Living in the USA, one thing immediately comes to mind. There would be less Irish immigrants (As there would be discrimination by the Anglo-protestant upper class, but no outright persecution) And being protestant, the Irish would not be discriminated so harsh over in the US either. All in all, the influx from the Irish would be comparable to that of the American Scotts. So sorry, no 'Boston Celtics' basketball team. And president Kennedy either.
Poll: How would Irish fare with Ireland as protestant as England
- Thread starter Abdominalz
- Start date
If there is less Irish emigration, that could potentially help the Irish language, as (from my understanding) emigrants tended to come from the western, Irish-speaking regions.
Pangur
Donor
One of the major reasons for the decline in the Irish Language been spoken was emigration. Parents made sure that their children had at least some grasp of English so that going to America or England were real options. To avoid that you need a far more industrialized Ireland
One of the key factors that allowed Welsh to survive as well as it did was indeed religion, and specifically the Bible translated into Welsh - this meant that even at the height of pro-English repression there was a part of Welsh life reserved for the use of the Welsh language and fluency and literacy were preserved. By contrast, the number of people who could read and write Irish (as distinct from speaking it) was apparently in the low hundreds by the time of independence. If Ireland had gone protestant at the time of the Reformation and adopted an Irish language Bible and order of service (it's doable, the New Testament was first published in Irish in 1604 after all, 7 years before the Authorised Version) then I would have thought there's a real likelihood that Irish would be at least as well off as Welsh by now (i.e. up to a quarter of the population speaking it as a first language).
The English and Scots turning protestant was a reason for the Irish remaining strongly catholic. This is the basics and the rest is blabla.
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That's right and welsh also managed to survive simply because the people weren
t English. It remained the language of the welsh working classes until the last two decades of the 19th century when there were large ammounts of English immigration into South Wales.
Irish would not suffer as welsh did, because ATL Ireland would not exactly be a destination for an overwhelming number of English Immigrants. In addition, without the indigenous Irish Aristocracy being wiped out, they would govern the language's litterature and backbone. Ireland would in all likelyhood still have a Poyning's law parliament, and an ATL Grattan might increase its power after the American Revolution. Irish would remain the dominant language of a semi-independent British satellite state.
In these circumstances, it is much less likely that there would be a United Irishmen Rebellion and therefore probably no act of Union and definitely no Catholic Emancipation campaign by O'Connell and would Ulster Industrialise without an act of Union?
Derek Pullem
Donor
Not sure I buy this - I mean would a continuing Catholic England mean a Protestant Ireland? I agree Catholicism was a powerful argument against an accommodation with the English but I don't think you can say it was only done to spite the English.
Assuming Ireland did turn Protestant (and I'm going to speculate Calvinist as opposed to CoE) then you still might get an Irish Confederacy only this time it is primarily anti-Royalist / Papist.
You still get Cromwell in Ireland as Ireland is still in rebellion. But the outcome would be more like Scotland - bloody but at least recognizing the right of Ireland to exist separately from a colony.
In the late 17th century it's likely that an earlier move to a United Kingdom would take place, possibly as early as 1707
Doesn't remove the chance of a 1715 / 1745 rebellion but probably means by the time the second British Empire is built after the AWI Scots and Irish end up helping the English run the Empire.
I think, in this scenario, a large part of the Irish language's continued success will rest on the way in which Ireland becomes Protestant. If it's successfully imposed by the English, then Irish might well die back quicker than OTL; on the other hand, if it's a 'native' Reformation that is driven largely by the Irish themselves, it's possible to see the Irish language thriving.
Maybe it stayed Catholic because England didn't
Had England stayed Catholic for anther 50-100 years, is it conceivable that Ireland could indeed have turned Protestant - perhaps with Protestantism becoming associated with nationalism?
As a student in the hospital in Gaillimh (Galway) at the turn of the century, I frequently encountered native Irish speakers with not a word of English.
Working in Co. Dhun na nGall (Donegal) in 2006 I met another few.
There are probably still a few knocking around our Western fringes, but not for long.
Last time I checked, I lived in TTL!
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Anyone who defines themselves as a "Northern Irish Catholic" ought not be so vehement about offence. We Catholics are only Irish, no North nor South!
I'm not sure that a Protestant Ireland would change all that much actually. While the island’s Catholicism was certainly a factor in the English (and Scottish) attitudes towards the place, the movement towards the crown asserting itself began before the break with Rome and was for political and strategic reasons as much as anything.
Whatever religion Ireland was (and it’s unlikely that the whole country would be converted all at once anyhow, so there will still be Catholics in Ireland even if the majority are protestant), the English crown will still see it as a strategic threat; to impose control they would still need to replace some of a aristocracy and stamp out a range of traditional practices, which will naturally cause rebellions. Of course, it’s vanishingly unlikely that whatever reformist religious doctrine that took off in Ireland would be the same as that in England, so there would still be religious differences. Irish Protestantism would be as foreign to Anglicanism as Calvinism was; If you’ll excuse the pun, Protestantism is a broad church; look at how, during the 1640s, Anglicans, Independents and Presbyterians all took the opportunity to victimise the other; or indeed, how Henry VIII suppressed Lutheranism during his reign. I think there will also still be plantations, although now the conflict will presumably be Anglicans vs *Presbyterians rather than the OTL sectarian divide.
There will still be big differences; I think the paranoia regarding Ireland and the Irish on the mainland will be far less severe if the Irish are broadly seen as protestants, and there’s a hell of a lot of scope for Hiberno-Scottish religious cross-fertilisation. Maybe this is a TL where (unfortunately for the locals) the Scots take a greater interest in Ulster during the 16th and 17th centuries? It’s worth remembering that it in an irony of history, was one of the most staunchly Catholic parts of Ireland until the plantations; ITTL it may well be the last Catholic holdout on the island, and so a natural target. The old Anglo-Irish aristocracy might survive a bit better ITTL f they manage to get on board (and I think they would, as the most likely conduit of reformist beliefs into Ireland). IOTL the Irish were never able to present a united front in the face of the Crown and ITTL things will be even worse, as London will be able to play off Protestant Lords against their Catholic counterparts; there will also be knock on effects on Europe more broadly, as France and Spain’s favourite source of foreign manpower has just potentially dried up.
So an interesting TL, really. But what's the best way to get there? Any indigenous Irish protestant movement is going to have to get started early and spread very quickly; prosletysation from the rest of the British Isles was always a complete failure, and as other people have observed once England and Scotland sever ties with Rome, particularly the latter, then it’ll be very difficult to get the Irish to do otherwise.
There are two ways to do this, I think; you either set up an Irish movement that predates Luther (inspired by the Hussites?) or you delay the Anglican break with Rome. The latter seems more plausible, but isn’t enough on its own, but butterflies are our friend there!
So, PoD; 1528. Everyone in the Royal Court is quietly relieved when Katherine of Aragon dies from the sweating sickness that’s sweeping the realm, and King Henry is able to shelve his plans to annul his marriage. After a polite interval, Henry marries Anne Boleyn the following year, and life continues as normal. Nobody much notices that thanks to some helpful butterflies, the Earl of Kildare is able to scrape together enough cash to send his son to study in Paris, where the young Thomas Fitzgerald (also known as Silken Thomas) becomes friends with a scholar named John Calvin.
The two are separated when Calvin is forced into hiding, but retain a correspondence even after Fitzgerald returns to Ireland. His rebellion against King Henry is butterflied away for the time being; instead, Fitzgerald succeeds his father as Earl and spends the next few years quietly promulgating his heretical beliefs amongst the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, getting his cousin the Earl of Desmond onside amongst others. For a brief time, Dublin is a haven for reformers fleeing persecution elsewhere, and men like George Wishart begin spreading the new doctrines amongst the local clergy.
Henry still breaks with Rome- the uproar over his execution of Anne Boleyn sees to that- but his eye isn’t drawn to Ireland as quickly as IOTL and there’s another five years of peace. Finally, in 1540 Henry decides to interfere, and uses Fitzgerald’s evident Lutheranism as a pretext to strip him of his title as Lord Deputy and summon him to London. Believing that he will be executed, Fitzgerald renounces his allegiance to the King and rebels, quickly getting his cousins the Fitzgeralds of Desmond onside as well. The rebellion is far worse than OTL’s “Silken Thomas” affair of 1534, and has more in common with OTL’s first Desmond rebellion, but spread across most of southern Ireland. Resistance is eventually crushed by the crown, which suppresses many traditional gaelic customs; at the same time it creates martyrs out of the two Fitzgeralds, who are executed in London.
The Irish reformation proceeds in fits and starts over the next few generations. The persecution of protestants under Queen Mary gives a serious filip to the movement, and by 1560, when the newly-crowned Queen Jane starts aggressively asserting control over Ireland, Leinster and Munster are the centres of Irish reformism, with broadly Calvinist ministers preaching to their flocks in Gaelic.
Thoughts?
Whatever religion Ireland was (and it’s unlikely that the whole country would be converted all at once anyhow, so there will still be Catholics in Ireland even if the majority are protestant), the English crown will still see it as a strategic threat; to impose control they would still need to replace some of a aristocracy and stamp out a range of traditional practices, which will naturally cause rebellions. Of course, it’s vanishingly unlikely that whatever reformist religious doctrine that took off in Ireland would be the same as that in England, so there would still be religious differences. Irish Protestantism would be as foreign to Anglicanism as Calvinism was; If you’ll excuse the pun, Protestantism is a broad church; look at how, during the 1640s, Anglicans, Independents and Presbyterians all took the opportunity to victimise the other; or indeed, how Henry VIII suppressed Lutheranism during his reign. I think there will also still be plantations, although now the conflict will presumably be Anglicans vs *Presbyterians rather than the OTL sectarian divide.
There will still be big differences; I think the paranoia regarding Ireland and the Irish on the mainland will be far less severe if the Irish are broadly seen as protestants, and there’s a hell of a lot of scope for Hiberno-Scottish religious cross-fertilisation. Maybe this is a TL where (unfortunately for the locals) the Scots take a greater interest in Ulster during the 16th and 17th centuries? It’s worth remembering that it in an irony of history, was one of the most staunchly Catholic parts of Ireland until the plantations; ITTL it may well be the last Catholic holdout on the island, and so a natural target. The old Anglo-Irish aristocracy might survive a bit better ITTL f they manage to get on board (and I think they would, as the most likely conduit of reformist beliefs into Ireland). IOTL the Irish were never able to present a united front in the face of the Crown and ITTL things will be even worse, as London will be able to play off Protestant Lords against their Catholic counterparts; there will also be knock on effects on Europe more broadly, as France and Spain’s favourite source of foreign manpower has just potentially dried up.
So an interesting TL, really. But what's the best way to get there? Any indigenous Irish protestant movement is going to have to get started early and spread very quickly; prosletysation from the rest of the British Isles was always a complete failure, and as other people have observed once England and Scotland sever ties with Rome, particularly the latter, then it’ll be very difficult to get the Irish to do otherwise.
There are two ways to do this, I think; you either set up an Irish movement that predates Luther (inspired by the Hussites?) or you delay the Anglican break with Rome. The latter seems more plausible, but isn’t enough on its own, but butterflies are our friend there!
So, PoD; 1528. Everyone in the Royal Court is quietly relieved when Katherine of Aragon dies from the sweating sickness that’s sweeping the realm, and King Henry is able to shelve his plans to annul his marriage. After a polite interval, Henry marries Anne Boleyn the following year, and life continues as normal. Nobody much notices that thanks to some helpful butterflies, the Earl of Kildare is able to scrape together enough cash to send his son to study in Paris, where the young Thomas Fitzgerald (also known as Silken Thomas) becomes friends with a scholar named John Calvin.
The two are separated when Calvin is forced into hiding, but retain a correspondence even after Fitzgerald returns to Ireland. His rebellion against King Henry is butterflied away for the time being; instead, Fitzgerald succeeds his father as Earl and spends the next few years quietly promulgating his heretical beliefs amongst the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, getting his cousin the Earl of Desmond onside amongst others. For a brief time, Dublin is a haven for reformers fleeing persecution elsewhere, and men like George Wishart begin spreading the new doctrines amongst the local clergy.
Henry still breaks with Rome- the uproar over his execution of Anne Boleyn sees to that- but his eye isn’t drawn to Ireland as quickly as IOTL and there’s another five years of peace. Finally, in 1540 Henry decides to interfere, and uses Fitzgerald’s evident Lutheranism as a pretext to strip him of his title as Lord Deputy and summon him to London. Believing that he will be executed, Fitzgerald renounces his allegiance to the King and rebels, quickly getting his cousins the Fitzgeralds of Desmond onside as well. The rebellion is far worse than OTL’s “Silken Thomas” affair of 1534, and has more in common with OTL’s first Desmond rebellion, but spread across most of southern Ireland. Resistance is eventually crushed by the crown, which suppresses many traditional gaelic customs; at the same time it creates martyrs out of the two Fitzgeralds, who are executed in London.
The Irish reformation proceeds in fits and starts over the next few generations. The persecution of protestants under Queen Mary gives a serious filip to the movement, and by 1560, when the newly-crowned Queen Jane starts aggressively asserting control over Ireland, Leinster and Munster are the centres of Irish reformism, with broadly Calvinist ministers preaching to their flocks in Gaelic.
Thoughts?
The opposite- once the Penal Laws were rescinded and Maynooth was established, the church of Rome could not have been less helpful. At this time the majority of their flock still spoke Irish and no English, as indeed they would for the next seven or eight decades. Never was any effort made to teach Irish to priests, to use it in the new college, nor to ensure that Irish-speaking priests would be assigned to Irish-speaking parishes.
Daniel O Connell was another agent in its decline.
However, even more importantly, if the dispossession of the Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman aristocracy post-Treaty of Limerick could be avoided (as it could were they some form of Protestant), it would go a long way towards saving Irish. For it was they, and their great houses, who supported the network of poets and bards; after they fled or were killed, and the Williamite victors took their estates, these men of letters gradually vanished (though it took nearly a hundred years), and Irish stopped evolving as a literary language. Hence no 19th-century development of the novel- what point was there in writing for illiterate peasant paupers? Even if any of them could read, how could they afford a book!?
No, I did not mean the reverse to be true.
Catholicism was the traditional religion. Ireland did not turn protestant before England.
But England turning protestant was one more strong reason for the irisi sticking to catholicism.
There is one obvious way to have people change religions : give them incentives to do so. Which means integrating them.
That's what the muslim califs and emirs did in the empire they had conquered.
What England did in Ireland was very different. It deprived the irish of their properties and rights. The irish had no other choice than passive resistance, rebellion and death, or migration abroad. Most of those who stayed and did not fight to death opted for passive resistance.
And remaining roman catholic was one of the dimensions of this passive resistance, although it was for a long time forbidden under english law, or maybe even because it was forbidden under english law.