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The role of Vincentian parish missions in the ‘Irish counter-reformation’ of the mid nineteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

James H. Murphy
James H. Murphy*
Affiliation:
All Hallows College, Dublin
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Extract

Professor Desmond Bowen has stressed the importance of the religious question in determining the development of the nation in nineteenth century Ireland:

religion was of paramount importance in the lives of the two peoples or ‘nations’ of Ireland. Their leaders ‘speaking in the name of religion’ could exercise tremendous power because they spoke to the hearts of men in a way that no secular political movement could ever do. It was ‘religion’ in a broad sense that divided the people shaped their different cultures and persuaded them to breed separately and to work separately in a rapidly changing society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 94 , November 1984 , pp. 152 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1984

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References

1 Bowen, Desmond, The protestant crusade in Ireland (Dublin, 1978), p. 309.Google Scholar

2 Bowen, Protestant crusade, passim, and Souperism: myth or reality? (Cork, 1970 passim).

3 Bowen, , Protestant crusade, p. 218.Google Scholar

4 Larkin, Emmet, ‘The devotional revolution in Ireland, 1850-75’ in American History Review, lxxvii (1972), pp 625-52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, D. W, irish Catholicism and the Great Famine in Journal of Social History, ix (1975), pp 81–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Bossy, John. ‘The Counter-Reformation and the people of catholic Europe’ in Past and Present, no. 47 (1970), pp 51–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Hereafter cited as ‘McNamara memoir’and ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’ respectively. The MSS are in the Archives of the Congregation of the Mission (hereafter cited as CM. Arch.), 4 Cabra Road, Dublin. Father Thomas McNamara was one of the original Maynooth Vincentians. Fathers Dowley and Lydon were chosen as the subjects of the second work because Philip Dowley was the first superior of the Irish Vincentians and Peter Lydon was the first member of the young community to die.

7 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 83, records one instance of a penitent ‘parachuting from a window in order to get to the head of the queue.

8 Ibid., p. 63; ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 90; Minutes of the Vincentian provincia council, 5 Feb. 1855 (CM. Arch., Dublin), p. 12.

9 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 91.

10 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 64.

11 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 91. It also recalls one much reported instance of a womar so anxious to get to confession that she offered to and indeed did adopt an orphan girl ir return for the use of her ticket. See also Philip Dowley to J. B. Étienne, 23 Nov 1844 (CM. Arch., via di Bravetta 159, Rome).

12 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 88.

13 Ibid.,pp 119-20.

14 Minutes of the Vincentian provincial council, 16 Feb. 1852 (CM. Arch., Dublin).

15 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 68. See also ‘McNamara memoir’ p. 93.

16 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 68.

17 Ibid., p. 67

18 ‘McNamara memoir’ p. 326.

19 Ibid.,pp 106-7 m

20 Foley, Daniel, Missionary tour through the south and west of Ireland Dublin, 1849), p. 21.Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 ‘McNamara memoir’ p. 116.

23 Thompson, D. P, Brief account of the rise and progress of the change in religious opinion now taking place in Dingle and the west of the county of Kerry (London, 1846), p. 7 Google Scholar

24 This summary of the situation is based largely on Thompson.

25 Thompson, , Brief account, p. 46.Google Scholar

26 Gayer was himself ill that particular evening.

27 Gayer, Charles, Persecution of protestants: trial at Tralee on Thursday, March 20, 1845 for a libel of the Rev. Qiarles Gayer (Dublin, 1845), p. 8.Google Scholar

28 Ibid.

29 Kerry Examiner, 26 Nov. 1844.

30 Piggot was later to be one of those instrumental in bringing the Vincentians to Dingle (see below, pp 163-4).

31 Gayer, , Persecution of protestants, p. 23.Google Scholar

32 One Timothy Lynch claimed he had played the convert for Moriarty in order to get a job as a teacher.

33 Gayer, , Persecution of protestants, p. 15.Google Scholar

34 Nicholson, Asenath, Ireland’s welcome to the stranger; or excursions through Ireland in 1844 and 1845 for the purpose of personally investigating the condition of the poor (Dublin, 1847), pp 351-63.Google Scholar

35 The figure of 250 is based on Gayer’s estimates. There was a ballad going around at the time about Brasbie, which makes its polemical point, if it does not scan well:

Cruel Brasbie worse than Judas our Saviour he abused
The sacrament and altar he really has disgraced,
Since Gayer is his master he has neglected
The pure and holy order in which he was ordained.
Them spotless robes so white in which he should delight
He treated them with slight the cruel renegade.
For no such rotten member should ever be depended on
Nor in pew or pulpit be allowed to preach.

36 Nicholson, , Ireland’s welcome to the stranger, p. 351.Google Scholar Michael Devine was later to pose problems for the missioners as well (see below, p. 164).

37 Ibid., p. 352.

38 Ibid., p. 355. She thought better of the convent school than she did of the evangelical school.

39 Ibid., p. 428.

40 Hussey, G. M., The reminiscences of an Irish land agent (London, 1904), pp 57-8Google Scholar; Kerry Evening Post, 16 Dec, 1846.

41 Kerry Evening Post, 1 Aug. 1846.

42 ‘McNamara memoir’ pp 318-19: ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon7, p. 236.

43 ‘McNamara memoir’, pp 317-38; ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, pp 232-47

44 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 320.

45 Ibid., p. 321.

46 Ibid., p. 322.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid. The figure is put at 800 in the ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, however, and Philip Dowley puts it at 765. Whatever it was, it was certainly larger than the 245 that Bishop Ludlow had confirmed for Gayer only months before (Bowen, Souperism, p. 83

49 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 325.

50 Ibid., p. 331.

51 Contrary to what one Vincentian source maintains about the pre-mission state of Dingle (see ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 234).

52 ‘McNamara memoir1, p. 330.

53 Freyer, Marian, Connemara: its social and religious aspect (Galway. [1861]), p. 45.Google Scholar

54 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 328. Nor indeed had the purpose of the mission been to reconvert protestant converts but to bolster Catholicism. McNamara is much more reliable on what the position of the remaining converts was than the author of’Life of Dowley & Lydon’, who contents himself with the repetition of obviously mythologised tales of converts being restrained from attending the mission and denied a priest on their death beds.

55 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 328.

56 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 239.

57 ‘McNamara memoir’ p. 335.

58 Miller, , ‘Irish Catholicism and the Great Famine’, p. 87 Google Scholar.

59 Philip Dowley to J. B. Etienne, 30 Nov 1846 (CM. Arch., Rome).

60 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 318; ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon , p. 234.

61 “Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 245.

62 ‘McNamara memoir’ pp 333-4.

63 See his pastorals on the subject in Moran, P F (ed.), Pastoral letters and other writings of Cardinal Cullen (Dublin, 1882).Google Scholar

64 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 99. See also Dallas, A. R. C., The story of the Irish Church Missions, part I (London, 1867).Google Scholar Proselytism at Oughterard was of the ‘mission’ rather than the ‘colony’ kind.

65 Garrett, John, Good news from Ireland (London, 1863), pp 42-5.Google Scholar Visiting Oughterard several years later, Garrett found a fierce polemical debate still raging.

66 ‘Life of Dowley & Lydon’, p. 94.

67 Ibid., p. 91.

68 Ibid., p. 106.

69 Ibid., p. 101.

70 Ibid., p. 103.

71 Ibid., p. 100.

72 Ibid., p. 104.

73 Ibid., p. 103.

74 Ibid., p. 109.

75 ‘McNamara memoir’ pp 342-50; ‘Life of Dowley & LydorT, pp 133-9

76 ‘McNamara memoir’, p. 346.

77 Ibid., pp 102. 345.

78 Maller to Eugene Bore, 1877 (CM. Arch., Rome).