The Established Church

Chapter 4 provides an overview of the role played by migration in creating the Church of Ireland and its body of adherents. It discusses the manner in which secular Protestants derived great benefit from their religion and the manner in which they came to emphasize religious ‘reliability’ as a touchstone of loyalty, and the central role of the rebellion of 1641 in developing Irish Protestants’ understanding of their situation and role in Ireland. The chapter demonstrates the profoundly migratory character of Early Modern Irish Protestantism and the manner in which its leadership was dominated primarily by British-born bishops and then secondarily by New English migrants, to the almost complete exclusion of figures of native provenance. As a result, both the church and its community acquired a migrant stamp which contributed to its evangelical inefficacy in Ireland.

Confessionalism and Mobility in Early Modern Ireland

This is a book about the intersection between processes of mobility and religious identity and practice in Early Modern Ireland. The period between c.1580 and c.1685 was one of momentous importance in terms of the establishment of different confessional identities in the island, and various typesof mobility played a key role in the development, articulation, and maintenance of separate religious communities. Part I examines the dialectic between migration and religious adherence, paying particular attention to the transnational dimension of clerical formation which played a vital role in shaping the competing Catholic, Church of Ireland, and non-conformist clergies. Part II investigates how more quotidian practices of mobility such as pilgrimage and interparochial communions helped to elaborate religious identities and the central role of figurative images of movement in structuring Christians’ understanding of their lives. The final chapters of the book analyze the extraordinary importance of migratory experience in shaping the lives and writings of the authors of key confessional identity texts. Hitherto underestimated or taken for granted, the book argues that migrants and exiles were of crucial significance in forging the self-understanding of the different religious communities of the island.

Introduction

This is a book about the intersection between processes of mobility and religious identity and practice in Early Modern Ireland. The period between c.1580 and c.1685 was one of momentous importance in terms of the establishment of different confessional identities in the island, and processes of mobility played a key role in the development, articulation, and maintenance of separate religious communities. Part I of the book examines the dialectic between migration and religious adherence, paying particular attention to the transnational dimension of clerical formation which played a vital role in shaping the competing Catholic Church of Ireland and non-conformist clergies. Part II investigates how more quotidian practices of mobility such as pilgrimage and interparochial communions helped to elaborate religious identities and the central role of figurative images of movement in structuring Christians’ understanding of their lives. The final chapters of the book analyze the extraordinary importance of migratory experience in shaping the lives and writings of the authors of key confessional identity texts. The book argues that migrants and exiles, hitherto underestimated or taken for granted, were of crucial significance in forging the self-understanding of the different religious communities of the island.

Together and Apart

This chapter traces the long history of the rival confessional communities in Ireland that cohabited in the cities, which provides a key to understanding urban culture. It underlines the contrast between the non-existent legal status of the Catholic Church and the exclusive constitutional position of the established Church of Ireland. The eighteenth-century Catholic Church continued to function both in Dublin and the southern cities. But deprived of the patronage of a sympathetic gentry, the Church as an organization was drastically weakened after the Jacobite defeat. The chapter then presents the Catholic Church's organizational recovery and the creation of a new Catholic politics, urban and lay in character. It details the growth of functioning parishes of the Church of Ireland built in Dublin between the 1660s and 1800s. The chapter then turns to discuss the Church of Ireland's visible challenge in artisan districts: the arrival of a string of Methodist preachers, and investigates its immediate impact in Dublin. Ultimately, the chapter unveils the political power of Presbyterians in Dublin, and it analyzes the significance of Dublin in the emergence of the reformist tendency in Presbyterianism.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

Like so much else, this year's Synod was very different from what had been planned. As the Church of Ireland marks 150 years since disestablishment, this last Synod of the current triennium was to be held in May in Croke Park, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association and a politically significant venue. Instead, pursuant to section 30 of the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions Act) 2020, which provides for the validity of remote meetings of an unincorporated body, notice was given that an ordinary meeting of the General Synod would be held by electronic communication technology on 1, 2 and, if necessary, 3 December 2020. It was the first Synod for its new President, Archbishop John McDowell, following his translation to Archbishop of Armagh on 28 April 2020.

Southern Protestant Voices during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War: Reports from Church of Ireland Synods

This chapter records the experiences of southern members of the Church of Ireland, the largest protestant denomination, during the period of the Irish revolution, 1919–23. The main source is one that has been rarely used in the past. It involves the speeches of Church of Ireland bishops at annual local and national diocesan synods during these tumultuous years. As both leaders and observers of their dioceses, the bishops' comments reflected many of the concerns and anxieties of their community. They recorded the violence which forced many members of the church to leave Ireland at this time. They also spoke of efforts to maintain good relations between denominations.

Protestant Depopulation in County Longford during the Irish Revolution, 1911–1926*

The experience of the Protestant minority in Ireland during the years of the Irish revolution has been the subject of much academic and popular debate in recent years. At issue is the extent to which the decline by one-third of the Protestant population of the Irish Free State between 1911 and 1926 was a result either of intimidation, sectarianism or ethnic cleansing during the revolution itself, or of more mundane factors such as long-term patterns of migration and low marriage and birth rates. Drawing upon digitised census returns and the rich detail contained in the records of the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches in County Longford, this article will show that the causes of depopulation are better understood when precise chronological, local, denominational and gender perspectives are brought to bear. It will argue for greater engagement with sociological literature to define more effectively the meaning of sectarianism in revolutionary Ireland. It will also invert the principal question of why the Protestants left and seek to explain why those who remained chose to do so. County Longford is chosen as a suitable case-study because it was affected by both long-term socio-economic factors and revolutionary violence, and the three Protestant denominations in the county have extensive archives which help to fill the gap in civil data occasioned by the absence of a census of population for fifteen years between 1911 and 1926. The article identifies dynamics present in Longford that can be explored in other regional contexts to achieve a wider national understanding of this demographic shift.