Is Ireland the only country in northern Europe with a large Catholic community?

[Grace O'Malley]

Europe was originally Pagan for thousands and thousands of years... and the Irish used to be Celtic Pagans and celebrated the original meanings of ancient Pagan nature festivals such as the Celtic New Year (Samhain/Halloween,) Yule, Beltane, Valentine's Day, Oestara, etc.

Yes of course. The ancient religion of Ireland is a fascinating subject for me.

[Grace O'Malley]

Wooow, so that means conservatism is much stronger there.

That has nothing to do with whether Northern Ireland is Protestant, England, Wales and Scotland are also highly Protestant and are as liberal as continental Ireland.

I know what you meant but no part of Ireland is continental.

[Ruggery]

All of Europe was mostly Catholic before the Reformation. The Irish just refused to change their religion.

Why didn't the Reformation take hold in Ireland?
Mon, Aug 28, 2000, 01:00
PATRICK COMERFORD


AS in England, the Tudor Reformation was an act of state in Ireland, implemented by parliamentary legislation. The Reformation was accepted by most of the bishops in 1536 when Papal supremacy was replaced by the supremacy of the state. However, the bishops made no changes in doctrine, and many of the first Reforming bishops are counted in the diocesan lists of both the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland.

The names of the early Reformers show they were drawn from the mainstream of Irish life - names such as Browne, Butler, Cullen, Devereux, Nugent, Purcell or Walsh - and the episcopal succession continued uninterrupted.

During the reign of Edward VI (1537-1553), a reformed liturgy was introduced from England and the Book of Common Prayer, first used in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Easter Day, 1551, was the first book printed in Ireland. Under Mary (1553-1558), some Reforming bishops were deposed and married clergy punished, but the Reformation returned under Elizabeth (1558-1603), and was accepted by all but two of the bishops. In 1560, the Irish Parliament again repudiated the authority of the Pope and passed the Act of Uniformity, making Anglicanism the state religion in Ireland.

However, the dividing line between who was Protestant and who was Catholic was not clearly defined even a generation after the Reformation was first introduced. The case of the pluralist Miler Magrath is infamous: he managed to remain Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor while he was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel.

A more interesting, if less dramatic, example of the confused identities of the day is provided by Magrath's predecessor as Bishop of Achonry. Eugene O'Harte, the Dominican Prior of Sligo, who was appointed Bishop of Achonry on January 28th, 1563, by Pope Pius IV. O'Harte attended the final session of the Council of Trent, but when he returned to the west of Ireland, he was accepted as the bishop of his diocese by old Catholics and new Anglicans alike, and remained in office until he died in his 100th year in 1603.

Historians continue to debate why the Reformation never took hold at a popular level in Ireland. The church historian Canon Michael Burrowes points out in his study of the episcopacy in Ireland: "The reasons why the bulk of the Irish population did not . . . adopt Protestantism, but rather came to look to Rome for alternative structures and pastoral care, remain hotly contested".

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/w...land-1.1261262

Abstract
The Reformation failed comprehensively and absolutely in Ireland before the end of Elizabeth’s reign: contemporaries estimated the number of Irish Protestants at between forty and 120 individuals. The debate about that failure has been long running, yet inconclusive. After a short historiographical review, this paper considers a range of factors which may have been pertinent in shaping Irish responses to the Reformation policies of Henry VIII and his Protestant children. It shows that Elizabeth’s Reformation in Ireland was stymied by the absence of indigenous support, which meant that religious change was neither propagated by local clergymen nor enforced by the local elites in Irish parishes. It points to the strength and persistence of Catholic resistance to the Reformation in different forms from the very start of Elizabeth’s reign in Ireland, contradicting the unsubstantiated notion that passive ‘church papistry’ was general. Nonetheless, it argues that it was only from the 1580s, when the Catholic church in Ireland was reorganised as a disestablished ‘people’s church’, and infused with the confidence inspired by the Counter-Reformation, can it be stated that the Reformation had failed in Ireland definitively.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...3F/core-reader

I always thought that the reason why the Irish rejected the Protestant reform was to oppose English rule, and that is why the English persecuted and executed many Irish Catholics as they did with the English Catholics at the time of Isabel Tudor.

[Grace O'Malley]

And like Catholicism just carried on Paganism. Look at Brigid the Goddess, they literally changed little and left her pagan symbol and turned it into Brigid's cross. Catholicism was smart at marketing and lax on orthodoxy. Every Irish women is confirmed under Brigid

Ireland was always a mix of the old beliefs and Christianity.

Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae: ‘If someone told me to go out and knock a fairy fort or touch it, I would starve first.’

“There are numerous fairy forts in that area,” he said yesterday. “I know that they are linked. Anyone that tampered with them back over the years paid a high price and had bad luck.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/envi...road-1.3179717

[Ruggery]

I know what you meant but no part of Ireland is continental.

If I already know, I mention it as a way to refer to the Republic of Ireland.

[PaleoEuropean]

Ireland was always a mix of the old beliefs and Christianity.

Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae: ‘If someone told me to go out and knock a fairy fort or touch it, I would starve first.’

“There are numerous fairy forts in that area,” he said yesterday. “I know that they are linked. Anyone that tampered with them back over the years paid a high price and had bad luck.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/envi...road-1.3179717

Well I mean Catholicism did the same pretty much across the board, Irish are probably one of the most traditional people though regardless. I like Halloween so I can't complain.

[Grace O'Malley]

I always thought that the reason why the Irish rejected the Protestant reform was to oppose English rule, and that is why the English persecuted and executed many Irish Catholics as they did with the English Catholics at the time of Isabel Tudor.

Yes being Catholic became very much rooted to Irish identity. The vast majority of people just wouldn't change their religion.

[Ruggery]

And like Catholicism just carried on Paganism. Look at Brigid the Goddess, they literally changed little and left her pagan symbol and turned it into Brigid's cross. Catholicism was smart at marketing and lax on orthodoxy. Every Irish women is confirmed under Brigid

But it was not the same case when they turned pagan Vikings into Catholics.

[PaleoEuropean]

But it was not the same case when they turned pagan Vikings into Catholics.

Pagan Vikings turned into Catholics on their own accord to gain power, i.e the Normans. And a lot carried on their Pagan beliefs for hundreds of years, but nobody was going to oppose them because they were the muscle.

[Ruggery]

Pagan Vikings turned into Catholics on their own accord to gain power, i.e the Normans. And a lot carried on their Pagan beliefs for hundreds of years, but nobody was going to oppose them because they were the muscle.

Scandinavia had several attempts to convert to Christianity The first Scandinavian nation to convert was Norwegian by a Jarl in fact the attempt to do it by force and erase paganism but much of the population did not accept radical change and a civil war was created, it was In the second and third attempt, the population finally accepted Christianity, achieving in the last attempt to convert the population without using force, then Denmark followed, and finally Sweden and Finland.