WI: Irish Forced to Convert to Anglicanism

kernals12

Banned
What it says on the tin. What if the English forced the Irish to give up their Catholic faith? Would Ireland still be part of Britain?
 
Real life is not a game of EUIV
It can be somewhat, I am terrible at both.

Though on a more serious note, it really cannot be done absolutely. Take Christianisation throughout Europe for example, despite being imposed from above and in an incredibly violent manner (often far more brutally then Cromwell attempted), it still failed to take root and what we largely have today is a highly syncretic form of Judaism that is virtually entirely European in character. Those Irish who did become Anglicans were few in number and the majority of those of did no longer would consider themselves to be Irish but British. I would say this is realistically borderline ASB with such conditions. I honestly believe that it is damn near impossible for any sort of Protestantism take root among the majority of the Irish nation, if it were to adapt it could seldom be considered to be Protestant. At most you could have a sort of Irish Papacy but you would have to cause the mainstream of Irish society to split from Rome. Perhaps the entirety of Ireland could be excommunicated due to political links with England reluctantly forcing to development of an Irish church of sorts. You would need however first a Pope who is either incredibly zealous to consider such an isolation or incredibly stupid to consider such an isolation.
 
It can be somewhat, I am terrible at both.

Though on a more serious note, it really cannot be done absolutely. Take Christianisation throughout Europe for example, despite being imposed from above and in an incredibly violent manner (often far more brutally then Cromwell attempted), it still failed to take root and what we largely have today is a highly syncretic form of Judaism that is virtually entirely European in character.

I'm curious what you would consider "real" Christianity to be.
 
Take Christianisation throughout Europe for example, despite being imposed from above and in an incredibly violent manner (often far more brutally then Cromwell attempted), it still failed to take root and what we largely have today is a highly syncretic form of Judaism that is virtually entirely European in character.
As someone who was in Seminary for a significant amount of time and who has done extensive research on early Christianity, this is objectively false.
 
Very early on some dedicated Protestant missionaries who learned Irish and produced an Irish translation of the Bible had good results, particularly around Kilkenny but England did not maintain a sustained missionary effort and had a Catholic counter-reformation under Mary followed by a period of low key don't rock the boat Anglicanism under Elizabeth and James I. Had Edward VI survived to adulthood the position might have been somewhat different.
During the late C17th and C18th, the Anglican bishoprics were well funded sinecures and there was no sustained missionary activity. At the same time, the Cromwelian oppression and Presbyterian immigration coloured the Irish view of Protestantism as alien and oppressive.
That being said there was an ongoing level of intermarriage and religious conversion between the Protestant and Catholic communities (up until the 1870s the custom was that the daughters took their mother's religion and the sons their fathers - the Catholic insistence from that point in time that the children of a mixed marriage must be brought up Catholic worsened sectarian tensions). Quite a few Protestant Murphys and Kellys about Northern Ireland and Catholics called Adams or Morrison.
An Anglican Ireland might conceivably still have become nationalist through other cultural or economic considerations, OTL Wolfe Tone and Emmet were Anglicans and Casement and Bulmer Hobson other types of Protestant also, looking at other nations, the Basques and Catalans have a common Catholic faith with Spain but definite separatist/nationalist tendencies.
 
The idea that the Irish are innately Catholic is silly as the idea that any other people are. But if you look at those cases where you had the overwhelming majority of a population covert from one branch of Christianity to another during the Reformation/Counter-Reformation versus those cases where people didn't convert the odds against a mass conversion in Ireland were high. First of all were those countries where you had a strong government and a high degree of identification between the ruler and his subjects and the ruler converted, England and much of Northern Germany are in this category, Ireland is definitely not.
Then you places like Bohemia or Flanders where despite the lack of voluntary conversion the Hapsburgs were militarily strong enough to enforce conversion in this case to Catholicism. This was frequently in the aftermath of mass slaughter when the area had been reconquered from "rebels". A different England might have been strong enough to do this to Ireland and it is notable that the only times you had significant amounts of Irish convert was in the aftermath of major military campaigns by England so if you step up the intensity and duration of those military efforts you might do it. But in OTL Tudor and early Stewart England lacked both the will to spend the massive amount of money it would have required and I'm not sure they had the resources to do it even if they had wanted to. Elizabeth, James I, Cromwell and William III all came under considerable pressure to bring the bulk of their armies home leaving only a minimal garrison rather than staying to "finish the job". I think the best option would be a child of Anne Boleyn or an Edward VI who lived longer and succeeded Henry VIII as an adult. His Regency permanently weaken the English Monarchy with the bulk of the Monastic lands given away and Parliament empowered and neither Mary nor Elizabeth were able to recover the lost ground. But a son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn or Edward VI who succeeded a longer lived Henry VIII might have both the money and the religious fanaticism to spend a decade of bloody slaughter enforcing Anglicanism on the Irish.
 

Lusitania

Donor
I also wish to ad that for the irish opposing the British the conqueres came in form of religion. The British were Protestant and the oppressors and a way to distinguish yourself as Irish was to remain catholic. What you would of needed for change in religion in Ireland would of been a home grown “Anglican” movement not one imposed from England. That did not and would not work.
 

kernals12

Banned
I also wish to ad that for the irish opposing the British the conqueres came in form of religion. The British were Protestant and the oppressors and a way to distinguish yourself as Irish was to remain catholic. What you would of needed for change in religion in Ireland would of been a home grown “Anglican” movement not one imposed from England. That did not and would not work.
Or you could take the Spanish Inquisition route.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Or you could take the Spanish Inquisition route.
I would find that hard for the British to impose. The Spanish inquision was to stamp out a small minority religion or false Christians not to force a whole country to convert. Inquisition would not of worked. The British would of needed to have a huge army stationed in Ireland to try such a thing and be suffering large attrition due to partisan attacks. No British wanted a docile population providing it with $$$ and costing as little as possible to control.
 
I would find that hard for the British to impose. The Spanish inquision was to stamp out a small minority religion or false Christians not to force a whole country to convert. Inquisition would not of worked. The British would of needed to have a huge army stationed in Ireland to try such a thing and be suffering large attrition due to partisan attacks. No British wanted a docile population providing it with $$$ and costing as little as possible to control.

The experience elsewhere in Europe suggests otherwise. In Flanders and Bohemia and a number of places in Germany you had regions that had overwhelmingly adopted one religion forcibly converted. In both cases the conversion process was helped by a bloody war that removed many of the most diehard opponents and large numbers of refugees but those regions were converted by the sword. Now you can argue that England is unlikely to have the will or the resources to do something on that scale, they certainly didn't in OTL, but if you're willing to kill 20% of the population and drive another 20% out you can get the remaining 60% to do pretty much anything you want. As I said I think you would need to seriously change English history to deliver such a result but it's far from impossible.
 

Lusitania

Donor
The experience elsewhere in Europe suggests otherwise. In Flanders and Bohemia and a number of places in Germany you had regions that had overwhelmingly adopted one religion forcibly converted. In both cases the conversion process was helped by a bloody war that removed many of the most diehard opponents and large numbers of refugees but those regions were converted by the sword. Now you can argue that England is unlikely to have the will or the resources to do something on that scale, they certainly didn't in OTL, but if you're willing to kill 20% of the population and drive another 20% out you can get the remaining 60% to do pretty much anything you want. As I said I think you would need to seriously change English history to deliver such a result but it's far from impossible.
That was not the British wAy and would of required a huge expense and manpower to accomplish. Also in continental Europe people could walk away to another friendlier country or region. But what you do in Ireland when Britain controlled the ports and people not have $ to move? They would of been hArd pressed to contain revolts.
 
I always liked the idea of the Irish converting to another variant of protestantism, like calvinism, or maybe anabaptism
 
Catholicism is the faith of the Irish nation, at least in tradition (I am not bringing the 21st century in this; this is purely on historical grounds.) The more the British oppressed the Irish, the more they held on to their already very strong faith. Irish catholic tradition goes back millennium; it was strong even before British oppression. The economic oppression, such as with the absentee landlords, was incredibly immense. The Irish resisted this largely through clinging on to their culture; the only remnant left after the British takeover of the whole island. To convert to the Protestant faith to them would be to lose their Irish sensibilities and turn back on their family; their community; their people. The local pressure was immense. The Ulster Protestants would also not convert to Catholicism even if under Irish Catholic rule. The whole tragedy is full of sensitivities and many on both sides are bitter to this day.
 
I agree with you on the basis of what little I know. But could you elaborate why? Thanks.
You could write a book on this. Like. This is most definitely not something I can just write in an AH.com post. But really, a lot of the accusations of "syncretism" that have come about really only occurred in the Enlightenment era, thousands of years after the fact. Christinaization in Europe was actually quite peaceful a solid 80% of the time, with areas slowly converting to Christianity as missionaries did their thing (like in Ireland, where the work of people like St. Patrick and contemporaries ended up converting most of the population peacefully, even though the Celtic Pagan authorities had a... knack for sacrificing errant subjects to the gods). And... honestly, there are some statements that are so wrong it baffles the mind to explain all the ways, and Christianity being a "highly syncretic form of Judaism that is virtually entirely European in character" is one of them. No offense of course, but honestly, that's like Chart level wrong. Christianity is monotheistic, it does not demand human sacrifice by principle, it has a strong literary tradition, et cetera, which are all absent from European religious traditions. By the time Christianity had almost 800 years of theology and progress and research and etc, the Germanic Pagans juuusssstttt started writing down their traditions. I could go on, but really, this is something that a multi-thousand page book could be written on.
 
What it says on the tin. What if the English forced the Irish to give up their Catholic faith? Would Ireland still be part of Britain?

They kind of tried IOTL with the penal laws. About the only thing more they could do would be to start executing anybody who doesn't convert, which in turn would probably require a big and bloody Catholic rebellion resulting in an equally big and bloody government attempt to stamp out papism in the island once and for all. (They could theoretically try during peacetime, of course, but even in the 17th century killing defenceless civilians during times of peace tended to be frowned upon.)
 

Lusitania

Donor
Catholicism is the faith of the Irish nation, at least in tradition (I am not bringing the 21st century in this; this is purely on historical grounds.) The more the British oppressed the Irish, the more they held on to their already very strong faith. Irish catholic tradition goes back millennium; it was strong even before British oppression. The economic oppression, such as with the absentee landlords, was incredibly immense. The Irish resisted this largely through clinging on to their culture; the only remnant left after the British takeover of the whole island. To convert to the Protestant faith to them would be to lose their Irish sensibilities and turn back on their family; their community; their people. The local pressure was immense. The Ulster Protestants would also not convert to Catholicism even if under Irish Catholic rule. The whole tragedy is full of sensitivities and many on both sides are bitter to this day.
Similarly in communist poland where the Russians and communists attempted to suppress the church and religion and instead in an act of defiance the polish people held on their millennium faith.
 
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