Irish Question

At the time of Luther / Reformation most northern european countries seemed "happy" to throw off the yoke of Papal authority. However Ireland remained staunchly Catholic (even dispite pomgroms by the English).

My question is why? What was different about the Church in Ireland?
 
In England, the Reformation was an entirely top-down process - it wouldn't have happened if Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon had had a son who survived to adulthood (which would be an interesting POD). Ireland was only nominally under English control when the English Reformation happened, so it didn't participate.

It's also not true that all of Northern Europe accepted the Reformation; I know you said "most" in your post, which is true, but a technical majority is not the same as all or almost all. Most of the Low Countries remained Catholic (all of today's Belgium plus North Brabant and the mainland chunk of Zeeland), and neither did northern France.
 
I think part of it has to do with how much the Catholic Church (especially Saint Patrick) is a part of Irish culture and identity. Even today, many Irish don't see a distinction between their ethnicity and their religious affiliation (though granted, some of that may be a result of said pogroms).
 
The Reformation was NOT top down, not really. Henry's split from Rome had little to do with protestantism, and substantial numbers of Calvinist and Lutheran converts especially in the merchant class pushed Anglicanism into the Protestant fold.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the welsh and the highland Scots were only converted to Protestantism/Presbyterianism because the preachers where willing to preach to them (and print bibles in) there own languages, welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Just have the same happen in Ireland.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the welsh and the highland Scots were only converted to Protestantism/Presbyterianism because the preachers where willing to preach to them (and print bibles in) there own languages, welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Just have the same happen in Ireland.

That's a point I hadn't considered. Never underestimate the power of the vernacular.
 
The Reformation was NOT top down, not really. Henry's split from Rome had little to do with protestantism, and substantial numbers of Calvinist and Lutheran converts especially in the merchant class pushed Anglicanism into the Protestant fold.

The split is what allowed the Church of England to evolve independently, and subsequently become Protestant under Edward. In France, where there was no such split, the pressures on the church never went far enough to turn the country Protestant.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the welsh and the highland Scots were only converted to Protestantism/Presbyterianism because the preachers where willing to preach to them (and print bibles in) there own languages, welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Just have the same happen in Ireland.

Not really. In the Highlands you had conversion on strictly Clan lines. Individual chiefs chose religious sides based on political considerations (and a hefty dose of personal religious inclination) and then as tribal leaders imposed it on their clans men. A good example is that Clan Campbell went Protestant because the Earl of Argyll (it's head) wanted it to while Clan Macdonnell stayed Catholic because as Clan Campbell's arch-rivals they'd sooner commit mass suicide than be on the same side.



As for Ireland the Church there was just as corrupt and incompetent as anywhere else in late medieval Europe and in some ways was worse as the pre-Reformation Irish Church was heavily influenced by the English. But when England reformed strict adherence to Catholicism was a way for the Irish to demonstrate that while they were ruled by the English they weren't English. I suspect that if Catherine of Aragon had a son and England had stayed Catholic (which would have required some religious genocide and oppression) then Ireland would probably have gone Protestant just to piss England off.
 
The Church in Ireland has always had a unique connection with the people. One has to remember/discover that pre-1100AD there existed the concept of "Celtic Christianity", which while not in any way a breakoff from Rome, was somewhat of a sub-set of Christianity that had it's own way of doing things, and it's base was Ireland. The elites of Ireland and the Church were closely allied.

In the 1600s as the Irish elites were more and more stripped of their powers, the English Protestants began to treat the Irish not as Europeans as such, but as "natives" in what would be a forerunner to further Colonisation in the New World. The goal of the English in Ireland was not to integrate the Irish and convert them, but slowly push them out. This is when and where the phrase "to Hell or to Connaught" comes from (Connaught being Ireland's most western province). The English in the 1600 already were pretty established in Leinster (the east) began to try and push in to Munster (south) and Ulster (north). They weren't too successful in the south, but their colonisation in the North was obliviously very "successful" as they removed Irish Catholics and replaced them with Protestant Scots.

So long story short, The Irish never took to Protestantism because the Catholic Church had always been "pro-Irish" while Protestantism was seen as Anti-Irish, the religion of the people who wanted to destroy the Irish and take their land. In Leinster there was some conversion, but really only amongst groups who were deemed Anglo-Irish/willing to submit to the idea of the forming "British" identity.
 
So long story short, The Irish never took to Protestantism because the Catholic Church had always been "pro-Irish" ...

I'd dispute 'always'. Until Henry VIII, the Catholic Church had been supportive of English rule in Ireland.
 
The shorthand for why we were predominantly Catholic is...."Because the English aren't". I personally feel the Church has done more harm than good for Ireland.

It was seen as another encroachment on the old ways which in Ireland we tend to cling religiously to (pardon the pun). Some of the smarter Gaelic lords tried to show themselves as defenders of the faith this way, trying to turn the conflict into one about religion, hence the Papal troops landing at Smerwick or the Spanish landing on the Beara Peninsula and Kinsale.

And even today we're culturally catholic, lots of people don't even bother paying lipservice now but you'll see them at mass for Christmas with their family or at communions/confirmations. Such are the contradictions of Ireland.
 
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