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Ulster Awakened : The '59 Revival Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Myrtle Hill
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The 1859 revival has been granted a special place in Ulster's religious history. It is most often portrayed as a spontaneous and dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit, leading to the conversion of many thousands of men and women, and resulting in the moral and social reformation of a formerly sinful society. While this popular image requires a degree of modification in the interests of historical accuracy, the importance of the movement itself is not questioned. As Peter Gibbon ha pointed out, ‘the Ulster religious revival of 1859 involved larger numbers of people in sustained common activity than any movement in rura Ulster between 1798 and 1913’. Its value to the historian lies in its revelation of the attitudes of Ulster society — both religiouss and secular — to the popular, evangelical style of Protestantism which had been making steady progress in Ireland from the late eighteenth century. The dramatic visible and well-publicised nature of religious activity in 1859 serves to highlight the more controversial aspects of that faith, and indicates the degree of adjustment made by churchmen and laity to a movement wich largely ignored conventional ecclesiastical and social boundanes. It is the purpose of this paper to assess the impact of the events of 1859 on Ulster society and to consider its significance in the light of modern sociological approaches to the study of revivalism.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 443 - 462
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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