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Topic ClosedIrish vs. British Empire

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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Irish vs. British Empire
    Posted: 28-Jun-2008 at 22:26
Even though I am part Irish I really do not know much about the Irish diaspora.

The British were sometimes brutal to the Irish natives but did they forcefully convert Catholic Irish to the Protestant faith? This would be contrary to the Protestant religion but did they?

I also have a tiny bit of English ancestry so I am not picking on the Brits.

I have been to the Irish Republic and I saw a number of Protestant churches. This suprised me because I believed it was strictly a Catholic country. It is a great place and the people are very kind.

Our ancestor's last name was McCurly but I don't know if this is Scotch Irish or Irish-???

I know many, like the Scots, Irish were forced out of Ireland by the British and the rich Irish Lords- very sad!!

we figure they came around the 1830's or 40'r to Ameerica ( our Irish side) but only a guess by the family.
Λοιπόν, αδελφοί και οι συμπολίτες και οι στρατιώτες, να θυμάστε αυτό ώστε μνημόσυνο σας, φήμη και ελευθερία σας θα ε
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Jun-2008 at 23:13
All scottish people originally came from Ireland in the 10th or 11th century, so basically, they are one and the same. It is no surprise that you will find an Irish Kennedy and a Scottish Kennedy but who is the original and who is the branch only God knows.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jun-2008 at 08:17
By the way eaglecap. The Scots are British last time I checked, indeed the last two PM's have been Scottish.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jun-2008 at 23:13
McCurly is probably a scotch Irish name.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jun-2008 at 23:42
Ireland's primary religion is Catholicism, but it has a large Protestant population, especially around the border counties. The Church of Ireland is actually the fastest growing religion in Ireland, and Catholicism (or at least declared catholicism) is on the wane. The Protestant church has much less blood on its hands so to speak compared to the Catholic church with the numerous sex abuse cases and general authoritarion behaviour in the past. The Protestant church in Ireland is a remnant of the Plantations both in Munster and Ulster.

There's so much religious bsh*t in Ireland's history it's kind of refreshing to see religion becoming less important, but hey, that's just my opinion.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Jun-2008 at 05:49
A lot of the Irish nationalists of the 19th century were protestant. Parnell come to mind.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2008 at 17:54
Well, many Ulstermen have Scottish and English last names, and are Protestant. The weird thing is, some of those Scottish descendants are Catholic because they came to Ireland prior to the Reformation (Gallowglass families). 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2008 at 20:43
Originally posted by Sparten

A lot of the Irish nationalists of the 19th century were protestant. Parnell come to mind.
 
Or the late 18th. Wolfe Tone, the great Irish patriot who led the unsuccessful rising of 1798. Tone however was not just a patriot but a revolutionary devoted to the ideals of the French Revolution and his views on the US are interesting.
"Living at Philadelphia, he wrote a few months later to Thomas Russell expressing unqualified dislike of the American people, whom he was disappointed to find no more truly democratic in sentiment and no less attached to authority than the English; he described George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat," and he found the aristocracy of money in America still less to his liking than the European aristocracy of birth." 
 
Incidentally I doubt anyone forcibly converted Roman Catholics to Anglicanism let alone Protestantism. There were of course social and frequently commercial and financial advantages in being Anglican (rather than Roman Catholic or Protestant, like the Ulstermen) and I've no doubt that led many to convert, at least professedly.
 
PS In an Irish context I should have referred to the Church of England in Ireland maybe, instead of Anglicanism, but theologically that's close enough. Smile


Edited by gcle2003 - 26-Jul-2008 at 20:44
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2008 at 20:52
Originally posted by eaglecap

The British were sometimes brutal to the Irish natives but did they forcefully convert Catholic Irish to the Protestant faith? This would be contrary to the Protestant religion but did they?


I would just like to note, in the interests of clarification, that there is no such thing as "the Protestant religion," at least not in any sense that something as general as forced conversion could be contrary to it. In a broad sense, forced conversion is contrary to Christianity in general, which is not to say that it was not practiced by many groups over the ages. The Protestants, like almost every other Christian sect, have had a sketchy history with religious compulsion. The terms under which this compulsion occurred was often a result of various cultural and political factors.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jul-2008 at 04:25
Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Sparten

A lot of the Irish nationalists of the 19th century were protestant. Parnell come to mind.
 
Or the late 18th. Wolfe Tone, the great Irish patriot who led the unsuccessful rising of 1798. Tone however was not just a patriot but a revolutionary devoted to the ideals of the French Revolution and his views on the US are interesting.
"Living at Philadelphia, he wrote a few months later to Thomas Russell expressing unqualified dislike of the American people, whom he was disappointed to find no more truly democratic in sentiment and no less attached to authority than the English; he described George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat," and he found the aristocracy of money in America still less to his liking than the European aristocracy of birth." 
 
Incidentally I doubt anyone forcibly converted Roman Catholics to Anglicanism let alone Protestantism. There were of course social and frequently commercial and financial advantages in being Anglican (rather than Roman Catholic or Protestant, like the Ulstermen) and I've no doubt that led many to convert, at least professedly.
 
PS In an Irish context I should have referred to the Church of England in Ireland maybe, instead of Anglicanism, but theologically that's close enough. Smile

Actually, a majority of Ulster Protestants are not Anglican but Presbyterian. I don't know if that goes for the rest of Ireland though.Unhappy

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jul-2008 at 15:07
Originally posted by Emperor Barbarossa

Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Sparten

A lot of the Irish nationalists of the 19th century were protestant. Parnell come to mind.
 
Or the late 18th. Wolfe Tone, the great Irish patriot who led the unsuccessful rising of 1798. Tone however was not just a patriot but a revolutionary devoted to the ideals of the French Revolution and his views on the US are interesting.
"Living at Philadelphia, he wrote a few months later to Thomas Russell expressing unqualified dislike of the American people, whom he was disappointed to find no more truly democratic in sentiment and no less attached to authority than the English; he described George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat," and he found the aristocracy of money in America still less to his liking than the European aristocracy of birth." 
 
Incidentally I doubt anyone forcibly converted Roman Catholics to Anglicanism let alone Protestantism. There were of course social and frequently commercial and financial advantages in being Anglican (rather than Roman Catholic or Protestant, like the Ulstermen) and I've no doubt that led many to convert, at least professedly.
 
PS In an Irish context I should have referred to the Church of England in Ireland maybe, instead of Anglicanism, but theologically that's close enough. Smile

Actually, a majority of Ulster Protestants are not Anglican but Presbyterian. I don't know if that goes for the rest of Ireland though.Unhappy
I did say the Ulstermen were Protestants. There have been advantages at various times to being Protestant in Ulster, but I had in mind pre-partition Ireland as a whole, where the main benefit was in belonging to the fashionable church, the Church of England in Ireland. Even in Ulster I think you will find that the majority of the economic elite were not Protestant.
 
Many of the internationally famous Irishmen who spring to mind - Wilde, Wellington and the Wellesleys, Tone, Parnell, Shaw, Swift, Yeats - were Church of England in Ireland. Which isn't of course to imply any superiority in the Church, but merely to indicate that that was where the money and the privilege were, and they constitute powerful pressures to convert.
 
(Frequent use of misleading terms like 'the protestant ascendancy' distort the picture.)


Edited by gcle2003 - 27-Jul-2008 at 15:18
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jul-2008 at 19:42
glce2003, the 1798 rebellion was (mostly) an Ulster Protestant rebellion. Indeed one of the reasons for union in 1800 was since the British felt that the reason Ireland was such a mess was as a result of the Protestant asendency and its mistreatment of Catholics . The main reasons the British refused home rule for 50 plus years (despite wanting to give all of Ireland the old heave ho) was fears of what was a desire to protect catholics. As was the reason for partition. And the reason they went into N Ireland.
 
Indeed it seems for the last 210 years the most of the things the British Government has done in Ireland have been motivated in part to protect Catholics. Ironic considering what the politics and secatraian feeling there is.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Jul-2008 at 00:58
Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Emperor Barbarossa

Originally posted by gcle2003

Originally posted by Sparten

A lot of the Irish nationalists of the 19th century were protestant. Parnell come to mind.
 
Or the late 18th. Wolfe Tone, the great Irish patriot who led the unsuccessful rising of 1798. Tone however was not just a patriot but a revolutionary devoted to the ideals of the French Revolution and his views on the US are interesting.
"Living at Philadelphia, he wrote a few months later to Thomas Russell expressing unqualified dislike of the American people, whom he was disappointed to find no more truly democratic in sentiment and no less attached to authority than the English; he described George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat," and he found the aristocracy of money in America still less to his liking than the European aristocracy of birth." 
 
Incidentally I doubt anyone forcibly converted Roman Catholics to Anglicanism let alone Protestantism. There were of course social and frequently commercial and financial advantages in being Anglican (rather than Roman Catholic or Protestant, like the Ulstermen) and I've no doubt that led many to convert, at least professedly.
 
PS In an Irish context I should have referred to the Church of England in Ireland maybe, instead of Anglicanism, but theologically that's close enough. Smile

Actually, a majority of Ulster Protestants are not Anglican but Presbyterian. I don't know if that goes for the rest of Ireland though.Unhappy
I did say the Ulstermen were Protestants. There have been advantages at various times to being Protestant in Ulster, but I had in mind pre-partition Ireland as a whole, where the main benefit was in belonging to the fashionable church, the Church of England in Ireland. Even in Ulster I think you will find that the majority of the economic elite were not Protestant.
 
Many of the internationally famous Irishmen who spring to mind - Wilde, Wellington and the Wellesleys, Tone, Parnell, Shaw, Swift, Yeats - were Church of England in Ireland. Which isn't of course to imply any superiority in the Church, but merely to indicate that that was where the money and the privilege were, and they constitute powerful pressures to convert.
 
(Frequent use of misleading terms like 'the protestant ascendancy' distort the picture.)

True, I was pointing out that a majority are not now of the Anglican Church in Ireland. I see your point that the Anglican Church offered much more benefit to Irishmen then than it does now.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Jul-2008 at 09:24
Originally posted by Sparten

glce2003, the 1798 rebellion was (mostly) an Ulster Protestant rebellion.
I pointed out it was led by Wolfe Tone, technically I think an Anglican. However he actually seems to have been a typical Enlightenment freethinker, the movement called itself 'United Irishmen', and I think it was more of a political movement, inspired by the French Revolution, than driven by religion.
 
Indeed one of the reasons for union in 1800 was since the British felt that the reason Ireland was such a mess was as a result of the Protestant asendency and its mistreatment of Catholics . The main reasons the British refused home rule for 50 plus years (despite wanting to give all of Ireland the old heave ho) was fears of what was a desire to protect catholics. As was the reason for partition. And the reason they went into N Ireland.
 
Indeed it seems for the last 210 years the most of the things the British Government has done in Ireland have been motivated in part to protect Catholics. Ironic considering what the politics and secatraian feeling there is.
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Jul-2008 at 23:56
Originally posted by Emperor Barbarossa

Well, many Ulstermen have Scottish and English last names, and are Protestant. The weird thing is, some of those Scottish descendants are Catholic because they came to Ireland prior to the Reformation (Gallowglass families). 
 
I've read some time ago, interesting enough (To me atleast), the vast majority of our Presidents have a predominant heritage of Scottish-Irish in them. If i remember correctly, Ulster in northern Ireland was the predominant area of origin & perhaps from the west coast area of Scotland as well.
 
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2008 at 01:09
Originally posted by Panther

Originally posted by Emperor Barbarossa

Well, many Ulstermen have Scottish and English last names, and are Protestant. The weird thing is, some of those Scottish descendants are Catholic because they came to Ireland prior to the Reformation (Gallowglass families). 
 
I've read some time ago, interesting enough (To me atleast), the vast majority of our Presidents have a predominant heritage of Scottish-Irish in them. If i remember correctly, Ulster in northern Ireland was the predominant area of origin & perhaps from the west coast area of Scotland as well.
 
 

Yes, this is very true. Strange origins however. The Scots-Irish basically begin in Ireland, invade Scotland in 843, go back to Ireland in the 1600s, and then many came to America. However, many stayed, and a few Ulster-Scots still speak a form of Scots called "Ullans."

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2008 at 03:22
Yes very interesting?
 
BTW... i meant to say this for the last day or two... Welcome back to the forum Smile
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2008 at 03:32
Originally posted by Panther

Yes very interesting?
 
BTW... i meant to say this for the last day or two... Welcome back to the forum Smile

Thanks, Panther. Did you ever read Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by Jim Webb? If you haven't, I would greatly recommend it.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2008 at 05:16

No i haven't. I'll certainly look into it. Thank you for the tip, EB!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jul-2008 at 11:38
Has anyone else remarked the similarity of that distinctive Charleston (SC) accent to that of Belfast?
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