There Never Was A "Catholic Ireland"

Purely in the twentieth century, there used to be very high levels of weekly Mass attendance. But that was all. There has never been in Ireland the profoundly Catholic culture that one encounters on the Continent. Into the nineteenth century, the Irish were so pagan that they were widely polygamous, and practising Catholics did not predominate until at least the middle third, or even the third quarter, of that century.

Each of this United Kingdom’s parts contains a Catholic intelligentsia, whereas the Irish Republic’s is the most tribally anti-Catholic in the world. There are precious few Mass-going, and no ideologically Catholic, politicians, journalists, radio or television producers, or other public intellectuals. Rather, the memories of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce are venerated. Anyone who objects to even the most extreme decadence is accused of wishing to “return” to “the bad, old, repressive Ireland.” The Republic’s Catholic schools, among much else, are doomed.

As would be Northern Ireland’s, if Sinn Féin had its way. Under the pretext that they teach through the medium of Irish, wholly and militantly secular Sinn Féin schools are being set up at public expense, in direct opposition to the Catholic system, by the Sinn Féin Education Minister. Her exclusion of Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist clergy from their historic role in the government of schools is the dry run for her party’s openly desired exclusion of the Catholic Church from schools throughout Ireland.

So the Catholic case is for the Union. Look at the Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist votes in largely or entirely Catholic wards. Even Ian Paisley’s huge personal vote could not happen without Catholic support. With no corresponding Nationalist vote in Protestant wards, the Union, simply as such, is manifestly the majority will of both communities. As for Paisley’s theological opinions, the definitive Catholic answers to them have been available for centuries.