Politics and Religion in Ireland

Cauldron of ConflictsRev Peter O’Reilly

Irish Icebergs

The Papal Bull Laudabiliter

Legitimizing the Norman Invasion

• 1155 Pope Adrian IV issues Laudabiliter

• Henry II given Lordship over Ireland

• Mandate to bring in the Gregorian Reforms

• Norman barons begin a process of conquest

Growing Influence

Reformation Rupture

• Influence of the Catholic Church grew until 1535 when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of Ireland breaking with Rome

• From now on the Crown sought to control or suppress the Catholic Church

• Colonial Process begins in earnest

The Plantations

The Colonial Project

• From the sixteenth century onwards the plan was to replace native Catholic landowners with loyal English and Scottish settlers

• The Tudor state set course on a policy to reinforce political power with religious and ethic loyalties – Penal Laws

• Not unlike what happened in the Ukraine with the import of Russian settlers

The Rise of Parliamentary Democracy

An Gorta Mor – The Famine

• 1845 – 1850 Potato Crop Fails. 1 Million People Die

• Population falls from 8 Million to 3.5m due to Starvation and subsequent Emigration

• Huge resentment over continued food exports to England during the period

Changing Fortunes

• Catholic Emancipation 1829

• Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland 1871

• 19th Century Catholic and Protestant Revivalism. Gaelic Revivalism

1921 The Irish Free State and Northern Ireland

Political and Religious Asymmetry

• By 1921 when the 28 counties making up the Free State gained a measure of Independence and the 6 Northern counties stayed within the UK, religious divides mirrored political ones

• Eire was over 80% Catholic in Population• Some parts of Northern Ireland had a

population ranging from 90% to 50% Protestant with the remainder Catholic

Trouble Ahead Craig and De Valera

Confessional States?

• James Craig Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1922 – 1940 declared ‘ All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State’(Speech at Stormont 1935)

• Eamon De Valera shadowed Craig as Taoiseach in the South and in 1937 launched a new Constitution for the Irish Republic which declared the ‘special position of the Catholic Church”

Religion and Identity

• Both states utilized religion to shore up their shaky existence, the Republic reeling from a vicious civil war, Northern Ireland struggling for viability

• The Republic’s Protestant population was small and declining, NI’s Catholic Population was sizable and growing and suffered serious discrimination

The Civil Rights Movement

The times are a changing

• The 1960’s in Northern Ireland saw the growth of a civil rights movement based on that in the United States

• Its aim was an end to all forms of discrimination in areas such as housing, employment and voting rights.

• Mass protest ended in violence with events such as ‘the battle of the Bogside’

The British/Irish Agreement

• The British/Irish agreement popularly known as the Good Friday Agreement came into effect on 2nd December 1999

• Dealt with a wide range of cross community and Intergovernmental issues recognizing the broad basis of conflict

• Set NI on the road to Peace and Reconciliation

Politics, Social Deprivation and Religious Difference

• Religion, Cultural and Political differences boiled over into violence with the emergence of paramilitaries on both sides

• Religion here was only part of a much more complex picture which saw the breakdown of the civil order in Northern Ireland

• Religion’s greatest significance was as a bearer of social identity

The breakdown of Civil Society

Pope John Paul II Drogheda 1979

Words of Passionate Pleading

• ‘On my knees I beg you to turn aside from the paths of violence and return to the ways of peace’

• ‘May no Protestant think that the Pope is an enemy’

Drogheda 29th September 1979