IRELAND REJECTION OF PROTESTATISM

Erinfan

Why Ireland was the only nation of Northern Europe which remained hostile to Reformation ?

Erinfan

Yep !

Erinfan

Yep ! France is much viewed as South western European country.

Peregrinus

Erinfan wrote: »

Why Ireland was the only nation of Northern Europe which remained hostile to Reformation ?

Short answer: because at the time of the Reformation, Ireland was undergoing colonisation by England, and Protestantism became associated with the colonial power, which was a barrier to its acceptance by the people. In most other Northern European countries, once the metropolitan establishment and the court embraced Protestantism, the people followed. But in Ireland the metropolitan establishment and the court didn't have that kind of traction with the people.

And, of course, Ireland wasn't the only northern European nation not to embrace Protestantism; there was also Poland. And I think something similar was at work there; Lutheran Protestantism was associated with German language, culture, identity. Poland's self-identity became bound up with Catholicism, which was something that distinguished the Poles from their Lutheran Prussian neighbours to the West, and their Orthodox Russian neighbours to the East.

robp

I guess there has to be other factors too. There were many pockets of Old English who were culturally and to some extent politically loyal to England that who didn't embrace Protestantism. Perhaps in rural areas they were largely Gaelized but that is not likely in the cities.

Also parts of NW Scotland stayed loyal to Rome

Peregrinus

The reformation in Ireland made better progress in the cities than in more rural areas; I seem to recall that early on in Elizabeth's reign it's estimated that a majority of the population in Dublin, Cork City and Limerick were attending churches where the ministers had, at least outwardly, conformed. (Which is to say, these towns were more than half Protestant.)

But as recusancy in England came to be associated with disloyalty, the government became increasingly active in trying to enforce Protestantism (both in England and in Ireland). English people didn't wish to think of themselves as disloyal or as suspected of disloyalty, so (even apart from any government coercion) this provided an incentive to conform. But, outside the historic pale, the great bulk of the Irish population didn't feel this to anything like the same degree. To conform in England was to reaffirm existing, long-settled loyalties, and the ancient compact between crown and nation. To conform in Ireland was to align oneself with colonisation and plantation. It was an entirely different calculation.

BalcombeSt4

I wonder if Luther dug hard enough would he have discorved that not only were the teachings of the Catholic church a load of nonsense but that the idea of a God at all was just as big a nonsense.

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goose2005

Less literacy in Ireland at the time as well; most of the pamphlets and books that spread Protestant beliefs among the middle classes were in English and so those Irish who were literate couldn't read them

Arsemageddon

Erinfan wrote: »

Yep ! France is much viewed as South western European country.

So if we ignore France, Belgium, Poland, Southern Germany and Austria we have Ireland as the only Catholic in Northern Europe.

I see you have thought this through in great detail.

Peregrinus

In the Reformation, Europe gets sliced up more or less like a giant pie.

Imagine the centre of the pie being on what is now the boundary between Italy and Austria. To the south and south-west, in Italy, south of France, Spain, Portugal, the reformation finds very little traction; the region remains substantially Catholic. West of the centre of our pie, in Switzerland, we find John Calvin, with a signficant following in central and northern France and in the Low Countries, some following in England, and a significant following in Scotland. Swininging round to the North, we have a huge Lutheran slice - central and northern Germany and, above that, Scandinavia. Lutheranism also has its followers in England and, in the end, the Church of England combines elements of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. Turning east, things get a bit messy; you have Hussites and the early Anabaptists in Hungary and adjacent parts of Germany, but travelling further away from the center of the pie you come to Poland, which remains Catholic. And then to the east you have Orthodox countries.

As I say, all of this basically swivels around a region on the Italian/German linguistic border, and this explains why the Council of Trent is held there.

paul71

Arsemageddon wrote: »

So if we ignore France, Belgium, Poland, Southern Germany and Austria we have Ireland as the only Catholic in Northern Europe.

I see you have thought this through in great detail.

Slovakia Lithuania Moravia parts of Switzerland

craicfiend

An aspect l think is being ignored here is that of the great irish catholic tradition or orthodoxy , the irish identity and even that of the gaelic identity = old irish for 1,600 years was very much catholic or close enough ,all of it was engraved into what it meant to be irish politics and culture , Northern Britain and to a lesser extent England were christianised by the irish .with the irish missions of st columba on iona who christianised the british celts = picts and the irish st adaian who christianised the pagon germanic anglo saxons who lived in their mud and brackin shacks in angloland while the irish lived in stone houses. also op would be wrong in assuming the english simply accepted protestantism king henry viii had many a english catholic tortured and killed who didn't convert.

for much of the history of the irish & british isles the irish were considered the dominate people . the foundation of this was catholicism or something similar enough. Protestantism was to radical to be accepted by the irish as it was to much away from the long traditional irish version of christianity. of course the fact that the colonists from britian were protestant most certainly didnt help the situation .

ironically when the british were catholic they viewed the irish as not catholic enough and when the british were protestant they viewed the irish as to catholic.