catholic conversion colonial new england

While Ireland’s status as a colony is often seen as complex and ambiguous and therefore contested, many depict the Irish as a national group that was subjugated by British imperialism and sought to resist it 4.

6 Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, “The Consolidation of Irish Catholicism within a Hostile Imperial Framework”, (.)ĢIreland has long been called an internal colony of Britain 3.

5 Tadhg Foley and Maureen O’Connor, Ireland and Empire: Colonies, Culture, and Empire, Dublin, Irish (.).

4 Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British, 1580-1650, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001 Anthony C (.).

3 Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, London, R (.).

Hence, this paper focuses primarily on the colonial experience to explain the strength, nature, and evolving relationship of Catholicism and Irish nationalism.

According to traditional Irish nationalist interpretations, the British, while intending to create a single dominant religious tradition loyal to the British crown, inadvertently created competing religious traditions in Ireland and a fusion of Catholic and nationalist identities. When discovering or creating their identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they emphasized those aspects of and events in history that supported their narrative. My analysis recognizes that Irish nationalists needed to construct or invent their identity 2. This approach builds upon a tradition of scholarship that emphasizes the social construction of identities 1.

I posit that the best way to understand how Catholicism became so linked with Irish identity is by focusing on the colonial experience. However, my argument focuses on the effects of British imperialism rather than other approaches emphasized in previous studies. 2 For the best elaboration on the creation of the nationalist narrative, see Declan Kiberd, Inventing (.)ġWhy did Irish national identity come to be equated and linked with a Catholic religious identity? This article builds upon previous scholarship that explores the relationship between national and religious identity.1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (Revi (.).

Catholic conversion colonial new england