Catholic Revival and Nationalism
The post-famine period in Ireland ushered in something of a devotional revolution. In the late 1840s, the number of priests and nuns increased dramatically at the same time that the general population was shrinking from death or emigration. The Church itself underwent major reforms.
Cullen's Reforms
Father Paul Cullen became archbishop of Armagh in 1849, at the end of the Great Famine, and he spent the next thirty years modernizing the Irish Church. He called the famine a work of God intended to purify the Irish people, whose Catholicism was too steeped in superstition and whose clergy was too tempted by avarice and sex; he also thought there were simply too many Catholics for the existing clergy to serve. He professionalized the clergy and introduced a variety of new rituals, including novenas, stations of the cross, parish missions, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. These changes brought the Irish Church more in line with Rome.
Post-famine Catholics became more devout than their ancestors had been, and Catholic priests had more power over them. People enthusiastically joined new religious societies and embraced such devotional aids as the rosary, pilgrimages, shrines, processions, devotion to the Sacred Heart or the Immaculate Conception, and spiritual retreats. Older, “magical” events and events such as wakes, agricultural celebrations, and bonfires became less important.
Few Catholic churches had been built in the 1700s, but in the mid-1800s, Catholics once again started erecting churches and cathedrals. Middle-class Catholics willingly donated funds to help construct churches, symbolically reclaiming their role in the public sphere and their historical traditions.
Catholicism and National Identity
These reforms also gave the Irish a new cultural identity by which they could recognize one another. The older Gaelic society was almost completely gone, and the Church offered a replacement social structure. It went without saying that a post-famine Irish person was also Catholic; the two were almost synonymous. Emigrant Irish took this cultural trait with them, and Irish all over the world were assumed to be devout Catholics.
This religious identity merged into the Irish national identity. For Irish farmers and laborers, Catholicism became synonymous with political freedom, rebellion against tyranny, and empowerment of the working classes.
