Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England by D. G. Paz (review)

730book reviews hardly have come at a worse juncture Ui the whole history ofthe Anglo-Irish relationship . The empirical core of the work is a careful reconstruction from correspondence Ui ecclesiastical archives of the process by which the victory of the ultranationaUst Archbishop MacHale of Tuam over the concUiatory Archbishop Murray of Dublin was consummated in the appointment of the ultramontane Paul CuUen first as Archbishop of Armagh and then as successor to Murray upon the latter's death Ui 1852. It is hard to imagine anything RusseU might have done to avert this outcome, which by itself would have been fatal to his hopes. Perhaps more central to Kerr's evaluation of RusseU are two developments in which RusseU's agency is more clearly at stake: the Famine and the "papal aggression" controversy. In his treatment ofthe Famine,Kerr goes beyond his usual analysis ofhigh ecclesiastical poUtics to examine at length die attitudes and behavior of ordinary parish clergy during the calamity. It is not hard to see how the experiences he recounts—especiaUy certain British attempts to blame priests for crimes committed against landlords—would have soured the clergy on concUiation as they poisoned popular opinion for generations. Interestingly, however, Kerr does not blame RusseU, whose aversion to state intervention is often seen as contributing to the scale of the catastrophe. He regards "Black '47" as probably beyond the power of any government to avert, and Ui his assessment of RusseU's motives he places a good deal ofweight on a passage from one ofhis letters: It is quite true that landlords in England would not like to be shot like hares and partridges . But neither does any landlord in England turn out fifty persons at once, and burn their houses over their heads,giving them no provision for the future. The murders are atrocious, so are the ejectments, (p. 93) Kerr is much more wUling to find in RusseU's actions Ui the "papal aggression "controversy the tragic flaw which doomed his generous intentions toward Ireland. His decision to place more weight on RusseU's low-church reUgious commitments than on his laissez-faire economic ideology wUl strike some Irish historians as curious. It results, however, Ui what is likely to be the most evenhanded assessment ofRusseU's Irish policy to appear during the current sesquicentennial Famine observances. David W. Miller Carnegie Mellon University Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England. By D. G. Paz. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1992. Pp. xiv, 332. $42.50.) Some historians of the EngUsh Reformation are of the opinion that antiCathoUcism was more deeply entrenched Ui EngUsh society by the end of the book reviews731 sixteenth century than devotion to Protestantism. Equally, a new generation of historians working on the eighteentii century have shown that anti-CathoUcism was aUve and weU even Ui the age of EnUghtenment. It is the argument of this book that anti-CathoUcism remained a powerful cultural force Ui EngUsh society at least until 1875 when it began to shift to the margins. What distinguishes this treatment of Victorian anti-CathoUcism from most others is the author's conviction that anti-CathoUcism was not only ubiquitous and vulgar, but was also deeply embedded within the local, regional, and national cultures of nineteenth -century England. It cannot be reduced to historical memory, nor to antiIrish sentiment, nor even to Protestant prurience, but rather served a multitude of dtfferent functions for dtfferent social groups Ui dtfferent parts of England. In short, it was so embedded Ui the cultural values of the EngUsh, diat its manifestations were as diverse as nmeteentii-century society itself. In order to do justice to such diversity, Paz makes a vaUant attempt to penetrate to the heart of manifold local cultures by using documentary, Uterary, and nonverbal evidence. Thus bonfires, revels, and riots take thetf place alongside the weU-documented voluntary societies and die cadres of hard evangeUcal clerics. Anti-CathoUcism, it seems, stretched from the tea rooms of die House of Commons to the drunken brawls of low-brow urban Ufe and from the heart of the EstabUshed Church to Protestant sectarian firebrands. It is nevertheless one ofthe main arguments of Paz's book...