Counter‐Reformation

Counter‐Reformation. The revival of Catholicism in Ireland, as elsewhere in western Europe, was not just a reaction to Protestantism, but the continuation of a movement already visible before the Reformation. The impact of the 15th‐century Observant movement on the religious orders had enabled the Franciscans and to a lesser extent the Dominicans to present real opposition to Henry VIII's reformation. The continuity provided by these friars, together with the political alienation wrought by the Tudor conquest and the overwhelmingly colonial nature of the new Church of Ireland, meant that the failure of the militant Counter‐Reformation in Ireland did not matter. As early as 1561 the visiting Jesuit, David Wolfe, emphasized the need to combat vice not heresy. Likewise the devotional literature produced at the Irish College in Louvain in the early 17th century saw no need to counter Protestant doctrine.

The militant approach, coinciding with European religious wars, had its basis in papal policy towards England. In 1570 Pius V issued the ex‐communication of Queen Elizabeth, demanding that Catholics forsake their allegiance to a heretic. James Fitzmaurice, sent to Ireland by Pius's successor Gregory XIII, declared a holy war and helped provoke the second Desmond revolt. Papal reinforcements were massacred at Smerwick (1580). The high point was Rome's backing for the Spanish Armada of 1588. By the time of Hugh O'Neill's revolt, the papacy under Clement VIII (1592–1607) had, unluckily for the Ulsterman, entered a conciliatory phase. Clement hoped to win over Protestant princes by persuasion rather than excommunication and to consolidate the position of Catholics as loyal subjects by disengaging Catholic clergy from any involvement in politics. The militant approach briefly reappeared under Rinuccini in the 1640s.

The institutional developments of the 1590s were of more importance. Diocesan seminaries to train priests were a specific Counter‐Reformation innovation. In Ireland's case these had to be established abroad, beginning with the Irish college at Salamanca in 1592 (see irish colleges). A second major development came in 1598 with the establishment of a permanent Jesuit mission in Ireland, headed by Palesmen Richard Field and Christopher Holywood, with explicit instructions to avoid politics. The third major development was the appointment from the 1590s of vicars apostolic to take care of dioceses in the absence of resident bishops. However, this policy quickly gave way to the establishment of a full episcopal hierarchy under Peter Lombard and David Rothe. By 1630, with seventeen bishops and thirteen vicars apostolic, each of the country's dioceses had a resident ecclesiastical authority.

A resident episcopacy to instil clerical discipline and provide spiritual leadership was a keynote of the Counter‐Reformation. Its achievement in Ireland was unique in a Protestant‐controlled country. Synods of bishops met regularly, political circumstances permitting. Their diocesan authority was strengthened because the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of Gaelic ecclesiastical tenures simplified parochical structures. By 1623 there were 1,100 Catholic clergy in Ireland, about 30 per cent of whom had been trained in continental colleges. The custom of clerical marriage had been largely suppressed outside Ulster. The Jesuits provided ‘workshops’ for diocesan clergy and even ran a ‘university’ for a time in Dublin's liberties.

Behind the glowing annual Jesuit reports, it is hard to gauge the actual success of the Counter‐Reformation. At the popular level this entailed the enforcement of a code of religious observance—mass and the sacraments—within a parish structure. Mass attendance seems to have remained high, despite poor facilities and adverse political conditions. Priests were to teach catechism on Sundays but this depended on their preaching ability, the availability of catechisms, and the literacy level of their parishioners. The Counter‐Reformation attempted to remove the political, pagan, and promiscuous aspects of communal religion, by reforming christenings and wakes, controlling pilgrimages and gatherings at holy wells, and preventing veneration of sheela‐na‐gigs. The church also set its face firmly against divorce, hitherto not uncommon in Gaelic Ireland.

The Counter‐Reformation had produced a clandestine church in Ireland. There were occasional religious processions and public manifestations of religious zeal, but most religious services happened in a domestic setting or in backstreet mass‐houses. Although Catholics re‐occupied churches in many parts of the country in the 1640s, no colourful, ornate baroque churches were ever built. Assessments of overall success at a popular level vary, but on balance it seems right to argue that the full ‘Christianization’ of the lower classes had to await the ‘devotional revolution’ of the 19th century. Nevertheless the Catholic church in the 1640s was confident enough to move into power as a driving force behind the Confederate Catholics and resilient enough to survive Cromwell, despite the execution, transportation, and flight of many clergy and the transplantation of supporting gentry to Connacht.

Bibliography

Bossy, John , ‘The Counter‐Reformation and the People of Catholic Ireland 1596–1641’, Historical Studies, 8 (1971)
Corish, P. J. , The Catholic Community in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1981)

Hiram Morgan