The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland (review)

This volume (the product of a University College Dublin symposium organized by Ford and McCafferty and held against the backdrop of those fateful days in Belfast, April 1998) ostensibly explores the early modern period for roots of sectarian hatred in modern Ireland. It contains a balanced mix of approaches (political, religious, social, literary, and intellectual), but surprisingly concentrates less on violence and struggle than perceptions of "otherness." In many ways, it documents the symbiosis, co-existence, and downright inextricability that developed between the invented traditions of Catholic and Protestant communities in post-Reformation Ireland. In still others, it nuances subtle sectarian atavisms that persist in Anglo-Irish historiography of the early-modern period—albeit with the laudable goal of proving which side was more ecumenical.

Ford's introduction begins with powerful analogies of religious violence in modern and early modern Ireland serving to trace sectarianism back to a time "when Protestants and Catholics began to live apart and create parallel communities, institutions, cultures and histories" (p. 3). What follows is a useful overview of themes broken down structurally into sections on periodization, terminology, struggle and coexistence, the sacraments, and education respectively. Suspicious of the simplistic interpretation of constant struggle in Ireland since the Act of Supremacy down to the restoration of power-sharing, Ford points to a real rise in tensions after 1580. Here he alludes to recent attempts to situate the origins of religious strife in Ireland outside the northern archipelago and within the wider European process of confessionalization. The allusion is, of course, to the lead article by Ute Lotz-Heumann, whose book on confessionalization in Ireland dramatically changed the dimensions of the pitch. Here, for the first time in English, she sums up her comparative arguments on the periodization of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation in Ireland as part of a broader European social phenomenon.

McCafferty follows with a narrative prosopography of the Church of Ireland episcopate under the early Stuarts. He reveals how limitations, such as poverty, failed reorganization, and royal neglect relegated the Irish bishops to the "B" league. Faced with lay apathy, most found themselves struggling to cope in fairly dismal conditions. Alternately, Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin examines a Catholic episcopate which, though accepting Trent, remained politically divided over loyalty to the Stuarts and willing to compromise with royal Protestantism in the struggle against Puritanism. In an interesting exposé, David Edwards charts the transmigration of ordinary English Catholics to Ireland in search of greater toleration, much to the chagrin of the authorities on both sides of the Irish sea. Two submissions by Ford and Marc Caball compare literary productions composed to establish a stronger sense of identity among sectarian communities. While Ford focuses on the evolution of a unique, almost proto-nationalistic trend in the Protestant historiography of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Caball detects echoes of a bardic elite which sang the praises of "Irishness" above religion. Mícheál MacGraith considers a similar problem among the Catholic political theorists Conry and McCaughwell, who compromised when faced with a divergence of their religious and political allegiance to the crown. By employing a microhistorical analysis of a land dispute between Catholic residents of Drogheda and local Franciscans, Brian Jackson undermines the myth of a monolithic Catholic culture in early modern Ireland, demonstrating the clash of self-interested land tenure and Tridentine missionary zeal. Finally, Declan Downey borrows theoretically from H. C. Erik Midelfort and Otto Brünner to investigate the creation of a myth of racial and religious purity by aristocratic writers caught in a crisis of the ancient Hiberno-Norman nobility.

The collection concludes with some chronological afterthoughts by John Morrill, juxtaposing the twin themes of sectarian strife and accommodation which lie at the heart of the volume. Clearly, however, it is the latter theme which dominates throughout. Those seeking detailed accounts of Cromwellian slaughter and rapine are likely to come away disappointed, but exactly that is the charm of this...