A historical reflection on the connections between Catholicism and Nationalism

Mgr. Ambrose Macauley

A couple of years ago the act of union of 1801 was celebrated. The professor of church history at Maynooth remarked at one of the discussions about it that, if Catholic emancipation had been granted immediately after the act of union and if some other restrictions on full Catholic participation in public life had then been removed, politics in Ireland might have developed ultimately along the same kind of lines as in Britain. We shall never know. Certainly the failure to grant Emancipation contributed significantly to the growth of a Catholic consciousness, a stronger awareness of a Catholic identity that was to become more nationalist with time.

A few Catholic landlords, Lords Fingall, Kenmare, Gormanston who saw themselves as leaders of the Catholic community in the 1760s and 1770s sought relaxation of the Penal Laws in a very respectful manner. But as relaxations came through a variety of circumstances Catholics became more assertive. And with the outbreak of the French Revolution, the replacement of the more genteel gentry in positions of leadership by tougher middle-class Catholics, the role Wolfe Tone as secretary of the Catholic Committee (1792), the attitudes of Catholics hardened into a firmer political frame. With the repression and the rebellion of 1798 the advocates of Union in London and Ireland felt the time had come to put it into effect. Though no commitment was officially made to accompany the Union with Catholic Emancipation the understanding that this was so gained widespread credence. Both the clerical and lay leaders of the Catholics were happy to accept the Union, because they felt that the government in London could more easily grant them the relief they sought as a minority in the United Kingdom. They feared that powerful opponents in the Ascendancy in Ireland would not grant them such relief. Archbishop Troy of Dublin, the effective leader of the church, welcomed the Union and he and his colleagues in 1799 declared themselves ready to accept a veto by the government on candidates for bishoprics and payment of the clergy by the state. Some Catholics, especially in Dublin, were opposed to the Union but the opposition of Orangemen and of some powerful opponents of Catholic claims weakened their case.

George III's outright hostility to Catholic Emancipation provoked the resignation of Pitt and the government which had carried the policy through. Catholics were immediately disappointed and disillusioned and as Professor Bartlett has noted a new Catholic nationalism was made possible and rendered the act of Union 'incomplete and, in retrospect, fatally flawed'. And not only was Emancipation put off but some of the other grievances, especially tithes, were also put aside. It was to take three decades for Emancipation to be granted and in the course of that time Catholic national feeling acquired a growing strength. This is not to suggest that this national feeling took the form of a demand for separation from Britain based on strong differences of history, culture, language, religion as happened much later. In fact Archbishops Troy and O'Reilly of Armagh accompanied by Lord Fingall visited Dublin Castle to register their disapproval of Robert Emmet's rebellion in 1803. But the delay in granting Emancipation increased the politicization of the Catholic body and deepened the sense of difference. Inevitably the delay led to the presentation of petitions to parliament which involved the coming together of groups and committees of Catholics and eventually the establishment of a Catholic Association in 1806.

Two years later the sense of Catholic nationalism was sharpened by the controversy over the veto. When an English parliamentary advocate of Emancipation announced without consultation with the Irish hierarchy that the bishops were prepared to accept a limited veto by the government on their appointments, there was an immediate and hostile reaction in Catholic circles in Ireland. The policy was interpreted as an attempt to control the church and to turn its bishops into obedient servants of the crown indifferent to the sentiments of their people.

A government which had wrongfooted the Catholic people on Emancipation could not expect acquiescence in such a policy. Daniel O'Connell spoke apocalyptically about the dangers of surrendering religious freedom to the government, arguing that the veto would turn the bishops into puppets of a government dedicated to maintaining Protestant and British Ascendancy in Ireland. The press favourable to the Catholic cause rowed in with vehement condemnations of the proposal. As Professor Bartlett has said the outcry over the veto saw 'the first major expression of Catholic nationalism in the nineteenth century'.

The decision by the administration in Dublin to prevent O'Connell's attempts to bring together representatives of the Catholics to draw up petitions deepened that sentiment. The opposition of the Prince Regent to Catholic Emancipation when he temporarily replaced his father strengthened it further. The action of Sir Robert Peel, the chief secretary, in 1814 in suppressing the Catholic Board which organized petitions to parliament compounded the feelings of failure and anger which the routine rejection of bills in parliament seeking Emancipation provoked.

A further factor propelling Catholics in a nationalist direction was opposition to religious groups and societies, which were seeking especially through the medium of schools to convert their children to Protestantism. These societies, mostly funded from London, established schools fairly widely from the first decade of the nineteenth century, and thereby provoked the resistance of the Catholic clergy. They had resources which many of the clergy lacked, and the desire of the people for education as a means to future progress ensured that some Catholic children attended these schools. Bishops and clergy denounced these societies as a form of proselytism. Another factor propelling Catholics in a nationalist direction was the activity of militant secret societies. Even though societies like the Ribbonmen were under the excommunication of the church, their campaigns in favour of land reform and opposition to tithes won them support among the Catholic people.

The failure of bills for Emancipation despite the guarantees they offered to protect Protestant interests eventually led to O'Connell's founding a Catholic Association. This body made provision for membership at a guinea per year and associate membership at one penny per month. The purpose of the Association was not only to win Emancipation but also to remove other grievances. By giving them honorary membership, O'Connell attached the priests to the association. Significantly William Crolly, the parish priest of Belfast, and future bishop and archbishop of Armagh, did not support the policy of collecting the rent. He was very conscious of the need to maintain the goodwill of the more liberal Presbyterians, who had already shown support for Emancipation, and was afraid of losing them to those who had begun to petition against the Catholic claims. A too ostentatious mobilization of Catholics, with too much emphasis on nationalist feeling could, he thought, be dangerous.

When O'Connell later called for general meetings to petition for Emancipation, Crolly, by now bishop, was proud to have the support of Rev. Henry Montgomery, a leading Presbyterian, and of other Presbyterian liberals at meetings in St Patrick's Church in Belfast in 1828 and 1829. Crolly insisted in his speeches that Catholic attachment to the throne and constitution were above dispute. Protestant opponents of Emancipation, who were further dismayed by the role played by the Catholic priests in the elections at Waterford and Clare, had begun to enrol in larger numbers in Brunswick Clubs. These clubs were designed to uphold the Protestant constitution, and Monaghan Protestants showed their muscle when they blocked Jack Lawless, the Repealer, from going further into Ulster on a political mission than Ballybay. Montgomery later admitted that he was disappointed at the numbers of Presbyterians who had attended the second meeting in St Patrick's Church.

A year after Emancipation the Presbyterian reformers associated with the views of the Northern Whig refused to endorse Repeal. Whatever their views on Emancipation, the great majority of Protestants had come to regard the union after the first few years of its existence as the guarantor and protector of their interests. They saw Repeal as an attack on their security, and the liberal Presbyterians, who had come to distrust O'Connell as a Catholic nationalist, were further annoyed by his description of Montgomery as 'a paltry and pitiful slave', and 'a fawning, cringing sycophant'.

Sectarian melees at fairs and markets, where rival symbols were on display, contributed to political division. And the demands of O'Connell for the removal of Catholic disabilities, which in 1833 led to the reduction of bishoprics in the established church, strengthened the views of Henry Cooke, the Presbyterian leader that every Catholic advance meant a Protestant retreat. This thinking and the fear of influential landlords that their property and rights could come under attack led to the great pan-Protestant rally at Hillsborough in 1834, when Henry Cooke pronounced the banns of marriage between Presbyterians and Anglicans. The nationalism of Catholic leaders, like O'Connell, had become sedition in the eyes of Tory landlords, and one of them assured the audience that Popish Ascendancy and Popish domination had arrived. O'Connell's campaign against tithes in the 1830s provoked the bitter anger of the established church as it encouraged the further development of a national Catholic consciousness. Eventually tithes were converted to a rent charge, and reduced, and those who regarded O'Connell as a seditious agitator in league with Catholic nationalist bishops felt their fears had been realized.

In 1840 O'Connell launched his National Association for full and prompt justice or Repeal, after seeking the support of Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam. From the beginning of the campaign the clergy, both bishops and priests, were invited to play a leading part. O'Connell told an early supporter among the bishops that Catholics could not hold what they had got without Repeal and could not get what Ireland wanted without an Irish parliament. And when he began to organize the movement seriously he looked for support from all the parish clergy. In every Catholic parish he wanted Repeal wardens appointed. Though Repeal of the Union ostensibly meant a return to the form of government existing before 1800, neither O'Connell nor his Protestant critics foresaw such a restoration. Both to Catholics and Protestants the great Repeal meetings of 1843 were nationalist events for a nationalist goal.

Most of the Catholic bishops and priests became ardent supporters of Repeal, and arrangements were made at or before the great meetings for the celebration of Mass. The bishops present invariably sat at the top table with O'Connell at the banquets afterwards, and often spoke. Bishop O'Higgins of Ardagh, who was not given to the use of moderate language, declared that if they were prevented from assembling in the open fields they would retire to their chapels and devote all their time to teaching the pledge to the Repealers. The symbols which profusely adorned the halls and meeting places were both Catholic and national: Celtic crosses, shamrocks, round towers, Irish wolfhounds, harps, green caps, dresses and badges. It was often the local parish priest who planned the monster meeting, and often the chief speakers at meetings stayed in the clergy's homes. There were a few Protestant Repealers but the movement bore the stamp of Catholic nationalism.

That was probably the reason why Archbishop Crolly of Armagh and Archbishop Murray of Dublin stayed aloof. Crolly was an 'ecumenist' long before the policy of ecumenism became accepted. He was above all anxious not to contribute in anyway to misunderstanding with or hostility towards Protestants. He had experienced Presbyterian goodwill in Belfast but he had also seen the sad effects of sectarianism in brawls and bitterness, and was very conscious of the need not to take any step that could possibly widen the denominational divide.

In fact the Young Ireland group, which originated at the same time and later challenged O'Connell, was much more nationalist, though it emphasized the distinction between nationalism and religious affiliation. But its appeal to race, culture and language did not win it many Protestant adherents. However, Protestant opponents could not accuse the clergy of fostering its brand of nationalism. Though the Young Ireland movement ended in defeat with the minor disturbance of 1848 and Repeal did not recover from Peel's ban on the meetings in 1843, the stamp of Catholic nationalism on movements seeking to break or relax the union had been firmly planted in Protestant minds. As Professor Foster has written 'by the 1840s Catholicism had been securely identified as the national experience' and though 'Young Ireland might preach secular European romanticism in Ireland nationalism was almost entirely Catholic and Unionism was principally, if less exclusively, Protestant'.

These identifications were not destined to change. The Protestant response to the Home Rule movement in the 1880s was a stronger version of the response to Repeal in the 1840s. Though Parnell and a few of his MPs were not Catholic, Home Rule was predominantly a Catholic movement. The same parish structures were used as in the 1840s. Bishops and clergy played a significant role in the National League, the body which organized the constituencies and chose the candidates for elections. The Parnellites were entrusted with arguing the case for Catholic education at Westminster.

The Protestant fear of nationalist success had become more intense as the well-drilled Parnellite party with more than 80 MPs seemed to have a good chance of achieving its goal. The opponents of Home Rule charged that it would really be Rome rule, as they would be governed by Bishops of the Catholic church. Their response was to threaten resistance by violent means. Major Sanderson, who was soon to become the leader of the Irish Unionist group in parliament predicted in February 1886 that, if Home Rule were granted, 'the loyal population of the North of Ireland would at once declare civil war'. And when Lord Randolph Churchill came to Belfast that same month, and in the words of the Northern Whig was 'menacing civil war at the head of the Orangeman' his message chimed nicely with the views of many of his audience. Later in the year riots broke out.

The role played by the Catholic clergy in the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the early twentiety century suggested to their opponents that this was a further strengthening of the link between Catholicism and nationalism. As the Home Rule bill of 1912 seemed to be destined to succeed the preparations for civil war intensified. In the eyes of Unionists the identification of Catholicism and nationalism was complete. The mould had been formed.