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3 • The Catholic Church It is generally agreed that the Catholic Church played a highly significant role in almost every dimension of the life of Irish migrants in nineteenthcentury Britain.1 Nonetheless, two caveats should be borne in mind. First, whilst a good deal of attention will be focused on the social, cultural and political impact of the church, its prime self-defined function was spiritual, namely to preach its version of the Christian message and provide the faithful with opportunities for worship, spiritual solace, instruction and guidance.2 Second
This book provides a review and consideration of the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland in the intense political and social changes after 1879 through a major figure in Irish history, Michael Logue. Despite being a figure of pivotal historical importance in Ireland, no substantial study of Michael Logue (1840–1924) has previously been undertaken. Exploring previously under-researched areas, such as the clash between science and faith, university education and state-building, the book contributes to our understanding of the relationship between the Church and the state in modern Ireland. It also sets out to redress any historical misunderstanding of Michael Logue and provides a fresh perspective on existing interpretations of the role of the Church and on areas of historical debate in this period.
historical setting, but a composite part of a ‘liberationist’ climate. Investigating Catholic women’s sexual experience Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, the meaning and function of sex had been considered to be trans-historical, prescribed by the strictures of natural law. That the Church’s definition of sexuality could be shaped by human intervention represented a
3995 Migrations.qxd:text 5/8/13 11:39 Page 55 3 Migrant integration and the ‘network-making power’ of the Irish Catholic Church Breda Gray Introduction In this chapter I discuss the Irish Catholic Church as both a bureaucratic hierarchal institution and transnational network that promotes migrant integration and welfare via ‘network-making power’ (Castells, 2009, 2011). The Catholic Church has always channelled flows of religious values, information and people. However, my focus here is on the network-making power of the Irish Catholic Church in shaping the
4147 Inglis–Are the Irish different_BB_Layout 1 29/07/2014 09:26 Page 99 10 Sexual abuse and the Catholic Church Marie Keenan The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture. It’s fair to say that after the Ryan and Murphy Reports Ireland is, perhaps, unshockable when it comes to the abuse of children. But Cloyne has proved to be of a different order. Because for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an Inquiry in
1 Scotland’s Catholic Church before emancipation For much of the period between the Reformation and the nineteenth century, Catholicism existed on the periphery of Scottish society, its survival fraught with uncertainty in an atmosphere of institutionalised anti-Catholicism and extreme poverty. The Scottish Mission, a term used to describe the Catholic Church in Scotland between 1603 and 1878, when it had no formal governing hierarchy, had been thrown into complete disarray by the Reformation. Those who remained Catholics went underground, keeping their
parts of Gaelic Scotland – provided that preachers were sent to convert them. Yet by the outbreak of the rising in 1641–42, the Roman Catholic Church was so strong that its prelates and clergy soon replaced the Church of Ireland personnel as the de facto ecclesiastical establishment in those large areas of mid- and west Ulster under Irish military control. This transformation demands exploration, for Catholic life has been a neglected corner in the field of recent plantation scholarship. 2 It is well known that the lack of any serious Protestant engagement with
This chapter focuses on two distinguishing features of HIV/AIDS in Italy, and
their intersection: the prevalence of HIV transmission via intravenous drug
use in Italy, and the interventions of the Catholic Church. It uses as a
case study the controversial founding by Caritas of an AIDS care centre in
Rome in 1988, to serve young current or former heroin users who lacked a
stable home. There is also an important international context in that the
controversy that delayed the opening of the centre coincided with the
passing of stricter drug legislation in the USA and the visit of Italian
Socialist Party Secretary Bettino Craxi to New York and Washington to
discuss related matters. Craxi soon introduced similar legislation into
Italian parliament. The confluence of these events and their conflation in
government and media discourse alike, this chapter argues, affected
attitudes towards the care centre, and led to the effective criminalisation
of HIV/AIDS in Italy.
The sources cited and analysed to reconstruct
this history include print and audio-visual media from both Italy and the
USA. These sources highlight Italy’s concern for its image on the
international stage; the ‘activism’ of Caritas and the counter-activism of
neighbourhood residents; the fears of these residents of social contagion
and drug use in their wealthy area; and how all of these factors contributed
to the construction of an aetiology that posited intravenous drug users as
the ur-sources of HIV, outside the bounds of ‘normal’ society and the
traditional Italian family.
Irish Women and the Creation of Modern Catholicism is the only book-length study of lay Catholic women in modern Irish history. Focusing on the pivotal century from 1850 to 1950, it analyses the roles that middle-class, working-class, and rural poor lay women played in the evolution of Irish Catholicism and thus the creation of modern Irish identities. This project demonstrates that in an age of Church growth and renewal stretching from the aftermath of the Great Famine through the early years of the Irish Republic, lay women were essential to all aspects of Catholic devotional life, including both home-based religion and public Catholic rituals. It also reveals that women, by rejecting, negotiating, and reworking Church dictates, complicated Church and clerical authority. Irish Women and the Creation of Modern Catholicism re-evaluates the relationship between the institutional Church, the clergy, and women, positioning lay Catholic women as central actors in the making of modern Ireland. It also contests views that the increasing power of the Catholic Church caused a uniform decline in Irish women’s status after the Great Famine of the 1840s, revealing that middle-class, working-class, and rural poor lay women fought with their priests, dominated household religion, and led parish rituals, thus proving integral to the development of a modern Irish Catholic ethos and culture.
This book is concerned with political, intellectual and cultural developments in the context of assessments as to how Ireland was transformed during the 1950s and the 1960s. It analyses how Tuairim (meaning ‘opinion’ in Irish), an intellectual movement influenced key public policy decisions in relation to Northern Ireland, education, industrial schools and censorship.
An analysis of Tuairim shows that the 1950s and 1960s were a transformative phase in modern Irish history. In these years, a conservative society dominated by the Catholic Church, and a state which was inward-looking and distrustful of novelty, gradually opened up to fresh ideas. This study considers this change. It explores how Tuairim was at the vanguard of the challenge to orthodoxy and conservatism. The society established branches throughout Ireland, including Belfast, and in London. It produced frequent critical publications and boasted a number of members who later became prominent in Irish public life; this included the future Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, Donal Barrington, later a Supreme Court Judge and Miriam Hederman O’Brien, a future Chancellor in the University of Limerick. Tuairim provided a unique space for civic engagement for its members and made a significant contribution to debates on contemporary Ireland and its future.
This book is concerned with the society’s role in the modernisation of Ireland. In so doing it also addresses topics of continued relevance for the Ireland of today, including the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the institutional care of children.