Christianity in Ireland
After a pagan past of Antiquity, missionaries (most famously including Saint Patrick) converted the Irish tribes to Christianity in quick order.
This produced a great number of saints in the Early Middle Ages, as well as a faith interwoven with Irish identity for centuries since − though less so in recent times.
[6] The 1972 amendment of the Irish constitution, for example, removed the "special position" of the Catholic Church as "guardian of the Faith" and the recognition of other named religious denominations in Ireland.
His birthplace is not known with any certainty; some traditions place it in England—one identifying it as Glannoventa (modern Ravenglass in Cumbria)[18]—but claims have also been advanced for locations in both present-day Scotland[19] and Wales[19] He was captured and brought to Ireland and later sold as a slave.
After escaping and returning to his own people, he began to receive visions of the cry of the Pagan Irish pleading him to come among them.
[20] Missionaries from Ireland to England and Continental Europe spread news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations moved to Irish monasteries.
The period of Insular art, mainly in the fields of illuminated manuscripts, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, the Ardagh Chalice, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island.
Charlemagne, advised by Peter of Pisa and Alcuin of York, attracted the scholars of England and Ireland, and by decree in AD 787 established schools in every abbey in his empire.
During the early Scholastic period, knowledge of the Greek language had vanished in the west except in Ireland, where it was widely dispersed in the monastic schools.
In the first year of his reign (1154), Henry II of England procured a Bull from the English-born Pope Adrian IV authorising him to proceed to Ireland "to check the torrent of wickedness to reform evil manners, to sow the seeds of virtue."
Pope Alexander III was gratified with this extension of his dominion, and in September 1172 issued a brief confirming the bull of Adrian, and expressing a hope that "the barbarous nation" would attain under the government of Henry "to some decency of manners;" he also wrote three epistles—one to Henry II., one to the kings and nobles of Ireland, and one to its hierarchy—enjoining obedience of Ireland to England, and of both to the see of St. Peter.
Jealousy, hostility and disputes characterised the relations between the English and the Irish ecclesiastics; the latter sought to transfer their allegiance as churchmen from the sovereign of England to the pope of Rome, so that the struggle for supremacy lasted for centuries.
The Crown of England did not gain full control of Ireland until the 16th and 17th centuries, during which the whole island was subjected to a number of military campaigns in the period 1534–1691.
In 1536 during the English Reformation, King Henry VIII of England arranged to be declared head of the Church in Ireland through an act of the Irish Parliament.[which?]
All but two of the Irish bishops accepted the Elizabethan Settlement[citation needed], although the vast majority of priests and the church membership remained Catholic.
[24] The Penal Laws, first introduced in the early 17th century, were initially designed to force the native elite to conform to the state church by excluding Non-conformists and Catholics from public office, but were later, starting under Queen Elizabeth, also used to confiscate virtually all Catholic owned land and grant it to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
Compensation was provided to clergy, but many parishes faced great difficulty in local financing after the loss of rent-generating lands and buildings.
There are many Catholic religious institutes, including Augustinians, Capuchins, Carmelites, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Marists, Order of Charity, Oblates, Passionists, Redemptorists, and Vincentians.
In Northern Ireland, only counties Londonderry, Tyrone and Armagh have experienced a significant loss of relative Protestant population, though at a lesser rate than in the Republic.
The substantial majority of the population never changed adherence, remaining strongly Catholic, though there were good reasons for joining the state church.
However, the Church of Ireland in the Republic has shown substantial growth in the last two national censuses; its membership is now back to the levels of sixty years ago[when?]
One such theory is the relaxation of the Ne Temere regulations that stipulated that children of mixed Catholic-Protestant marriages should be brought up as Catholics.
In addition, some parishes, especially in middle-class areas of the larger cities, report significant numbers of Catholics joining the Church of Ireland.
Although he has relatively little absolute authority, the Archbishop of Armagh is respected as the Church's general leader and spokesman, and is elected in a process different from those for all other bishops.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is involved in education, evangelism, social service and mission in a number of areas around the world.
The current (2023–24) moderator is the Right Reverend Dr Sam Mawhinney, minister of Adelaid Road Presbyterian Church, Dublin.
[42] Self-governing bodies from various traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy (mainly Greek, Russian, Romanian) have organized in Ireland since the early 20th century.
A Parliamentary faction led by Henry Grattan agitated for a more favourable trading relationship with England and for greater legislative independence for the Parliament of Ireland.
Sectarian conflict was continued in the late 18th century in the form of communal violence between rival Catholic and Protestant factions over land and trading rights (see Defenders, Peep O'Day Boys and Orange Institution).
In Northern Ireland, since the foundation of the Free State in 1921, Catholics, who are mainly nationalists, allege systematic discrimination against them by the Protestant unionist community.
