Catholic Sociology in Ireland in Comparative Perspective

This paper examines the relationship between the Catholic Church and Irish sociology within a comparative framework. Drawing on archival and documentary research, this linkage is investigated at an institutional and intellectual level, across three stages of the “career” of Irish Catholic sociology, and employing comparisons with Catholic sociology in France, Germany, and the United States. I discern important sources of variation between the four cases including major intellectuals, organisational hosts, and publishing outlets. Irish Catholic sociology’s quite sudden movement in the direction of secular sociology in the 1950s is explained as a result of normative pressure to jettison its value-driven orientation as a result of more frequent interaction with the mainstream discipline via scholarly collaboration, the reforms of Vatican II emphasising engagement with the modern world, the demise of the broader Catholic Action movement of which it was a part, and changes in the national higher education environment.     

Quebec and the Irish Catholic Relief Act of 1778: An Institutional Approach

Abstract The following attempts to clarify the origins and character of the "movement" toward Catholic emancipation in the British empire by examining the negotiation of two early relief measures, the Quebec Act (1774) and the Irish Catholic Relief Act (1778), from an institutional perspective. It explores how institutions structuring Anglo-Quebec and Anglo-Irish political relations affected policy outcomes in each case, and what influence the Quebec case had on the Irish act four years later. While the Quebec Act offered a response to the Catholic question that was to assist supporters of the Irish bill, both were hard won against the inertia of institutional precedent. Neither act was accompanied by indications that greater freedoms were forthcoming. An institutional analysis thus challenges leading approaches that can represent the "movement" toward Catholic emancipation as more spontaneous and less contested than is sustained by actual events.     

Ethnicity and Status Attainment: The Case of the Roman Catholic Clergy*

This paper examines the influence of ethnic background on organizational status attainment. The data are taken from a national sample of 2,755 Roman Catholic diocesan priests and bishops. The sample is divided into seven ethnic categories: Irish, German, French, Italian, Anglo-Saxon, Polish, and other. Controlling for the overall distribution of status positions within the diocese and the individual's age/seniority, a “non-preferential” model of status attainment is constructed. Average expected status on the basis of this non-preferential model for these ethnic groups in seven different regions of the country is compared to average actual status. Although we found three isolated cases of particular ethnic groups in specific regions doing significantly poorer in status attainment than predicted by the non-preferential model, the only consistent effect of ethnicity found across the entire sample is a slight advantage enjoyed by Irish clergy. No significant effect was associated with belonging to the largest ethnic group in a diocese. The very small advantage enjoyed by the Irish suggests that Irish domination of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States is maintained less by selective promotion within the ranks of the clergy and more by a disproportionate recruitment of Irish priests at the entrance levels of the organization. Disproportionate recruitment and preferential promotion are discussed as alternative mechanisms of domination within organizations.     

Priests,Publicans and the Irish Poor: Ethnic Enterprise and Migrant Networks in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Liverpool

Part of the outreach mission of one of the earliest Catholic parishes in Irish Liverpool, the St Patrick's Society developed into one of the largest collecting societies in Victorian Britain, offering burial benefit to tens of thousands of poor Irish migrants beyond the reach of organised labour or industrial insurance. Growth soon led to scandal and litigation, revealing a number of fault lines within the migrant community. Catholic clergy withdrew in protest as publicans and other ‘Micks on the make’ came to the fore, secular ethnic culture brokers who accentuated the ‘Irishness’ of the Society, running it as a machine which looked less to the respectability (or religion) of the members than to their assurance of an adequately funded ‘wake’. It was this ‘Irish’ image, as much as the alleged financial irregularities, which brought the Society into disrepute (and ruin), a judgement yet to be challenged by historians. The study examines this mutualist network and explains the rise and fall of an important, but until this point, unexamined feature of the communal life of the Irish neighbourhoods of Liverpool.     

Priests, Publicans and the Irish Poor: Ethnic Enterprise and Migrant Networks in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Liverpool

Part of the outreach mission of one of the earliest Catholic parishes in Irish Liverpool, the St Patrick's Society developed into one of the largest collecting societies in Victorian Britain, offering burial benefit to tens of thousands of poor Irish migrants beyond the reach of organised labour or industrial insurance. Growth soon led to scandal and litigation, revealing a number of fault lines within the migrant community. Catholic clergy withdrew in protest as publicans and other 'Micks on the make' came to the fore, secular ethnic culture brokers who accentuated the 'Irishness' of the Society, running it as a machine which looked less to the respectability (or religion) of the members than to their assurance of an adequately funded 'wake'. It was this 'Irish' image, as much as the alleged financial irregularities, which brought the Society into disrepute (and ruin), a judgement yet to be challenged by historians. The study examines this mutualist network and explains the rise and fall of an important, but until this point, unexamined feature of the communal life of the Irish neighbourhoods of Liverpool.     

The Politics of Migration,Church, and State: A Case Study of the Catholic Church in Ireland

This article investigates the ways in which a shift from post‐colonial nation building to neoliberal state restructuring has shaped church and Irish state relations regarding migrant welfare. It develops the extensive work of Bäckström and Davie (2010) and Bäckström et al. (2011) on how majority churches in European countries are reclaiming a social welfare role as the state relinquishes this responsibility: first, by examining the domain of migrant welfare which is not developed in their work; and second, by arguing that majority church pro‐migrant service provision, as it has evolved in recent decades, can be understood in relation to an emergent neoliberal mode of collective responsibility for migrant welfare. It suggests that in spite of other factors and forces that undermine Irish Catholic Church authority, the marketization of more domains of life in the first decades of the twenty‐first century has given new significance to Catholic Social Teaching and pro‐migrant church initiatives.     

Irishness in Glasgow, 1863-70

The purpose of this article is to examine a radically new phase in Irish popular politics in Glasgow during the 1860s. More precisely, the aim is to describe and explain how a secular notion of Irishness made a decisive impact on a key migrant community in Britain. Actively opposed by the local Catholic hierarchy, this secular Irishness nevertheless allowed for the emergence not only of Irish 'ward politicians' as elsewhere in Victorian Britain, but also, in the longer term, allowed for the emergence of John Ferguson and his 'fusion' of loyalties to both organised labour and Irish nationalism.     

浅谈约旦穆斯林兄弟会与政府的关系

长期以来，约旦穆斯林兄弟会与政府保持着良好的合作关系。穆斯林兄弟会不仅未受政府的压制，反而处于上升的态势。这有别于埃及和其他国家穆斯林兄弟会与政府之间纷繁多变的关系，这种合作关系在整个中东地区的伊斯兰运动中都是罕见的。鉴于此，本文拟就约旦穆兄会与政府的关系作一论述。     

Women and philanthropy in nineteenth-century Ireland

Religion played a major role in directing the philanthropy of Irish women in the nineteenth century. The most extensive systems of welfare were provided by Catholic female religious communities, but substantial and extensive charity was also provided by Protestant denominations. There was much rivalry between Catholic and Protestant charity workers, particularly in work relating to orphaned and destitute children. While the denominational basis of charity work prevented women of different religious persuasions from working together as philanthropists, lay Catholic women were profoundly affected by the limits placed on their activities by nuns. Lay Catholic women had no major tradition of organising in institutions or societies for charity work and, in consequence, the experience of organising for social change came later to Catholic women than it did to Protestant women. Catholic women were slow not only to join reform organisations but also to campaign for changes in social legislation or to demand suffrage.     

Internal ethnic friction: Orange and green in nineteenth‐century New York, 1868–1872

The presence of large numbers of Protestants within the nineteenth century Irish exodus to the USA ensured that the integrity of the Orange/Green dispute continued in the adopted homeland. The Catholic majority amongst Irish immigrants was nevertheless a minority within Protestant American society. The struggle between Orange and Green in New York thus gave each faction both a majority and a minority status. Fear of Catholicism within America meant that the commonality between Irish Orangemen and native born Protestants was a classic example of an internal ethnic dispute having a relevance to the whole society. This common Protestantism was able to straddle, to an extent, the ethnic barrier. The clash between Fenians and Orangemen in New York thus gained an inflated significance for both state and national politics.     

Imagined Irish Communities: Networks of Social Communication of the Irish Diaspora in the United States and Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

The discussion in this essay clarifies three neglected aspects of the comparative destinies of the Irish in America and Great Britain. First, it explores an apparent if generally unrecognised discrepancy between theories of nationalism and those of ethnicity, attempting to close a loophole in the literature. Secondly, it assesses what being Irish meant to the networks bridging the diasporic experience in the old country and adopted lands. Thirdly, it looks at tours overseas, mainly to the United States, by nationalist figures from the vantage point of the formation of an imagined community or network. It is suggested that the disjunction and a degree of misunderstanding about the networking process arises because the literature presumes an already existing or nearly formed Irish Catholic identity among the immigrants on arrival in new lands. Charles Stewart Parnell's trip in early 1880 also allows elucidation of theoretical paradigms. This linkage of theory and a specific form of ethnic networking yields a fresh dimension to the debate about immigration. Finally, in conclusion the analysis offers a new angle on the curious phenomenon of a resurgence or expansion of Irish 'ethnicity' or purported 'new Irishness' in the United States and elsewhere from around 1960.     

Networking Respectability: Class,Gender and Ethnicity among the Irish in South Wales, 1845–1914

Irish migrants in nineteenth-century Britain are often seen as embodying the antithesis of the hegemonic values of respectability, temperance, self-help and mutuality that became entrenched among sections of the British working class from c.1850. This essay argues that Irish friendly and temperance societies in south Wales embraced these values and acted as networks for the dissemination of such ideals in Irish communities, assisted by the Catholic Church. A consideration of the activities of Irish societies reveals the complex interplay between ethnic, class and gender identities in a minority ethnic group. These identities are explored through an examination of the nature of ethnic networks and the messages they sought to convey. The study also examines the performative aspect of identity formation by considering Irish public processions, the dress of processionists and the responses to them.     

Networking Respectability: Class, Gender and Ethnicity among the Irish in South Wales, 1845-1914

Irish migrants in nineteenth-century Britain are often seen as embodying the antithesis of the hegemonic values of respectability, temperance, self-help and mutuality that became entrenched among sections of the British working class from c.1850. This essay argues that Irish friendly and temperance societies in south Wales embraced these values and acted as networks for the dissemination of such ideals in Irish communities, assisted by the Catholic Church. A consideration of the activities of Irish societies reveals the complex interplay between ethnic, class and gender identities in a minority ethnic group. These identities are explored through an examination of the nature of ethnic networks and the messages they sought to convey. The study also examines the performative aspect of identity formation by considering Irish public processions, the dress of processionists and the responses to them.     

Imagined Irish Communities: Networks of Social Communication of the Irish Diaspora in the United States and Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

The discussion in this essay clarifies three neglected aspects of the comparative destinies of the Irish in America and Great Britain. First, it explores an apparent if generally unrecognised discrepancy between theories of nationalism and those of ethnicity, attempting to close a loophole in the literature. Secondly, it assesses what being Irish meant to the networks bridging the diasporic experience in the old country and adopted lands. Thirdly, it looks at tours overseas, mainly to the United States, by nationalist figures from the vantage point of the formation of an imagined community or network. It is suggested that the disjunction and a degree of misunderstanding about the networking process arises because the literature presumes an already existing or nearly formed Irish Catholic identity among the immigrants on arrival in new lands. Charles Stewart Parnell's trip in early 1880 also allows elucidation of theoretical paradigms. This linkage of theory and a specific form of ethnic networking yields a fresh dimension to the debate about immigration. Finally, in conclusion the analysis offers a new angle on the curious phenomenon of a resurgence or expansion of Irish ‘ethnicity’ or purported ‘new Irishness’ in the United States and elsewhere from around 1960.     

Series editor's foreword

The fugitive and prisoner have played a prominent role in Irish history, literature and politics. It is no surprise, therefore, that he should be inexorably linked with Jacobitism (Irish support for the exile Stuart dynasty), the ideology which sustained Irish national identity between the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and the French Revolution (1789) and the cause which precipitated substantial, sustained migration from Ireland during the course of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This article will explore the chequered, colourful careers of five prominent Irish Jacobites of various ‘ethnic’ (Gaelic Irish, Old English and New English), confessional (Catholic and Protestant) and professional (aristocrat, clergyman and solider) origins, whose trials, tribulations, incarcerations and escapes bear testimony to the flexibility, geographical mobility and longevity of the Jacobite ideology in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora in Europe. In addition, their sustained traffic with Ireland, England and continental Europe show the crucial role which the Irish diaspora played in Jacobite politics and the extent to which they retained a practical affection for their exiled king, homeland and persecuted peers in Ireland.     

“一·二五革命”后埃及穆斯林兄弟会发展趋势

"一·二五革命"后,埃及穆兄会的发展呈现出两条主线:一是穆斯林兄弟会得以合法建党,体现了其强势发展的一面;二是穆斯林兄弟会青年一代的自由派从其母体中分离。本文通过考察穆斯林兄弟会在此次埃及革命后的新动向,研究其政治发展的各种因素和模式,并分析其发展趋势。     

穆斯林兄弟会与沙特关系的演变及影响

自1932年沙特建国以来,穆斯林兄弟会在沙特经历了初步发展、扩张和衰退三个阶段。二者从合作与相互利用的盟友关系逐渐演变为疏远与对抗的敌对关系。一方面,逃亡到沙特避难的穆兄会成员曾在帮助沙特政权反制埃及纳赛尔政权、推行泛伊斯兰主义战略等方面发挥了重要作用;另一方面,穆兄会成员在一定程度上促成了沙特宗教政治反对派的兴起,影响和培育了一批接受库特布思想的极端分子,对沙特政权的稳固及其国家安全造成了冲击。中东剧变以来,穆兄会势力的壮大削弱了沙特的地区影响力,制约了沙特外交政策的实施,导致沙特面临的地区安全环境进一步恶化。穆兄会与沙特关系的破裂直接反映出前者对沙特内政外交构成的威胁,是穆兄会思想与瓦哈比教义内在矛盾的逻辑结果。     

WOMEN,DOMESTICITY AND THE FAMILY: RECENT FEMINIST WORK IN IRISH CULTURAL STUDIES

This article examines recent feminist work on the modernization of the Irish family which occurred during the twentieth century. It argues that social agencies, including prominently the Catholic Church, encouraged women to introduce ‘enlightened’ notions of order and hygiene into the family, while seeking to inhibit the development of individualist aspirations to personal pleasure, domesticity and romance. It also considers the development of literacy and reading habits in Ireland in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, as a clue to the changing forms of women's experience and subjectivity. The article concludes that a balanced account of the benefits and drawbacks for women of Irish family patterns, and of their investment in them, must take full account of tensions and ambiguities in both the traditional and the modernized family.     

Why do some Irish drink so much? Family, historical and regional effects on students’ alcohol consumption and subjective normative thresholds

This paper studies determinants of drinking behavior and formation of subjective thresholds of acceptable drinking behavior using a sample of students in a major Irish University. We find evidence of strong associations between amounts of alcohol students consume and drinking of their fathers and older siblings. In contrast, we find little evidence of impacts of other non-drinking aspects of family background on students’ drinking. Parental and older sibling drinking appears to affect subjective attitudes of students towards what constitutes problem drinking behavior. We investigated historical origins of drinking behavior including the role of the Church, English cultural influences, the importance of the brewery and distilling industry, and the influence of weather. We find relatively strong influences of the Catholic Church and English colonial settlement patterns on Irish drinking patterns but little influence of Irish weather. Historical licensing restrictions on the number of pubs and off-license establishments also appear to matter.