Church Of Ireland Research Articles

Telling the Truth About Women’s Lives

Tell us, they say, about women and abortion in Ireland. OI'm not sure that I can any more, or at least not in any straightforward way. There several reasons for this, personal as much as political. I'm not sure which is the most complicated, and in any case (in my case), the reasons peculiarly resistant to partition. One way and another, I suspect it's to do with the passage of time, the transmutations of generations and, above all, how abortion is framed and dealt with in Ireland. But it's not in Ireland, abortion, that's the whole point. If it were, we wouldn't be here having to write about it. Again. Or think about it, or not much, or not so endlessly. It's Byzantine, this matter of abortion, convoluted, complex beyond all reason and necessity, harrowing, tortuous. Also often wounding, and sometimes bizarre. (1) As I'm writing this, keeping an ear to the ground as ever, I hear a bishop speak. He says, inter alia, that lesbians and gay men who have children may be care-givers, but they are not necessarily parents. When asked about his views on a woman having an abortion after she has been raped, the bishop says women who become pregnant through rape should not destroy a life in order to get back at the rapist. (2) That these models of logic aroused more amusement and caustic comment than ire and offence is a sign of the rapid and steep decline of the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland over the past 20 years. The bishop's intervention in a secular debate is seen as contentious and out of step with contemporary morality and behaviour. It is counter-cultural. Irish people no longer cowed or obsequious in the face of episcopal intimidation. And we're certainly not obedient. Mostly, we don't believe the bishop, and definitely we don't do what the bishop says. To be fair (although I'm under no obligation, given our history of subjugation by the Catholic clergy), the next day, other bishops and priests rushed quasi en masse to dissociate themselves from the bishop's remarks, and he had to apologise for any hurt he 'may' have caused, which is more of a damage limitation exercise than an apology. Mind you (I'm still being fair), it wasn't the abortion remarks the hastening clergy were repudiating, only the comments on the parenting suitability of lesbians and gay men, considered as potentially damaging to the Catholic Church in light of the marriage equality referendum to be held in May. So a strategic partial repudiation then. Nothing to do with truth. All the same, it's a change that changes so much, after generations of feminism, we know a lot more now about the truths of women's lives, and we're talking about them, not sub rosa and entre nous, but out loud and in public. I grew up knowing nothing. No one ever told me the 'facts of life ', and I'm not sure when I even knew there were facts I didn 't know. Until quite a ripe age, sex and reproduction remained largely a mystery for me. In my convent school when I was about fourteen or fifteen, a nun told us, in all seriousness, that if we met boys (and we did, of course we did), we should keep our berets and gloves on all the time. For me, and for so many women of my generation and generations before me, you had to learn on the job. Trial and error. The consequences of the errors were always left to us, the women, to bear. These were the wages of sin, because sex (outside marriage) and sin were synonymous. Hence the Magdalen laundries, followed, in so many cases, by the lonely boat to England and life-long damage. As a young woman, I was lucky not to get pregnant. It wasn 't because I was well-informed and well equipped--or practicing chastity. Au contraire. I was just lucky, that's all. The silence surrounding abortion in this country has been deafening, only punctuated every decade or so by a dreadful human tragedy - the loss of a woman's life or the awful public drama of court cases taken to wrest from the State the right to access abortion here, where we live. …

A charismatic church in a post-Catholic Ireland: negotiating diversity at Abundant Life in Limerick City

This article analyses Abundant Life Christian Church in Limerick City, a multi-ethnic, Pentecostal/charismatic congregation in the Assemblies of God denomination. It provides insights about how religious groups are negotiating immigration and ethnic diversity and how charismatic expressions of Christianity are engaging in Ireland's post-Catholic public sphere. The study revealed remarkably harmonious relationships between native Irish and immigrants of diverse backgrounds, which were built in large part on a leadership model in which one ethnic group did not hold significantly more power than others. The study also found that people at Abundant Life seemed anxious to establish their legitimacy as a Christian church, a concern that was rooted in previous, and even current, experience of Ireland as a ‘Catholic country’. Congregants displayed varying degrees of openness towards Catholicism, but what was striking was how often they described their own faith in contrast to Catholicism. The institution that is the Catholic Church in Ireland cast a long shadow over Abundant Life congregants’ own experience of Christianity and continues to define Ireland's post-Catholic religious market.

Confessional Calvinism and Evangelical Assurance:IsaacNelson,Ulster Revivalism and the Assurance Controversy in thePresbyterian Church inIreland,c.1859–1867

AbstractThe issue of the relationship between Calvinism and assurance is one that has vexed historians and theologians alike.DavidW.Miller, a distinguished historian of religion, once argued that Calvinism and assurance of personal salvation were wholly incompatible. This article seeks to use a biographical case study of one ofUlsterPresbyterianism's most significant figures in order to illuminate our understanding of a much wider historiographical debate. The 1859 Revival was supposed to have furthered the cause of evangelicalism, whileIsaacNelson's denomination (thePresbyterian Church inIreland) was its main beneficiary.Nelson, however, did not believe that the Revival was congenial to the orthodoxy of evangelicalPresbyterianism. In particular, he took exception to views of assurance popularized during this movement, which appeared to be more in line with Methodist Arminianism than with Reformed orthodoxy. In the years subsequent to the Revival, debate raged within the IrishPresbyterian Church as to whether or not revivalist notions of assurance were compatible with the Westminster Confession. The anti‐revivalistWilliamDobbin charged the revivalistRobertCrawford with holding heterodox opinions, only for the latter to be acquitted by the General Assembly. Most existing scholarship on the Assurance Controversy has concentrated on the debate betweenDobbin andCrawford; this tendency has unhelpfully obscured both important nuances and the wider significance of the debate. By concentrating on the arguments ofNelson, the broader issue of confessionalCalvinism's fraught relationship with popular evangelical conceptions ofChristian assurance can be understood more clearly.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

In this, the final year of the current triennium, the General Synod met again in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Whether it will return to this venue, and if so how often, is open to doubt since the Synod directed that efforts be made to find a more satisfactory meeting place in Dublin having regard to the comparative costs of its regular meetings at the alternative venue in Armagh.

Building opposition: the Mant controversy and the Church of Ireland in early Victorian Belfast

In 4 October 1842, Richard Mant, the Church of Ireland bishop of Down and Connor, presided over the first meeting of the Down and Connor Church Architecture Society in the Clerical Rooms in central Belfast. The scholarly Mant doubtless was in his element as he introduced this initiative dedicated to promoting discussion about historical and contemporary aspects of Anglican church architecture. TheUlster Times, the city’s self-proclaimed newspaper of the Church of Ireland, welcomed the new society, arguing that it was good to have ‘correct views’ on these matters and hoping that features like arched roofs, Gothic windows and lengthened aisles could be maintained so that Anglican churches could be distinguished from their Dissenting counterparts.

The “Boast of Antiquity”: Pulpit Politics Across the Atlantic Archipelago during the Revolution of 1688

John Locke and many others noted the vibrant political commentary emanating from the pulpit during the Glorious Revolution. Preachers from the full confessional spectrum in England, and especially in Scotland, Ireland, and the colonies, used occasional or state sermons to explain contemporary upheavals from the perspective of God's law, Natural law, and Civil law. Most surprising is the latter, clerical reference to civil history and ancient origins, which preachers used to answer contemporary questions of conquest and allegiance. Clergy revisited the origins and constitutional roots of the Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Scots, and Irish, and deployed histories of legendary kings and imaginary conquests to explain and justify the revolutionary events of 1688–1692. Sermons of this revolutionary era focused as much on civil as on sacred history, and sought their true origins in antiquity and the mists of myth. Episcopalian preachers, whether Church of Ireland, Scottish Episcopalian, or Church of England, seem to have been especially inspired by thanksgiving or fast days memorialized in the liturgical calendar to ponder the meaning of a deep historical narrative. Scots, Irish, and Massachusetts clergy claimed their respective immemorialism, as much as the English did theirs. But, as they re-stated competing Britannic constitutions and origin myths explicitly, they exposed imperial rifts and contradictions within the seemingly united claim of antiquity. By the beginning of the next reign and century, state sermons depended more upon reason and less upon a historicized mythic antiquity.

The Effect of Delay on Historical Child Sex Abuse Cases: Commentary on the Irish Experience

After a notorious case in 1994, Ireland saw a ‘tsunami’ of allegations of historical child abuse. As well as undermining the Catholic Church in Ireland, this has also posed grave problems for the legal system. On the one hand, there was an enormous, strongly articulated demand for prosecutions for such offences. On the other hand, the prosecution after periods of up to 54 years — often of old or very old defendants some of whom had cognitive or other problems — was difficult to reconcile with Ireland's elaborate requirements for fair procedures, including the right to an expeditious trial. It became usual for defendants confronted with these very old allegations to seek prohibition in the superior courts against what they said were manifestly unfair trials. The tension between the felt need to prosecute and the legal necessity to ensure fair trials troubled the Irish courts and especially divided the Supreme Court of Ireland. This commentary examines some of the key case law, including the landmark 1998 judgment in PC v Director of Public Prosecutions, in which the Supreme Court controversially mandated an assumption in such cases that the complainant's account was true (contrary to the presumption of innocence), and the 2008 decision in SH v Director of Public Prosecutions that introduced a single, prejudice-focused test.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

This year's programme looked, at first sight, to be a little daunting: 10 Bills and 26 motions to be dealt with in less than three days. However, on closer inspection the situation was not as bad as it seemed. Most of the Bills were of a technical or administrative nature: provision for the Cathedrals and Dignities of the Diocese of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, some tidying up of the Constitution and internal administration, and the abolition of the existing practice whereby members of General Synod are automatically proposed for re-election – an attempt, no doubt, to encourage greater turnover and variety among Synod members. It will be interesting to see how successful this will be.

Embedded memory and the churches in Ireland

The Heythrop JournalVolume 55, Issue 3 p. 409-421 ARTICLE Embedded memory and the churches in Ireland† Oliver P. Rafferty SJ, Oliver P. Rafferty SJ Loyola University ChicagoSearch for more papers by this author Oliver P. Rafferty SJ, Oliver P. Rafferty SJ Loyola University ChicagoSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 August 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.12066 †This article began as a paper read at the ‘Embedded Memory and the Theological Contours of Division’ seminar held at Trinity College, Dublin in December 2011. I should like to thank Professor Linda Hogan of the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity for the opportunity of rehearsing these ideas in that forum. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume55, Issue3May 2014Pages 409-421 RelatedInformation

His Grace Is Displeased: Selected Correspondence of John Charles McQuaid ed. by Clara Cullen and Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh (review)

His Grace Is Displeased: Selected Correspondence of John Charles McQuaid. Edited by Clara Cullen and Margaret O hogartaigh. (Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Distrib. ISBS, Portland, OR. 2012. Pp. viii, 280. $89.95. ISBN 978-1-908928-08-5.)There is a fashion among certain circles of the Irish chattering classes that sees the late John Charles McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin (1940-71), as the source of so much that was wrong with Irish society and the Irish Church. This selection of his letters, at face value, would seem to aim at contributing to that fashion. We are told in the introduction that McQuaid retained the sectarian border antagonism of his childhood (p. 3). Such a statement begs so many questions that it is difficult to know where to begin to address it.To say the least, evidence is adduced in the pages of this book that would confirm, without serious qualification, such an assertion. Nor is it a proposition that would have passed muster with the late Mercy Simms, wife of George Otto Simms (sometime archbishop of Dublin and Armagh in the Church of Ireland), who consistently defended McQuaid from this type of barb. In the brief introduction to the work almost the entire space is given over to trying to undermine McQuaid's character, and indeed there is much to criticize, but there is nothing on the methodology of selection that the editors employed in choosing for publication the letters that appear here. Nor do they say much about the extent of McQuaid's archive so that the reader could form some sort of judgment as to why these letters are to be regarded as, presumably, the most important.The very title of the work suggests that we are to be given a diet that will enable us to form an opinion of McQuaid as a crotchety naysayer at odds with the culture in which he found himself. But in fact, in a number of instances, we find a man not indicating his displeasure but responding to pleas for financial help, either for deprived children or for the dependents of imprisoned political dissidents, although in the latter case McQuaid insisted that his contributions be kept anonymous and that they had no political meaning whatever (p. 134). It also is odd in the context of the chapter of letters dealing with Republicans that the editors do not advert to McQuaid's intervention to bring about the IRA ceasefire at Christmas 1971, nor do they reproduce an important exchange with the then-apostolic nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi, in which McQuaid explains his thinking and actions in that extraordinary episode. …

“This receipt is as safe as the Bank”: Reading Irish Culinary Manuscripts

“This receipt is as safe as the Bank”: Reading Irish Culinary Manuscripts

The Role of Civil Society in Conflict Resolution: The Opsahl Commission in Northern Ireland, 1992-93

The Role of Civil Society in Conflict Resolution:The Opsahl Commission in Northern Ireland, 1992-93 Marianne Elliott As a historian, I have spent much of my professional life thinking and writing about the various traditions in Ireland and the historical background to the conflict in Northern Ireland. As such it was my privilege to have served as one of the seven commissioners of the 1993 Opsahl Commission. The others were Lady Lucy Faulkner, the widow of Brian Faulkner (the prime minister of Northern Ireland, 1971-72); Rev. Dr. Eric Gallagher, former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland; Eamonn Gallagher, the former European Community Director General for Fisheries; Professor Padraig O'Malley, a prominent political scientist; and Professor Ruth Lister, a leading academic in social policy. This is my personal recollection and analysis of the process. The Opsahl Commission was an independent public inquiry, entirely separate from government and state authorities. It was headed up by Professor Torkel Opsahl, the highly respected Norwegian human rights lawyer.1 He had retained an interest in the Northern Ireland conflict since he acted as the European Commission of Human Rights rapporteur on the Irish government's case against Britain for the ill-treatment of internees in 1971. In 1991 and 1992, when such a commission was first envisaged, all-party political talks had collapsed for a second time in two years. There seemed to be a vacuum in constructive thinking in Northern Ireland, in the middle of perhaps the worst period of tit-for-tat sectarian killings since the early 1970s. Nearly everybody that we spoke to wanted their politicians to return to the talks table, but there was considerable frustration at the lack of public "ownership" of the process. [End Page 86] It was the first time I had heard that term "ownership" used in the context of the peace process in Northern Ireland and I was bemused by it then. I am not now. What was being said was that the resolution of conflict must involve society as a whole, for if people do not feel that they have played some part in what emerges, their commitment to making it work will be dramatically reduced. These seemingly self-evident concepts are central to the very notion of a civil society. The idea of giving a voice to "ordinary people" had come from a brainstorming session between Robin Wilson (then editor of Fortnight Magazine) and Simon Lee (professor of jurisprudence at Queens University Belfast) late in 1991. They then set up a citizens' inquiry to be called "Initiative '92" to prepare the ground for what would become the Opsahl Commission. Wilson and Lee raised the finance, persuaded 220 patrons and a team of dedicated field researchers to prepare the way and gain the trust of those very people who felt disenfranchised and had "turned off" politics: most notably women, working-class Protestants, republicans, and the young. The idea was to have a totally independent commission, which would seek submissions from any group or person about ways forward in Northern Ireland. Those who felt inhibited by this were to be helped to be heard; confidential focus groups and private sessions were also to be facilitated. Such gathering of information was to be followed up by public sessions all over Northern Ireland (nineteen sessions in eleven different venues), as well as two Schools Assemblies in Derry and Belfast—in addition to a number of confidential sessions with leading figures. The project adapted a logo of a microphone being placed into someone's hand, with the legend, "Your Chance to Speak." By its end, some 3,000 people and groups were involved in submissions. At the outset, the Commission was criticized by a number of politicians, but the northern press welcomed the initiative as something new. In the end every party—including Sinn Féin and the emerging loyalist political parties, the Ulster Democratic Party and Progressive Unionist Party—talked with us. The format of the Opsahl Commission has been followed by every subsequent commission.2 The principle that the public as well as the elected politicians deserve to be consulted is now generally accepted. I think, too, that giving people responsibility for the...

Finding Apotropaic Images in Dermatopathology

Apotropaic, meaning to cast aside, from ancient Greek apotropaios (ἀποτρόπαιος), from ἀποτρέπω, from ἀπό (away) and τρέπω (flip), is a term referring to a type of traditional magic common to many cultures. Intending to ward off evil, objects (amulets, charms) or body gestures were employed, some of these are considered nowadays as obscene (gesto dell’ombrello, far manichetta, bras d’honneur, corte de mangas—Italian, French, and Spanish respectively, for the V-sign). Apotropaic objects to ward off the evil eye often include depictions of hands (the khomsah or hand of Fatima or Miriam in Muslim and Jewish cultures, respectively), eyes, and generative organs such as the vulva (the Carthaginian Tanit sign and medieval Sheela na Gigs sculptures from churches in Ireland and Britain) and phalli, which in many Far Eastern cultures (lingam) to the Mediterranean, were used in a mystical way but are devoid of any erotic or obscene component, being found 473356 IJSXXX10.1177/1066896912473356Internati onal Journal of Surgical PathologyAneiros-Fernandez et al.

Church, Culture and Credibility: A Perspective from Ireland

AbstractThis article explores the crisis in the Catholic Church in Ireland in light of the child-abuse scandals exposed in recent reports and outlines some of the theological responses to that crisis. It suggests that it is necessary to examine not just the crimes of the perpetrators of abuse and the inadequate response of individual church leaders but also the structural sin within the Church that is at the root of the crisis. It is argued that the collusion between Church and State in modern Ireland that emerges from these reports can be defined in terms of Hiberno-Christendom, drawing from Charles Taylor definition of “Christendom”. In the midst of the crisis, the ongoing revelations of clerical abuse and the accompanying analysis, there is still pastoral vibrancy and people are trying to cultivate hope. The Catholic Church in Ireland may need to learn how to become what Juan Luis Segundo calls a “creative minority”, re-imagining the parameters of its power and developing a new political theology.

L’église catholique irlandaise sous Charles II : le ‘complot papiste’ et le martyre d’Oliver Plunkett

The late 1670s under Charles II were a special time in British history during which religious controversy ran high. The rivalry between the king, who issued a Declaration of Indulgence suspending all laws punishing Roman Catholics and other religious dissenters, and a strongly Anglican Parliament had reached its peak. In Ireland the Catholic Church had slowly been recovering from the Cromwellian persecution when Pope Clement IX decided to appoint Oliver Plunkett as Archbishop of Armagh. His mission was to rebuild and reform the Catholic Church in Ireland. Fears of a return to Catholicism in England were exacerbated by allegations by Titus Oates of a ‘Popish Plot’ to murder Charles II and establish absolutist, Catholic government under James, Duke of York and the king’s brother. Oliver Plunkett, after a blatant miscarriage of justice, was executed for high treason. He was beatified in 1920 and canonized in 1975 under Pope Paul VI. Without going so far as to deconstruct hagiographical narratives, which made Plunkett the Irish Church’s most celebrated martyr, this article focuses on the political and religious stakes during a troubled period when the destinies of the English and Irish nations and their Churches were not yet clearly mapped.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

Although six bills appeared on the agenda paper for Dublin this year there was only one of real substance. Two were to correct some cross-references in previous legislation, one was of a technical nature relating to voluntary pension contributions and a further bill imposed a requirement on dioceses to provide statistics to central Church bodies when demanded.

The response of the Roman Catholic Church to the introduction of vocational education in Ireland 1930–1942

This paper discusses the manner in which the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland attempted to impose denominational control on the system of vocational education introduced by the state in 1930. Considerable research on education has been conducted within the period in question; however, the area addressed in this paper has been largely neglected by scholars in the field. The position of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is examined in the context of Church–state relations within Europe with particular reference to the issue of control in education. The paper argues that the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland sought denominational control over vocational education through the introduction of various amendments to legislation dealing with the system.

Richard Kirwan (1733-1812)

Kirwan's life can be seen as a succession of phases whose boundaries were flexible. Born to a Catholic, land-owning family in Ireland, his youth and education were very much a product of those conditions, which in his case included higher education in France. After his return to Ireland and marriage, he spent time in Ireland, England, and on the Continent. During that period he studied law, the practice of which required his conforming to the Irish Anglican Church, now better known as the (Protestant) Established Church of Ireland. After a first (to his mind) unsuccessful effort at chemistry, but finding law practice unrewarding, he returned to chemistry, which included mineralogy. His stellar decade in London from 1777 to 1787 followed, during which time his chemistry earned him the Copley Medal of the Royal Society and he emerged as one of the leading advocates of phlogiston, backed by reasoning that many found compelling. He returned to Ireland in 1787 and lived in Dublin until his death. His interest in chemistry continued, but geology became his focus as he challenged James Hutton's (1796-1797) theory of the Earth, basing his arguments in part on his laboratory experience with rocks and minerals. A position as Irish Inspector of Mines revealed his experience with practical geology and fieldwork. Although he continued with technical publications fairly regularly until 1803, and sporadically thereafter, he became more philosophical and published on languages, space, and time. He was elected President of the Royal Irish Academy, a position that he held from 1799 until his death in 1812.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

Having met in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin in 2010, in 2011 Synod returned to the less spiritual but rather plusher surroundings of the City Hotel, Armagh. It was comforting to note from the attendance figures that the level of luxury seems to have little effect on the willingness of delegates to attend.

Boom économique et déclin des pratiques religieuses en Irlande: quand le tigre celtique dévore le sens

Ireland’s Celtic Tiger years are a spectacular example of the passage from a traditional society to one where the market becomes the new reference point. That sociological mutation took place during the economic boom of 1995–2005, when a whole new generation, born during the Irish baby-boom of the 1970s and 1980s, experienced their coming of age. It is within that period that the major religious/economic change took place, making Ireland’s Celtic Tiger a fascinating anthropological case study for the passage from traditional modalities of life to consumerist ones. The culture shock felt by the author when returning to the field after the economic boom becomes the core of the comprehension of that passage: that culture shock informs the anthropologist looking at the profound religious mutation that propelled the market to become the transcendent reference, while the Catholic Church of Ireland was losing power and social meaning and significance.