would see the removal of many places of worship and he would be responsible for the deaths of many in Ireland. The Cromwellian Act Of Settlement 1652 was introduced to remove the Irish from ownership of land but this was reversed by the Act of Explanation, passed in 1665, which ordered Cromwellian settlers to give back one third of the land as a compensation to the Catholics.
In 1669, Rome appointed Oliver Plunkett as Archbishop of Armagh and he started a program of reviving and reorganizing the structures of the Church, which had been all but destroyed in Ireland. In 1673 more Penal Laws were introduced in Ireland with the Test Act, ordering clergy and lay to take Holy Communion in the manner of the Anglican Church. Oliver Plunkett refused to obey the Act and was arrested in 1679, charged with treason, and was executed on 1st July 1681, in London. To this day Oliver Plunkett is recognized as an Irish martyr and celebrated as Saint.
After the Flight of the Wild Geese (the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France), in 1691, and the conquering of Ireland by the Protestant, William of Orange, more stricter anti-Catholic penal laws were introduced, which outlawed the Catholic clergy.
By the 19th Century the state of affairs in Ireland was grim with poverty being common and land in the hands of non-Catholics. In 1823 Daniel O’Connell founded the Catholic Association to fight for full emancipation, in a peaceful manner, in which he succeeded. Later in the century, the fight for land would turn violent in the land wars.
The period between the years of 400 – 800, is known as the “Early Christian period” in Irish history when the first Christians started to arrive, most likely from Britain and Gaul (France). The early Christian period in Ireland was not well documented (or at all) so we are left with more questions than answers of how life would have been like in early Christian Ireland.
Before Christianity was introduced to Ireland the Irish were largely practicing Druids, who built some of the most impressive ritual sites found in Europe, such as the famous passage tomb of Newgrange, built in the Stone Age period of ancient Ireland. The Druids built monuments all over Ireland, a sign of how important their own beliefs and worshipping of the sun had been to them.
Who brought Christianity to Ireland?
A chronicle published, in 433, by St. Prosper, an important member of the Roman Catholic Church at the time, tells of the first Christian mission to Ireland: “Palladius was consecrated by Pope Celestine, and sent as the first Bishop to the Irish believing in Christ.”
Many people interrupt this entry as Palladious was the first canonical Bishop to Ireland. This leads to the belief that four “Palladian bishops” who ministered in the southern part of Ireland (Munster) were the first Christians to settle. The four Bishops are believed to be St Ailbe of Emly, St Ciaran of Saigir, St Abban of Moyarny, and St Declan of Ardmore.
The Arrival of Palladius
Saint Palladius set sail for Ireland arriving at Hy-Garchon, known today as Wicklow, in 431AD but his stay would be very short lived. The inhabitants of Hy-Garchon banished him from their land so he left and set sell again. Palladius next landed at the Orkney Islands in Scotland and never return to Ireland again.
Saint Patrick Arrives in Ireland
After Patrick was enslaved in Ireland he escaped and returned to his home in Britain where he became a cleric. He would later return to the northern and western part of Ireland as a Christian Missionary. Although there is exact date recorded for the arrival of St Patrick in Ireland many estimate it to be approx 432AD.
Described in the Book of Armagh, mythologized version of events, is the earliest copy of St. Patrick’s Confessio (Confessions) which describes his dream:
“I saw, in a vision in the night, a man whose name was Victoricus coming as it were from Ireland with so many letters they could not be counted. He gave me one of these, and I read the beginning of the letter, the voice of the Irish people. While I was reading out the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that moment the voice of those who were beside the wood of Voclut, near the western sea. They called out as it were with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.’ This touched my heart deeply, and I could not read any further; I woke up then. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord granted them what they were calling for.”
St. Patrick landed on a small island off the coast Skerries coast which is now named Inish-Patrick and near here St. Patrick converted the son of Irish Chieftain, Benignus to Christianity. It’s believed St. Patrick founded a monastery on the island which flourished until the invasion of the Vikings.
At Saul, in modern day County Down, St. Patrick converted a local pagan Chieftain by the name of Díchu mac Trichim, who gave a barn converted into a church as a gift to St. Patrick.
St. Patrick continued on his mission in Ireland for approximately another 30 years and was responsible for converting many of the local Chieftains, who were pagans and also establishing places of worship.
Converting Pagans to Christianity
Although the mission of Palladius in Ireland failed, St. Patrick was much more successful. At first people were wary of his arrival and perceived him as some kind of a warrior or pirate, but as they met St. Patrick and discovered his gentle approach, they gave little reluctance to be baptized and converted over as Christians.
St. Patrick may have used a number of ways to convert Irish pagans to Christianity with one popular belief being that he used the Shamrock to teach about the Irish about the Holy Trinity. Another example was using something the pagan were familiar with such as “hole stones” and using them on large stone crosses. Whether or not if these are true or not the converting of pagans was not an overnight success, it would take years to happen, along with the help of other Christians, who were was converted by St. Patrick.
Some important figures to rise from the popularity of Christianity in Ireland would include St. Brigid of Kildare, St. Enda, St. Brendan, St. Finnian of Clonard, and Columcille.
Later Christianity in Irish History
The newly arrived Christians in Ireland would play an important role in Irish society and the history of Ireland for years to come. Catholicism flourished in Ireland producing many disciples who built monasteries all over Ireland. The monasteries would teach languages, literature, and art becoming so famous that Scholars from all over Europe would flock to Ireland to study.
By the 12th century, the English became involved in Irish affairs after the invasion of the Anglo-Normans. New laws were being introduced to oppress the Irish Roman Catholics, such as the Crown of Ireland Act, 1542, which ordered all Irish monasteries to be shut down and, within 10 years, the first Tudor plantations appeared in Ireland, but it wasn’t until the Ulster Plantations, that saw Scottish Protestants come to Ireland, to take ownership of land over from the Irish Catholics.
Oliver Cromwell’s invasions in 1649 would see the removal of many places of worship and he would be responsible for the deaths of many in Ireland. The Cromwellian Act Of Settlement 1652 was introduced to remove the Irish from ownership of land but this was reversed by the Act of Explanation, passed in 1665, which ordered Cromwellian settlers to give back one third of the land as a compensation to the Catholics.
In 1669, Rome appointed Oliver Plunkett as Archbishop of Armagh and he started a program of reviving and reorganizing the structures of the Church, which had been all but destroyed in Ireland. In 1673 more Penal Laws were introduced in Ireland with the Test Act, ordering clergy and lay to take Holy Communion in the manner of the Anglican Church. Oliver Plunkett refused to obey the Act and was arrested in 1679, charged with treason, and was executed on 1st July 1681, in London. To this day Oliver Plunkett is recognized as an Irish martyr and celebrated as Saint.
After the Flight of the Wild Geese (the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France), in 1691, and the conquering of Ireland by the Protestant, William of Orange, more stricter anti-Catholic penal laws were introduced, which outlawed the Catholic clergy.
By the 19th Century the state of affairs in Ireland was grim with poverty being common and land in the hands of non-Catholics. In 1823 Daniel O’Connell founded the Catholic Association to fight for full emancipation, in a peaceful manner, in which he succeeded. Later in the century, the fight for land would turn violent in the land wars.
HOW THE CATHOLIC FAITH CAME TO IRELAND
Part 3
The Rise and Fall of the Faith in Ireland
Part 3
The Rise and Fall of the Faith in Ireland
Ireland has been Catholic since the early days. It was in the 400s and 500s, after the wonderful missionary work of St. Patrick, that many saints and scholars were first teaching and studying in Ireland. But the Catholicism of Ireland is unique in that it was dispersed only by the missionary work of early believers―there was never a Roman conquest, nor even significant presence of Romans in Ireland. The Romans knew of Ireland, they had a name for it, and even left a few loose coins behind — but nobody knows who carried them here, and there is little if any further evidence of direct Roman influence. The Catholicism, then, was Irish.
Much later, when the English came, they came as Protestants. As conquerors and overlords, their esteem of the Irish was appalling. The Irish were wild and uncivilized in the English perception, and the English subjected the Irish to the worst abuse. The English killed many Irish, stole their land (often "allowing" them to rent it back,) and imposed ruinous laws upon their way of life.
Many people suffered, and many died, over many years, because they were Irish; and they died as Catholics. In some cases, the English offered special amnesties to Irish Catholics who would renounce their Faith and become Protestant. Naturally, the dishonor of any such agreement would not wash away; and the honor implicit in keeping the Irish Catholic Faith was deep.
While the practical matter of whether Northern Ireland is a part of English Britain or Irish Ireland is obviously driving the conflicts there in the North, the religious differences are clearly a strong part of the basic disagreement between two communities.
Since Ireland achieved partial independence from the British Empire, the Church continued to play a significant social and political role in the Irish Free State and following that the Republic of Ireland. For many decades, Catholic influence (coupled with the rural nature of Irish society) meant that Ireland was able to uphold family-orientated social policies for longer than most of the West, contrary to the laissez-faire-associated social liberalism of the British and Americans. This cultural direction was particularly prominent under Éamon de Valera. For example, from 1937 until 1995, divorce and remarriage was not permitted (in line with Catholic views of marriage). Similarly, the importation of contraception abortion and pornography were also resisted; media-depictions perceived to be detrimental to public morality were also opposed by Catholics. In addition the Church largely controlled the State's hospitals, schools and remained the largest provider of many other social services.
With the partition of Ireland in 1922, 93% of the south's population were Catholic while 7% were Protestant. By the 1960s, the Anglican and Protestant population had fallen by half, mostly due to emigration in the early years of Irish independence. Some Protestants were loyal to the British Empire and did not wish to live in sovereign Irish state. The Catholic Church's policy of Ne Temere, whereby the children of marriages between Catholics and Protestants had to be brought up as Catholics, also helped to uphold Catholic hegemony.
The Irish State is still nominally a Catholic state. The grip of Catholicism has weakened considerably in recent years, for a couple of main reasons. One reason has been the secularizing influence of modernization, fueled by an expanding economy. The economic boom of the mid-1990s, known as the “Celtic Tiger”, brought an inevitable change to the Irish culture. The plain effect of money changed people, for better and for worse. Also, money brought greater contact with the outside world—through economic ties and through immigration.
In both parts of Ireland, Church policy and practice changed markedly after the Vatican II reforms of 1962. Probably the largest change was that Mass could be said in vernacular languages instead of Latin, and in 1981 the Church commissioned its first edition of the Bible in the Irish language, but the Church overwhelmingly uses English. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid was uneasy about the introduction of an English liturgy and ecumenical revisions, finding it offensive to Catholic sensibilities; he wished to uphold the liturgy in Latin, while also offering Irish as the vernacular (he promoted an Irish language provision more than other Bishops).
The Irish State is still nominally a Catholic state. The grip of Catholicism has weakened considerably in recent years, for a couple of main reasons. One reason has been the secularizing influence of modernization, fueled by an expanding economy. The economic boom of the mid-1990s, known as the “Celtic Tiger”, brought an inevitable change to the Irish culture. The plain effect of money changed people, for better and for worse. Also, money brought greater contact with the outside world—through economic ties and through immigration.
Since the “Celtic Tiger” and the furtherance of Anglocentric globalism in Ireland, Catholicism has been one of the traditional elements of Ireland in decline; particularly in urban areas. Fewer than one in five Catholics attend Mass on any given Sunday in Dublin with many young people only retaining a marginal interest in religion the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said in May 2011. According to a poll by the Irish Times, the majority of Irish Catholics do not attend mass weekly, with almost 62% rejecting key parts of Catholicism such as transubstantiation.
By the Year 2005
Around thirteen years ago, on April 17th, 2005, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on the Faith in Ireland, entitled “Catholicism losing ground in Ireland”, speaking of “the nearly deserted corridor of the seminary at St. Patrick’s College” in Ireland, where “year by year, the group of graduating seminary students gets smaller. Slowly, the number of young men willing to replenish the priesthood of the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is shrinking … Ireland produced more priests than it could use for generations, seeding the Catholic Church in other countries. The national diocesan seminary at Maynooth, 20 miles west of Dublin, has turned out more than 11,000 priests since its founding in 1795 … But instead of the 500 or so seminarians, who would have studied here [each year] in the past, now there are but 60. And the college’s numbers have been bulked up mainly by lay students of both sexes studying theology [but not studying for the priesthood]. Last year [in 2004], 15 men were ordained as Catholic priests for the entire island, with 5.6 million people―4.2 million of them Catholic. In the [Protestant] Anglican-linked Church of Ireland, a fraction of the Catholic Church’s size, 19 were ordained, including several women.
“Overwhelmed by a tide of secularism and economic prosperity, challenged by a new mood of independence in the population and devastated by a decade of scandals involving serial child abuse by clerics, the Catholic Church in Ireland finds itself demoralized, almost in shock. ‘Irish Catholicism, as we knew it in Ireland, is gone!’ said Patsy McGarry, religious affairs writer for the Irish Times. The days when nearly everyone was a churchgoing Catholic, the parish priest was revered and Church doctrine was central in public policy and private life are no more ... In the 1970s, more than 90% of Irish Catholics said they went to Mass once a week. Now the number is 44%, according to a recent survey. In an interview with The Times in Rome, Cardinal Desmond Connell, retired archbishop of Dublin, said: ‘Ireland has become part of the Western European scene. We have been moving in a secularizing direction. But the pace of all this has been accelerated by the extraordinary leap forward in our country’s prosperity. There’s a lot of surplus cash around, and people are enjoying it. I have no trouble with that, but when they enjoy the immediate, they forget the ultimate.’
“Young Catholics began to excuse themselves from certain Church teachings, such as the ban on premarital sex. Married couples practiced birth control. The sale of condoms was legalized in 1979, despite church opposition. In 1995, a referendum amended the constitution to give couples the right to divorce. A similar measure in 1986 had been roundly defeated.” (Los Angeles Times, April 17th, 2005).
By the Year 2006
A little over a year later, on July 9th, 2006, the Chicago Tribune printed article from their foreign correspondent in Dublin, Ireland, entitled “How Catholicism fell from grace in Ireland”, in which it reports: “Like most of its continental neighbors, Ireland is undergoing a severe crisis of Faith. Religious belief in this island bastion of Roman Catholicism is under siege by the twin forces of secularization and modernization … What makes Ireland an interesting case study is the speed of the decline and the efforts of the Catholic Church―lay people and clergy―to come to grips with the crisis … Through most of the 20th Century, Ireland was poor, backward and deeply Catholic … Today, Ireland is prosperous, cosmopolitan and no longer so very Catholic. As recently as the 1970s, 90% of the Irish identified themselves as Catholic and almost the same number went to Mass at least once a week; now [in 2005] the figure for Mass attendance is closer to 25%, according to Church officials in Dublin ... These days Irish seminaries are nearly empty. Last year [2005], for the first time in its history, the Dublin archdiocese ordained no new priests. Foreign priests … have been brought in to fill the gap. The collapse has occurred with breathtaking rapidity … As the nation moved toward independence from the United Kingdom in the 20th century, the Church hierarchy consolidated its privileged status … During the middle years of the 20th Century, Ireland's bishops could make or break governments, and the Catholic hierarchy held a firm grip on national legislation that banned divorce, limited the sale of contraceptives and criminalized homosexual activity. But in the late 1960s, Ireland began an economic and social makeover. Its doors opened to immigrants, the “Celtic Tiger” [economic boom] was loosed and, by the 1990s, this once-impoverished nation was on its way to becoming the European Union's second-wealthiest nation by capita (behind Luxembourg). Prosperity and secularization weakened the Church's traditional hold on the Irish soul; the sex scandals accelerated the process.
In the same article, the Chicago Tribune, stated that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, delivered a lecture: “Will Ireland be Christian in 2030?” a few months after his appointment as head [primate] of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in which he noted that “ ‘from the early 1970s to the late 1990s’ there was a ‘period of rapid social change’ and ‘the Church wasn't able to maintain its own sense of purpose … The Faith of the Church had become rather shallow. It didn't seem to have the roots that were needed at the time.’ The lost trust and credibility, he said, would have to be earned back. It would be a mistake, he added, for the Church to think that ‘just by being nice, or by being modern, that people’s innate religiosity would come back to life.’ He has told Catholic audiences that the Church in Ireland had become too hierarchical and too authoritarian and that it had grown too close to power. One of Martin's major initiatives has been to create a system of parish councils staffed by lay people. The idea is to break down the perception that the clergy "owns" the Church. Some priests have resisted, but Martin says that for the Church to survive in the 21st century, it will have to create new forms of religious community. In many ways, this runs counter to traditional Irish habits of worship.
“Fr. Owuamanam, the Nigerian priest [imported to make up for lack of Irish vocations], joked that parishioners at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral measured his ability as a priest by how quickly he could get through the Mass. ‘Here I try to be very fast! Twenty-five or thirty minutes. In Africa, a Mass is two or three hours long!" he said. Anything less, he said, and people would feel cheated. ‘And in Africa, they don't just sit and watch. They sing, they dance, they are included.’ Owuamanam said he has concluded that the Irish are lacking in ‘spiritual energy.’ Archbishop Martin put it another way. ‘Irish Catholicism is very individualistic,’ he said. Even in parishes where everyone knows everyone else, the tendency is to regard church ‘as a service station in which each person comes for their own private devotions . . . tanking up on grace for the week,’ he said. A big reason for this deficit of communal spiritual energy, Martin said, is that to many Irish Catholics and Christians across Western Europe, the traditional Church appears dull and resistant to change.” (Chicago Tribune, July 9th, 2006).
By the Year 2012
On August 8th, 2012, the Irish Independent newspaper ran an article entitled “We’re losing our Faith faster than most countries as only 47% say they are religious”, which stated that “the scale of the crisis facing the Church in Ireland is laid bare today in a stark survey which reveals that religious faith is plummeting. Irish people are abandoning religion faster than almost every other country worldwide … Only Vietnam has seen a bigger drop in people declaring themselves to be religious over the past seven years.” The article spoke of a survey on the Faith where a recent “poll asked people, irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist.” Such a poll was last conducted in 2005 and “an overwhelming 69% of Irish people declared themselves to be ‘a religious person’ … but this has now plummeted to 47% … A survey in February … found the public at odds with the Church hierarchy on a range of issues, including women clergy and married priests. That survey … found that 77% believed women should be ordained. Nine out of 10 said priests should be able to marry. It also revealed just 35% [a number that is contested as being too high] went to church on a weekly basis.” (The Irish Independent, August 8th, 2012).
By the Year 2012
The Irish newspaper, The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th 2017 edition article, entitled “Storm Coming”, revealed that “The country is becoming more secular, the Catholic Church doesn’t have the power it used to have … Statistics from the 2016 Census revealed that only 78% of the population is Catholic compared with 84% in 2011 and 92% in 1991.” Ireland’s capital city “Dublin and Galway, were above average when it came to the number of non-Catholics, working out at more than one in three people.” The grip of secularism on Catholicism is manifest by the fact that “the average number of children in a family is 1.38” which indicates a clear contraceptive mentality, “and there are 218,817 single parent families, 86% of which are headed by women.” Even greater moral deviation is shown by “same-sex civil partnerships, counted for the first time last year, and 4,226 people confirmed they had tied the knot. But in total, there were 6,034 same-sex couples. Also on the relationship front, the census recorded 103,895 divorcees.” (The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th, 2017).
By the Year 2016
The Irish Times, in the article “Mass attendance in Dublin to drop by one-third by 2030”, published on January 21st, 2016, revealed that “Weekly Mass attendances, in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese, are projected to drop by a third over the next 15 years, while the number of priests serving in parishes is expected to fall by over 60% to 144 in the same period. And this is the most optimistic projection … The analysis also found that 57% of Dublin’s priests today are over 60. It is projected that three-quarters of priests will be over 60 by 2030. Weekly Mass attendance levels in Dublin are currently put at 20%-22% (of the population), while being as low as 2%-3% in some working-class parishes … The report found that, since 2000, marriage rates in the archdiocese had dropped at an annual rate of 4% … the steepest falls in Catholic marriages were in 2009, when the fall was 16% per cent, and 2011, when it was 13%” (The Irish Times, January 21st, 2016).
By the Year 2017
In one of its July 31st, 2017, articles, entitled “Loss of Faith leaving us in a moral wasteland”, the Irish newspaper, Irish Examiner stated: “The influence of religion in Ireland is on the wane, and over the past 40 years in particular, this has been an accelerating phenomenon. The truth is Ireland is losing its religion … Too much has changed too quickly … Since the foundation of the modern Irish State in 1922, religion has been the social cement that provided cohesion and stability, and it was religion primarily that shaped our common moral framework” which meant that Ireland’s “value-system was rooted in religion.”
“A key to that understanding … the collapse of religion, in one of the most conspicuously devout countries of Europe … is the spread of secularization,” the consequences of which have led to a “reduction in the numbers of people going to church” and a “reduction in recruitment to the priesthood, ministry or religious orders” as well as “the relaxation of the felt need in government to defer to the institutional church or the religious sensibilities of the electorate.” All of this is linked to “the decline in the institutional Church to the decline in the Catholic Faith as a central part of Irish culture” because the Irish people, for the most part, “are getting by without God, most of the time.” It is clearly obvious that “the Catholic Church means much less to young people in Ireland today than it has ever done in the course of Christian history. The young Irish no longer see catholicity as part of their identity.”
As for the causes of this collapse of the Faith, the article states that the “decisive turning-point marking the beginning of a significant abandonment of religion, then that subject would be contraception, and the date would be 1968 which saw the publication of Pope Paul VI’s anti-contraceptive encyclical Humanae Vitae.”
“The turning point in Ireland, in the 1960s, is widely credited to the Catholic Church’s stand against artificial contraception” which resulted in Catholic women following their modern sexual lifestyle and “ceased in huge numbers to pay any serious attention to the clergy … The retired Bishop of Killaloe, William Walsh, says: ‘I believe that the questioning of, and dissent from, the teaching of Humanae Vitae [the encyclical against contraception] was a watershed in the Catholic Church.’” Mothers are a key factor in transmitting the Faith to their children and “the desertion of the Church by women seriously undermined the basis of religious Faith.”
“With the collapse of religion and the values it promoted” Irish society has been placed in “a moral vacuum” and is “facing a moral wasteland”, which manifests itself by “the rise in anti-social behavior, petty crime and serious violent crime, and growing disrespect for persons and property.” (The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th 2017).
Six months later, on October 19th, 2017, Irish Central, in its article “Irish Catholicism is dying - no new priests and falling mass attendance” reported the following: “The latest census numbers for the Republic of Ireland show that the percentage of Catholics dropped from approximately 78% to 72%. Back in the 1950s and 60s more than 94% of people designated Catholicism as their religion … When you factor in that 12% of that 72% number are foreign-born Catholics, mostly Polish, who have immigrated in large numbers to Ireland, it makes even chillier reading … When you put this latest information together with the news that there are only seven students studying for the priesthood in the 2017 freshman class at St. Patrick’s College, in Maynooth, it makes sober reading for the bishops … The bad news is that the average age of the current priests serving the community is 70, an astonishing number and one that points to a looming crisis sooner rather than later … The sad fact for Catholicism is that the Church has endeavored to bolt the stable door with a carrot and the horses have easily fled anyway.” (Irish Central, October 19th, 2017).
On April 9th, 2018, the Independent ran an article entitled “The Church has its cross to bear”, reports that “At one time in the 1950s, Ireland was described as 'the most Catholic country in the world'. But this week's census figures show a surge in the numbers with ‘no religion’. Tom Inglis, associate professor of sociology at UCD, has studied the depth of Faith in Ireland in recent years, says: ‘The census confirms that Ireland is less Catholic than it was five years ago’ he says … All the available figures show that the vast majority of self-proclaimed Catholics do not darken the door of a church for months on end. In some parts of Dublin, Mass attendance among Catholics is known to be as low as 3%. In wealthier suburbs, the figures are much higher [15%] … Father Seamus Ahearne, the Augustinian parish priest of Finglas South in Dublin, says: ‘In the past the Church was the people of the poor, but now if you want to find higher attendance figures, it is in area like Dublin 4 [a wealthy part of the city]’ Parishes that are attracting 15pc of Catholics to Mass in Dublin are considered to be doing well, and these are concentrated in more affluent suburbs.
“ ‘Religion is not in the hearts, in the minds or on the lips of Catholics,’ says Tom Inglis … The sociologist says that there is still a diminishing group of orthodox Catholics who remain loyal members of the institutional Church. But the majority are what he terms ‘Cultural Catholics’. They connect with the Church during important rites of passage in their lives, and those of their children. Their Catholic identity remains important, even if they do not live out most of their lives in a spiritual realm. They would sooner walk over hot coals than read the catechism or go to confession. Father Ahearne says: ‘Most people do not have a personal relationship with God.’ They have embraced the rugged individualism of a consumer society. According to Inglis, Irish people now find meaning in family life, their sense of place, and relationships with friends and neighbors. For most people, the Church still remains an important venue for family events. As one leader of a Dublin parish council puts it with a certain bemusement: ‘A lot of people only really go to a church now when they are hatched, matched and dispatched. Otherwise we don’t see them.’
“For his book, ‘Meanings of Life in Contemporary Ireland], Tom Inglis questioned 100 people about their beliefs. He was surprised at the level of doubt and skepticism among those who professed themselves to be Catholic. One respondent, asked about his belief in God, replies: ‘I don’t pray... but we do Holy Communion and all that!’ Another married Catholic husband says: ‘I’m Catholic, but believing in God is... yeah, I suppose I do, but... you know when you look at things and you kind of say it’s like a wish, you know.’ Only two of the respondents [out of one hundred] in the study seemed to embrace religion as an integral part of their everyday lives. One was Pentecostal who talked of the presence of God when she prayed. The other was a Muslim who felt Mohammed was more important in his life than everything, including his own father. When he got in his car, instead of turning on the radio, he prayed for 15 minutes. For the cultural Catholic, on the other hand, religion seems to be a flag of convenience. At certain times, when there are gaps in their lives, they may turn to the Faith of their fathers for comfort and have moments of spiritual reflection.
“An immediate and pressing problem for the Church is that priests are a dying breed, with many required to work into their seventies or eighties because of falling vocations. As he departed Ireland in the past month, the papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown warned that the Church was at the edge of a cliff and about to go into freefall as far as the number of priests is concerned. In the current issue of the Jesuit journal Studies, the editorial says that back in the early 1950s, a contemporary observer was able to describe Ireland as ‘the most Catholic country in the world’. But in this decade, the Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has warned that the Church is in danger of becoming ‘an irrelevant minority culture’. Father Duffy says there are 7,000 Catholics in the Cabinteely area, but only 800 of them go to Mass at weekends. At around 14%, Mass attendance is relatively high compared to many areas in Dublin. Fr. Duffy adds: ‘The missing age group are the 18-to-40s. There a is a large number of people that you never see, apart from at events such as Confirmations, weddings and funerals.’” (The Independent, April 9th, 2018).
Dwindling Weekly Mass Attendance
1972-1973 91%
1981 87%
1988-1989 87%
2006 56%
2007-2008 44%
2010 45%
2011 30%
2017 18%
Much later, when the English came, they came as Protestants. As conquerors and overlords, their esteem of the Irish was appalling. The Irish were wild and uncivilized in the English perception, and the English subjected the Irish to the worst abuse. The English killed many Irish, stole their land (often "allowing" them to rent it back,) and imposed ruinous laws upon their way of life.
Many people suffered, and many died, over many years, because they were Irish; and they died as Catholics. In some cases, the English offered special amnesties to Irish Catholics who would renounce their Faith and become Protestant. Naturally, the dishonor of any such agreement would not wash away; and the honor implicit in keeping the Irish Catholic Faith was deep.
While the practical matter of whether Northern Ireland is a part of English Britain or Irish Ireland is obviously driving the conflicts there in the North, the religious differences are clearly a strong part of the basic disagreement between two communities.
Since Ireland achieved partial independence from the British Empire, the Church continued to play a significant social and political role in the Irish Free State and following that the Republic of Ireland. For many decades, Catholic influence (coupled with the rural nature of Irish society) meant that Ireland was able to uphold family-orientated social policies for longer than most of the West, contrary to the laissez-faire-associated social liberalism of the British and Americans. This cultural direction was particularly prominent under Éamon de Valera. For example, from 1937 until 1995, divorce and remarriage was not permitted (in line with Catholic views of marriage). Similarly, the importation of contraception abortion and pornography were also resisted; media-depictions perceived to be detrimental to public morality were also opposed by Catholics. In addition the Church largely controlled the State's hospitals, schools and remained the largest provider of many other social services.
With the partition of Ireland in 1922, 93% of the south's population were Catholic while 7% were Protestant. By the 1960s, the Anglican and Protestant population had fallen by half, mostly due to emigration in the early years of Irish independence. Some Protestants were loyal to the British Empire and did not wish to live in sovereign Irish state. The Catholic Church's policy of Ne Temere, whereby the children of marriages between Catholics and Protestants had to be brought up as Catholics, also helped to uphold Catholic hegemony.
The Irish State is still nominally a Catholic state. The grip of Catholicism has weakened considerably in recent years, for a couple of main reasons. One reason has been the secularizing influence of modernization, fueled by an expanding economy. The economic boom of the mid-1990s, known as the “Celtic Tiger”, brought an inevitable change to the Irish culture. The plain effect of money changed people, for better and for worse. Also, money brought greater contact with the outside world—through economic ties and through immigration.
In both parts of Ireland, Church policy and practice changed markedly after the Vatican II reforms of 1962. Probably the largest change was that Mass could be said in vernacular languages instead of Latin, and in 1981 the Church commissioned its first edition of the Bible in the Irish language, but the Church overwhelmingly uses English. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid was uneasy about the introduction of an English liturgy and ecumenical revisions, finding it offensive to Catholic sensibilities; he wished to uphold the liturgy in Latin, while also offering Irish as the vernacular (he promoted an Irish language provision more than other Bishops).
The Irish State is still nominally a Catholic state. The grip of Catholicism has weakened considerably in recent years, for a couple of main reasons. One reason has been the secularizing influence of modernization, fueled by an expanding economy. The economic boom of the mid-1990s, known as the “Celtic Tiger”, brought an inevitable change to the Irish culture. The plain effect of money changed people, for better and for worse. Also, money brought greater contact with the outside world—through economic ties and through immigration.
Since the “Celtic Tiger” and the furtherance of Anglocentric globalism in Ireland, Catholicism has been one of the traditional elements of Ireland in decline; particularly in urban areas. Fewer than one in five Catholics attend Mass on any given Sunday in Dublin with many young people only retaining a marginal interest in religion the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said in May 2011. According to a poll by the Irish Times, the majority of Irish Catholics do not attend mass weekly, with almost 62% rejecting key parts of Catholicism such as transubstantiation.
By the Year 2005
Around thirteen years ago, on April 17th, 2005, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on the Faith in Ireland, entitled “Catholicism losing ground in Ireland”, speaking of “the nearly deserted corridor of the seminary at St. Patrick’s College” in Ireland, where “year by year, the group of graduating seminary students gets smaller. Slowly, the number of young men willing to replenish the priesthood of the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is shrinking … Ireland produced more priests than it could use for generations, seeding the Catholic Church in other countries. The national diocesan seminary at Maynooth, 20 miles west of Dublin, has turned out more than 11,000 priests since its founding in 1795 … But instead of the 500 or so seminarians, who would have studied here [each year] in the past, now there are but 60. And the college’s numbers have been bulked up mainly by lay students of both sexes studying theology [but not studying for the priesthood]. Last year [in 2004], 15 men were ordained as Catholic priests for the entire island, with 5.6 million people―4.2 million of them Catholic. In the [Protestant] Anglican-linked Church of Ireland, a fraction of the Catholic Church’s size, 19 were ordained, including several women.
“Overwhelmed by a tide of secularism and economic prosperity, challenged by a new mood of independence in the population and devastated by a decade of scandals involving serial child abuse by clerics, the Catholic Church in Ireland finds itself demoralized, almost in shock. ‘Irish Catholicism, as we knew it in Ireland, is gone!’ said Patsy McGarry, religious affairs writer for the Irish Times. The days when nearly everyone was a churchgoing Catholic, the parish priest was revered and Church doctrine was central in public policy and private life are no more ... In the 1970s, more than 90% of Irish Catholics said they went to Mass once a week. Now the number is 44%, according to a recent survey. In an interview with The Times in Rome, Cardinal Desmond Connell, retired archbishop of Dublin, said: ‘Ireland has become part of the Western European scene. We have been moving in a secularizing direction. But the pace of all this has been accelerated by the extraordinary leap forward in our country’s prosperity. There’s a lot of surplus cash around, and people are enjoying it. I have no trouble with that, but when they enjoy the immediate, they forget the ultimate.’
“Young Catholics began to excuse themselves from certain Church teachings, such as the ban on premarital sex. Married couples practiced birth control. The sale of condoms was legalized in 1979, despite church opposition. In 1995, a referendum amended the constitution to give couples the right to divorce. A similar measure in 1986 had been roundly defeated.” (Los Angeles Times, April 17th, 2005).
By the Year 2006
A little over a year later, on July 9th, 2006, the Chicago Tribune printed article from their foreign correspondent in Dublin, Ireland, entitled “How Catholicism fell from grace in Ireland”, in which it reports: “Like most of its continental neighbors, Ireland is undergoing a severe crisis of Faith. Religious belief in this island bastion of Roman Catholicism is under siege by the twin forces of secularization and modernization … What makes Ireland an interesting case study is the speed of the decline and the efforts of the Catholic Church―lay people and clergy―to come to grips with the crisis … Through most of the 20th Century, Ireland was poor, backward and deeply Catholic … Today, Ireland is prosperous, cosmopolitan and no longer so very Catholic. As recently as the 1970s, 90% of the Irish identified themselves as Catholic and almost the same number went to Mass at least once a week; now [in 2005] the figure for Mass attendance is closer to 25%, according to Church officials in Dublin ... These days Irish seminaries are nearly empty. Last year [2005], for the first time in its history, the Dublin archdiocese ordained no new priests. Foreign priests … have been brought in to fill the gap. The collapse has occurred with breathtaking rapidity … As the nation moved toward independence from the United Kingdom in the 20th century, the Church hierarchy consolidated its privileged status … During the middle years of the 20th Century, Ireland's bishops could make or break governments, and the Catholic hierarchy held a firm grip on national legislation that banned divorce, limited the sale of contraceptives and criminalized homosexual activity. But in the late 1960s, Ireland began an economic and social makeover. Its doors opened to immigrants, the “Celtic Tiger” [economic boom] was loosed and, by the 1990s, this once-impoverished nation was on its way to becoming the European Union's second-wealthiest nation by capita (behind Luxembourg). Prosperity and secularization weakened the Church's traditional hold on the Irish soul; the sex scandals accelerated the process.
In the same article, the Chicago Tribune, stated that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, delivered a lecture: “Will Ireland be Christian in 2030?” a few months after his appointment as head [primate] of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in which he noted that “ ‘from the early 1970s to the late 1990s’ there was a ‘period of rapid social change’ and ‘the Church wasn't able to maintain its own sense of purpose … The Faith of the Church had become rather shallow. It didn't seem to have the roots that were needed at the time.’ The lost trust and credibility, he said, would have to be earned back. It would be a mistake, he added, for the Church to think that ‘just by being nice, or by being modern, that people’s innate religiosity would come back to life.’ He has told Catholic audiences that the Church in Ireland had become too hierarchical and too authoritarian and that it had grown too close to power. One of Martin's major initiatives has been to create a system of parish councils staffed by lay people. The idea is to break down the perception that the clergy "owns" the Church. Some priests have resisted, but Martin says that for the Church to survive in the 21st century, it will have to create new forms of religious community. In many ways, this runs counter to traditional Irish habits of worship.
“Fr. Owuamanam, the Nigerian priest [imported to make up for lack of Irish vocations], joked that parishioners at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral measured his ability as a priest by how quickly he could get through the Mass. ‘Here I try to be very fast! Twenty-five or thirty minutes. In Africa, a Mass is two or three hours long!" he said. Anything less, he said, and people would feel cheated. ‘And in Africa, they don't just sit and watch. They sing, they dance, they are included.’ Owuamanam said he has concluded that the Irish are lacking in ‘spiritual energy.’ Archbishop Martin put it another way. ‘Irish Catholicism is very individualistic,’ he said. Even in parishes where everyone knows everyone else, the tendency is to regard church ‘as a service station in which each person comes for their own private devotions . . . tanking up on grace for the week,’ he said. A big reason for this deficit of communal spiritual energy, Martin said, is that to many Irish Catholics and Christians across Western Europe, the traditional Church appears dull and resistant to change.” (Chicago Tribune, July 9th, 2006).
By the Year 2012
On August 8th, 2012, the Irish Independent newspaper ran an article entitled “We’re losing our Faith faster than most countries as only 47% say they are religious”, which stated that “the scale of the crisis facing the Church in Ireland is laid bare today in a stark survey which reveals that religious faith is plummeting. Irish people are abandoning religion faster than almost every other country worldwide … Only Vietnam has seen a bigger drop in people declaring themselves to be religious over the past seven years.” The article spoke of a survey on the Faith where a recent “poll asked people, irrespective of whether they attended a place of worship, if they considered themselves to be religious, not religious, or an atheist.” Such a poll was last conducted in 2005 and “an overwhelming 69% of Irish people declared themselves to be ‘a religious person’ … but this has now plummeted to 47% … A survey in February … found the public at odds with the Church hierarchy on a range of issues, including women clergy and married priests. That survey … found that 77% believed women should be ordained. Nine out of 10 said priests should be able to marry. It also revealed just 35% [a number that is contested as being too high] went to church on a weekly basis.” (The Irish Independent, August 8th, 2012).
By the Year 2012
The Irish newspaper, The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th 2017 edition article, entitled “Storm Coming”, revealed that “The country is becoming more secular, the Catholic Church doesn’t have the power it used to have … Statistics from the 2016 Census revealed that only 78% of the population is Catholic compared with 84% in 2011 and 92% in 1991.” Ireland’s capital city “Dublin and Galway, were above average when it came to the number of non-Catholics, working out at more than one in three people.” The grip of secularism on Catholicism is manifest by the fact that “the average number of children in a family is 1.38” which indicates a clear contraceptive mentality, “and there are 218,817 single parent families, 86% of which are headed by women.” Even greater moral deviation is shown by “same-sex civil partnerships, counted for the first time last year, and 4,226 people confirmed they had tied the knot. But in total, there were 6,034 same-sex couples. Also on the relationship front, the census recorded 103,895 divorcees.” (The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th, 2017).
By the Year 2016
The Irish Times, in the article “Mass attendance in Dublin to drop by one-third by 2030”, published on January 21st, 2016, revealed that “Weekly Mass attendances, in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese, are projected to drop by a third over the next 15 years, while the number of priests serving in parishes is expected to fall by over 60% to 144 in the same period. And this is the most optimistic projection … The analysis also found that 57% of Dublin’s priests today are over 60. It is projected that three-quarters of priests will be over 60 by 2030. Weekly Mass attendance levels in Dublin are currently put at 20%-22% (of the population), while being as low as 2%-3% in some working-class parishes … The report found that, since 2000, marriage rates in the archdiocese had dropped at an annual rate of 4% … the steepest falls in Catholic marriages were in 2009, when the fall was 16% per cent, and 2011, when it was 13%” (The Irish Times, January 21st, 2016).
By the Year 2017
In one of its July 31st, 2017, articles, entitled “Loss of Faith leaving us in a moral wasteland”, the Irish newspaper, Irish Examiner stated: “The influence of religion in Ireland is on the wane, and over the past 40 years in particular, this has been an accelerating phenomenon. The truth is Ireland is losing its religion … Too much has changed too quickly … Since the foundation of the modern Irish State in 1922, religion has been the social cement that provided cohesion and stability, and it was religion primarily that shaped our common moral framework” which meant that Ireland’s “value-system was rooted in religion.”
“A key to that understanding … the collapse of religion, in one of the most conspicuously devout countries of Europe … is the spread of secularization,” the consequences of which have led to a “reduction in the numbers of people going to church” and a “reduction in recruitment to the priesthood, ministry or religious orders” as well as “the relaxation of the felt need in government to defer to the institutional church or the religious sensibilities of the electorate.” All of this is linked to “the decline in the institutional Church to the decline in the Catholic Faith as a central part of Irish culture” because the Irish people, for the most part, “are getting by without God, most of the time.” It is clearly obvious that “the Catholic Church means much less to young people in Ireland today than it has ever done in the course of Christian history. The young Irish no longer see catholicity as part of their identity.”
As for the causes of this collapse of the Faith, the article states that the “decisive turning-point marking the beginning of a significant abandonment of religion, then that subject would be contraception, and the date would be 1968 which saw the publication of Pope Paul VI’s anti-contraceptive encyclical Humanae Vitae.”
“The turning point in Ireland, in the 1960s, is widely credited to the Catholic Church’s stand against artificial contraception” which resulted in Catholic women following their modern sexual lifestyle and “ceased in huge numbers to pay any serious attention to the clergy … The retired Bishop of Killaloe, William Walsh, says: ‘I believe that the questioning of, and dissent from, the teaching of Humanae Vitae [the encyclical against contraception] was a watershed in the Catholic Church.’” Mothers are a key factor in transmitting the Faith to their children and “the desertion of the Church by women seriously undermined the basis of religious Faith.”
“With the collapse of religion and the values it promoted” Irish society has been placed in “a moral vacuum” and is “facing a moral wasteland”, which manifests itself by “the rise in anti-social behavior, petty crime and serious violent crime, and growing disrespect for persons and property.” (The Belfast Telegraph, in its April 7th 2017).
Six months later, on October 19th, 2017, Irish Central, in its article “Irish Catholicism is dying - no new priests and falling mass attendance” reported the following: “The latest census numbers for the Republic of Ireland show that the percentage of Catholics dropped from approximately 78% to 72%. Back in the 1950s and 60s more than 94% of people designated Catholicism as their religion … When you factor in that 12% of that 72% number are foreign-born Catholics, mostly Polish, who have immigrated in large numbers to Ireland, it makes even chillier reading … When you put this latest information together with the news that there are only seven students studying for the priesthood in the 2017 freshman class at St. Patrick’s College, in Maynooth, it makes sober reading for the bishops … The bad news is that the average age of the current priests serving the community is 70, an astonishing number and one that points to a looming crisis sooner rather than later … The sad fact for Catholicism is that the Church has endeavored to bolt the stable door with a carrot and the horses have easily fled anyway.” (Irish Central, October 19th, 2017).
On April 9th, 2018, the Independent ran an article entitled “The Church has its cross to bear”, reports that “At one time in the 1950s, Ireland was described as 'the most Catholic country in the world'. But this week's census figures show a surge in the numbers with ‘no religion’. Tom Inglis, associate professor of sociology at UCD, has studied the depth of Faith in Ireland in recent years, says: ‘The census confirms that Ireland is less Catholic than it was five years ago’ he says … All the available figures show that the vast majority of self-proclaimed Catholics do not darken the door of a church for months on end. In some parts of Dublin, Mass attendance among Catholics is known to be as low as 3%. In wealthier suburbs, the figures are much higher [15%] … Father Seamus Ahearne, the Augustinian parish priest of Finglas South in Dublin, says: ‘In the past the Church was the people of the poor, but now if you want to find higher attendance figures, it is in area like Dublin 4 [a wealthy part of the city]’ Parishes that are attracting 15pc of Catholics to Mass in Dublin are considered to be doing well, and these are concentrated in more affluent suburbs.
“ ‘Religion is not in the hearts, in the minds or on the lips of Catholics,’ says Tom Inglis … The sociologist says that there is still a diminishing group of orthodox Catholics who remain loyal members of the institutional Church. But the majority are what he terms ‘Cultural Catholics’. They connect with the Church during important rites of passage in their lives, and those of their children. Their Catholic identity remains important, even if they do not live out most of their lives in a spiritual realm. They would sooner walk over hot coals than read the catechism or go to confession. Father Ahearne says: ‘Most people do not have a personal relationship with God.’ They have embraced the rugged individualism of a consumer society. According to Inglis, Irish people now find meaning in family life, their sense of place, and relationships with friends and neighbors. For most people, the Church still remains an important venue for family events. As one leader of a Dublin parish council puts it with a certain bemusement: ‘A lot of people only really go to a church now when they are hatched, matched and dispatched. Otherwise we don’t see them.’
“For his book, ‘Meanings of Life in Contemporary Ireland], Tom Inglis questioned 100 people about their beliefs. He was surprised at the level of doubt and skepticism among those who professed themselves to be Catholic. One respondent, asked about his belief in God, replies: ‘I don’t pray... but we do Holy Communion and all that!’ Another married Catholic husband says: ‘I’m Catholic, but believing in God is... yeah, I suppose I do, but... you know when you look at things and you kind of say it’s like a wish, you know.’ Only two of the respondents [out of one hundred] in the study seemed to embrace religion as an integral part of their everyday lives. One was Pentecostal who talked of the presence of God when she prayed. The other was a Muslim who felt Mohammed was more important in his life than everything, including his own father. When he got in his car, instead of turning on the radio, he prayed for 15 minutes. For the cultural Catholic, on the other hand, religion seems to be a flag of convenience. At certain times, when there are gaps in their lives, they may turn to the Faith of their fathers for comfort and have moments of spiritual reflection.
“An immediate and pressing problem for the Church is that priests are a dying breed, with many required to work into their seventies or eighties because of falling vocations. As he departed Ireland in the past month, the papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown warned that the Church was at the edge of a cliff and about to go into freefall as far as the number of priests is concerned. In the current issue of the Jesuit journal Studies, the editorial says that back in the early 1950s, a contemporary observer was able to describe Ireland as ‘the most Catholic country in the world’. But in this decade, the Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has warned that the Church is in danger of becoming ‘an irrelevant minority culture’. Father Duffy says there are 7,000 Catholics in the Cabinteely area, but only 800 of them go to Mass at weekends. At around 14%, Mass attendance is relatively high compared to many areas in Dublin. Fr. Duffy adds: ‘The missing age group are the 18-to-40s. There a is a large number of people that you never see, apart from at events such as Confirmations, weddings and funerals.’” (The Independent, April 9th, 2018).
Dwindling Weekly Mass Attendance
1972-1973 91%
1981 87%
1988-1989 87%
2006 56%
2007-2008 44%
2010 45%
2011 30%
2017 18%