Talk:Catholic Church in Ireland

Removal of template
I've removed the template "20th century persecutions of the Catholic Church" as it doesn't mntion any Irish Catholic persecutees.86.42.206.248 (talk) 12:31, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Popular traditions section
"Alongside the church itself, many Irish folk traditions persisted for centuries as a part of the church's culture. Holy relics are thought to possess curative or magical powers, colourful "patterns" (processions) in honour of local saints persisted into the 1800s, and in 1985 thousands gathered to pray during the Moving statues phenomenon. Mariolatry is a central element, focused on the shrine at Knock, where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1879. Recent feasts and cults such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary (1854) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1856), and the concepts of martyrology are still important elements. Respect for mortification of the flesh has led on to the veneration of Matt Talbot and Padre Pio, and claims of miracles are investigated."

Any suggestions / additions? Many cultural elements are associated with the church that non-Irish people would not know about.86.42.218.67 (talk) 13:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's important to have such a section for sociologists and non-Christian readers of wikipedia. It is just about a big enough subject for its own article some day.Red Hurley (talk) 11:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

POV sections Oct 2008
I consider that User:Krzyzowiec is a bit POV himself, looking at his own page. Maybe best to stick to Polish wikipedia and all its "left-liberal" admins. Who would like me to haul in the numerous Irish refs from the sex abuse article?Red Hurley (talk) 12:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Opening Paragraph
I've edited the opening paragraph of this article (mostly because grammatically it had problems), but I'm not even comfortable that it is as it should be. The CIA factbook offered as a source says 87.4% for the Republic and doesn't say anything about 'infant baptism,' so I don't know if that's not actually the source that's meant or if the # is simply wrong. I can't find the source for the NI percentage, so I wonder if it is correct or specifically tied to the claim of 'infant baptism.' I also removed the total island population from the sentence because the percentages were for the individual jurisdictions, rendering the island pop. unhelpful. Nuclare (talk) 04:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "Infant baptism" is common in Christian churches. It means that people are affiliated with a church without having a choice in the matter, and by the time they are old enough to decide the good / bad points of their religion they usually remain with it, and in turn pass it on to their children. This has an effect on subsequent numbers in all churches. As for percentages today here or there, I can't say.Red Hurley (talk) 11:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a terrible article
Over 1500 years of history but nothing before 1800? I'll try to rectify it. Benkenobi18 (talk) 09:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Have not finished, but this is the primary source. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08098b.htm Will continue to edit to narrow the focus.


 * 1,500 years of Christianity, but few of us called ourselves Catholics before the 1500s Reformation. I'm removing your stuff as it's based on a 1910 church encyclopedia and therefore potentially biased. It needs links and references as well, not just one source. But the 1910 source should be linked to give an idea of how things have changed.Red Hurley (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I am moving the historical narrative to History of Christianity in Ireland which is an article that I created back in January. It appears that User:Benkenobi18 inserted a massive amount of text either verbatim or nearly verbatim from the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Ireland.


 * I would like to draw everyone's attention to Catholic Encyclopedia topics.


 * While the text [of the Catholic Encyclopedia] is public domain PLEASE do not simply dump text from the CE into Wikipedia without modification. The Encyclopedia was written to serve the Catholic Church and reflect its doctrine, therefore nearly every article has a distinct POV and no article should be included word for word. Format the text according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Update any spelling anomalies. Rephrase any awkward-sounding prose to improve clarity and flow. Remove 19th century references unless they really move the text along. Update the articles with new information. Any text describing the "current situation" as of 1908 or 1913 should be revised as necessary. When you have finished writing your article, add the  template to all articles based on a CE entry.


 * It appears that Benkenobi18 has in fact simply dumped text from the CE into this article.


 * Aside from the problems mentioned in Catholic Encyclopedia topics, there is also the problem that this article is not really the best place to have such a long and detailed treatment of the history of Roman Catholicism in Ireland. In general, the articles of the form "History of Roman Catholicism in Country X" describe the state of the Church in that country in the present-day.  There may be a short summary of the church's history in that country but I have started a series of articles titled "History of Roman Catholicism in Country X" which are intended to cover the church's history in that country in greater detail.


 * Thus, we have Roman Catholicism in Spain and History of Roman Catholicism in Spain,  Roman Catholicism in Mexico and  History of Roman Catholicism in Mexico,  Roman Catholicism in the United States and  History of Roman Catholicism in the United States.  Thus, we should have Roman Catholicism in Ireland and History of Roman Catholicism in Ireland.


 * Note that History of Roman Catholicism in Ireland currently redirects to History of Christianity in Ireland. The reason for this is that the Celtic Church arguably represents an early non-Catholic form of Christianity which was later suppressed, subsumed and/or transformed by the Catholic Church.  I am open to renaming History of Christianity in Ireland to [[History of Roman Catholicism in Ireland and reversing the redirect.  I would like to hear what other editors think on this question.


 * --Richard (talk) 03:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If the text was from the Catholic Encyclopedia, then you were right to remove it. While it would seem appropriate to avoid over-long historical sections, surely there should be at least a brief summary of the history - such a section seems to exist in many of the other articles on "Roman Catholicism in X".  I agree with you re the History article move and have gone ahead with it.  Note that Celtic Christianity's own article makes it clear that it is inaccurate to describe it as a unified and identifiable entity separated from the mainstream of Western Christendom - Celtic Christians would have seen themselves, and are usually seen by modern historians, as having been essentially part of the same church as the one led by the Pope, but having some distinctive traditions and practices.  The History of Christianity in Ireland was primarily about Catholic Christianity.   A new article is needed there including more about other Christian denominations. Tameamseo (talk) 11:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, but I'm going to make some changes to the summary. I want there to be a historical description of the history of Catholicism in Ireland, which originates with St. Patrick. Please recall he was sent by Rome as a mission to Ireland.Benkenobi18 (talk) 11:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Tameamseo and Benkenobi18 that there should be a summary of the history of the church here in this article. I'll make an initial effort but I suggest that we keep in mind that there is a main article on the history and the section in this article should be just a summary per WP:SUMMARY. --Richard (talk) 15:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Source Dumping
[Moving this discussion here from my Talk Page]

I rather resent the allegation that I dumped the entire contents. If you had read and compared the two, you would have seen the considerable amount of editing that I had been engaging to reduce the size of the history section. I cut out about 60 percent of the article. Suggest you take the time to talk with an editor if you don't understand what they are doing.Benkenobi18 (talk) 11:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry for having offended you.


 * If you look at what I wrote and parse it carefully, I did not write that you had "dumped the entire contents".


 * I wrote "It appears that Benkenobi18 has in fact simply dumped text from the CE into this article."


 * I admit that this can be read to mean that you dumped the entire article and for this I apologize. I was writing quickly.


 * I admit that I did not compare your edits to the original CE article, word-for-word. I didn't know one way or the other if you had copied the entire article or not.  That wasn't the point I was making.  The point that I wanted to make was that some significant passages had been copied verbatim and the reason I could tell is that the style of the writing was archaic and had a Catholic POV.


 * It is good that you cut out 60% of the article but the 40% that you did copy still doesn't meet the standards of Wikipedia articles. More effort will be required to clean up the text and put it into text that uses a 21st century tone and strikes an NPOV stance.


 * Your copying of the CE text is a good first step but it needs to be followed up by some significant cleanup and rewriting. That's what I was trying to communicate.


 * --Richard (talk) 15:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

History section
OK, I've brought back a lot of the history section that I deleted last night but after some significant further editing to trim it down. It's still too long but the problem isn't so much extraneous detail any more as it is the problem of separating the history of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland from the history of Roman Catholics in Ireland. Much of the history section deals with political, economic and military history which belongs in History of Ireland instead of in this article or in History of Roman Catholicism in Ireland. The problem, of course, is that the church has been involved in many of the interactions between Catholic Ireland and Protestant England. I have cut out as much as I could in the first pass but more trimming is necessary. --Richard (talk) 16:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm editing it down a lot more. So the Vikings arrived? They arrived all over Europe and what religion was where was irrelevant as far as they were concerned. When I learnt history in national School the vikings were the very worst thing but now we know that they started towns and improved trade links and were at peace most of the time. Churches were raided by the Vikings, the Church wrote the history books anti-the Vikings, unsurprisingly. The 1913 encyclopedia is rubbish, mostly, but interesting to see what rubbish was around when. This is a world encyclopedia so we Irish have to adopt a wide angle lens on our own history - we are famous for being too insular.Red Hurley (talk) 22:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Any disagreeing will see that there were no links (or mentions) of/to: Regnans in Excelsis]], The Graces(Ireland), the Test Act, the Declaration of Breda, a link to JKL and so on. Roman Catholicism as a separate Irish cultural element really started in the 1530s but before 1570 or 1603 other outcomes might have arisen. The more of politics that is/are included, the less on religion. Lord "Gormanstone"? - I don't think so. "Loss of majority in parliament in 1613" - not in the Lords until 1650; loss etc. in the Commons most of the time was the reality, not "parliament". It would have had a C- mark from any inter cert examiner. Shocking, isn't it, that a 1913 book could be wrong. Can we keep this page to Ireland post-1922?Red Hurley (talk) 22:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit Dec 2009
I have removed 99% of the history section for being overly long and imperfectly encyclopedic.Red Hurley (talk) 20:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality
I dispute the neutrality of this article. It does not discuss the reduction of Catholicism in Ireland. See example sources below

-- Senra (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * If you hav' reliable sources (which you do) then be bold and put it in yourself. ~Asarlaí 19:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Churches and church land after disestablishment or independence?
Hi, I'm curious as to what happened to land confiscated by the Anglican Church during the Reformation after disestablishment or after independence. Did the Roman Catholic Church get any buildings or land back? Did they purchase it from the Church of Ireland? It seems the cathedrals in Dublin are shared, is that common? So curious! Arthurian Legend (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Bless your innocence. No Arthur - what you have you hold. The cathedrals in Dublin city remain in the hands of the CoI. The RC church has only a pro-cathedral. Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Really? So a tiny organization like the Church of Ireland has maintains ownership of pre-Reformation church buildings in the Republic of Ireland? But who actually goes there to worship? Seems a bit expensive, no? I clearly misread the St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin and Christchurch, Dublin articles. thanks for clearing that up, Laurel Lodged!


 * I think it's naive and wrong to say that the Anglicans confiscated anything in the 1530s. The head of the church had changed at the top, and the church stayed the same, but with new dogma. The monasteries were confiscated and sold, but they were technically separate from the diocesan church. Church historians are able to differentiate diocesan from monastic.78.16.2.110 (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * For Catholics, the "head of the church ... at the top" never changed; the Pope remained the Pope. For those who broke with the head, there was a change. As these people also had the might of the State at their disposal, that meant that they were able to appropriate for their own use those assets that were previously held by those bishops that chose to remain in communion with the Pope. So there were parallel successions in most dioceses, but only one side had the services of the State's armed forces - those who adhered to the State established church. Laurel Lodged (talk) 13:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

When James II came to Dublin and convened the Patriot Parliament, he remained the head of the (protestant) Churches of England and Ireland, while also being a Catholic for most of his life. He made no adjustments. From the 1800s some historians supposed that church property was confiscated, but they were wrong. Various rulers (Gaelic, Norman, English) had given lands to be used for churches and monasteries; other rulers would occasionally take them back or sell them off. Quite a lot of property has been sold off by all the churches themselves since 1922, notably the Dublin Mosque building.78.16.124.207 (talk) 20:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 14 May 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. As I said at the Scotland page just now, perhaps a universal RfC is in order, but until it happens they are treated page by page. This move discussion has no consensus either way. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 12:30, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Roman Catholicism in Ireland → Catholic Church in Ireland – To be in line with definitive rename of main article to Catholic Church, and to avoid excluding Eastern Catholic presence in the country. (Yes, they exist there, since at least 1932.)  Deus vult!  Crusadestudent (talk) 07:18, 14 May 2016 (UTC) --Relisted. — JFG talk 12:25, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose proposal as Catholic Church is not the main article. It's an intersection of Catholic Church and a country. For that reason, I would instead favour a rename to Roman Catholic Church in Ireland per the category Category:Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. This alternative name is currently a re-direct of this page. So the alternative proposes a reversal of this situation. Laurel Lodged (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The next most closely related "main article" besides Catholic Church is Catholic Church by country. Still no "Roman".   Deus vult!   Crusadestudent (talk) 18:02, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Support. "Roman" is not part of either the church's most common or its most official name. Gulangyu (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose: This proposal adds unnecessary ambiguity to the article names in a country that has had a long history of religious conflict, with several denominations historically or contemporarily considering themselves fully or partially to be the true "Catholic Church". Dozens of related articles would need to be carefully and manually updated to successfully make this an article name change unambiguous and clear. There is little benefit to be gained relative to the effort involved. --Zfish118⋉talk 17:45, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 28 October 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: procedural close. This is already happening. -- Tavix ( talk ) 17:51, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Roman Catholicism in Ireland → Catholic Church in Ireland – As per consensus on Talk:Catholic Church in Armenia. Chicbyaccident ( Please notify with (Talk) 09:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
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Allegiance of Bishops in 1558
The source referenced (Brady, p193) does not support the statement in the section 'Counter-Reformation and suppression' - 'all but two of the bishops of the Church in Ireland followed the decision (to break away from the Papacy)' - it states the opposite. Clivemacd (talk) 12:42, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a more extensive quotation please? I don't have the source to hand. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * From p193 of Brady - 'The claims to the Irish succession, which the present Roman Catholic Episcopate possesses, require a brief notice. At the accession of Elizabeth, the Marian bishops were, beyond dispute, the true bishops of the Church in Ireland, which was then thoroughly Roman Catholic in its clergy and people. Of the twenty-six bishops alive in 1558, twenty-five were natives of Ireland, and continued Roman Catholics.' Clivemacd (talk) 13:17, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Interesting. My understanding is that the native bishops were "encouraged" to not attend parliament when the vote was going through. Hence 100% compliance (of the couple that turned up and were amenable to the Crown's position). Any other sources confirm this? Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I've been unable to find a better source. For now I've added a 'not in citation given' tag to the article with a link to this discussion Clivemacd (talk) 17:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Added better citation.Clivemacd (talk) 19:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Catholic Church naming conventions RfC
There is currently an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Catholic Church) that may be of interest. Chicbyaccident (talk) 09:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

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Name
There should be a qualification in the naming to include the phrase ‘Roman Catholic’. The Roman Catholic Church is only one of several groups that formally claim to be the Catholic Church (universal Church founded by Jesus) in Ireland- another being the Church of Ireland. This is neutral language, accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as a self-descriptor in several ecumenical contexts (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission). The only people who would disagree are those making a polemical truth claim (‘we are *the* Catholic Church, and you are not’) or Irish people unfamiliar with the term. LODU70 (talk) 18:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up. The topic has been discussed at global and other levels in the encyclopedia many times. The Catholic Church (comprising the Latin Rite Church and 23 Eastern Rite Churches, all in communion with the Pope in Rome) is commonly known as such, albeit also as the RCC.  The many other churches which describe themselves as "catholic" (small "c") are mostly not so named - the Church of Ireland, for example, is just the "Church of Ireland", not the "Catholic Church of Ireland" (there are notable exceptions among the old churches, of course).  See Talk:Catholic Church and the many past debates in the archives of that and other relevant articles. SeoR (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I feel the “small ‘c’” vs “Big ‘C’” distinction is a bit contrived. The Church of Ireland claims to be an unqualified part of the Catholic Church; possessing the fullness of the Catholic faith. A corollary of that is that it’s The Catholic Church in Ireland also. If Wikipedia just consists of common parlance, it’s subjecting truth claims and language to a democratic vote that Roman Catholics will always win by dint of numbers. LODU70 (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Founder
The Founder heading should be amended or removed to show the RCC only claims continuity with Patrick’s Church. The RCC is a discontinuous institution in Ireland, whose Irish line is dubious. This is in parallel to the Church of Ireland page, for the sake of a uniform editorial policy. LODU70 (talk) 10:43, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing that up here also - but I suggest that this is taken as notice of the debate on the Talk:Church of Ireland page, and a single outcome devised for all relevant articles. For myself, I do not see the logic for the claim that the line of the (Roman) Catholic Church is discontinuous - it seems to me that it proceeds in a clear line from St Patrick to the present, with the vast majority of faithful and clergy, and a significant majority of higher clerics also, adhering throughout the period when the established churches were formed.  But I'd love to see more (informed) opinions in the mix.  And, sorry, to save time and repetition, account must be taken of the prior debates over related matters, such as referred to in the previous section. SeoR (talk) 17:29, 19 March 2024 (UTC)