Religion IQDA2012

Religion
This teaching and learning resource has been produced by the Irish Qualitative Data
Archive as part of the NUI Maynooth/NDLR Learning Innovation Community Support
Project, “Teaching and Learning Through the Archive”.

The presentation includes short interview excerpts from the Life Histories and Social
Change Project, http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-
century-ireland where the respondent have given their consent to be identified.

Irish Qualitative Data Archive, 2012
Additional teaching resources are available at http://www.iqda.ie/content/teaching-
resources

Development of this resource funded by National University of Ireland Maynooth /
National Digital Learning Repository

Attribute as follows: Irish Qualitative Data Archive [distributor], 2012.

Concepts:
Religion as a social structure
Ideological control
Segregation and sectarianism
Secularism

1. Defining religion
“Religions ...
are the long-term outcome of historical
processes that have seen the development of
specialised and limited rites and cults into
larger and more organised and
institutionalised bodies of knowledge and
practice” (Restivo cited in Share, Tovey &
Corcoran, 2007, pg. 400)

1. Defining religion
Key aspects of religion are
• sacred symbols
• rituals and special behaviour
• a feeling of reverence
• a community of believers
(Share, Tovey & Corcoran, 2007, pg. 399)

2. Religion as a
social structure

2. Religion as a social structure

Sociology has contributed to the study of religion
by “mov[ing] beyond the common sense
understanding of religion as dealing with mystery
and the supernatural and
… *by emphasizing+ its social nature.”

2. Religion as a social structure

“*R+eligion was of key importance to the early
sociologists [Compte, Marx, Weber,
Durkheim], both in terms of the influence and
impact of forms of religious beliefs on society
as a whole and in terms of the power and role
of religious institutions in everyday social life”

3. Religion in
Twentieth Century
Ireland

3. Religion in Twentieth Century Ireland

Writing in 1987, Inglis remarks; “One of the first
impressions of [Ireland] that marks it out as different
from other Western societies is that the [Catholic]
Church is a strong and active force in everyday life”
(Inglis, cited in Share, Tovey & Corcoran, 2007, pg. 403)
Image courtesy of The National Library of Ireland

3. Religion in
Twentieth Century Ireland
During the Twentieth Century religion
played such a central part in the
daily lives of Irish people that other
social events were often
constructed around prayer times or
structural worship.

Image courtesy of
The National Library
of Ireland

Think about...
Listen to the interview excerpt on the next slide
and think about the following questions.

Q1. In the following excerpt the interview participant describes how,
“the rosary had to be said” every night. How did the rituals of
religion shape everyday practices in the family home?

Q2. The interview participant describes “say[ing+ the rosary every night”
and attending “mass every Sunday” as examples of religious
devotion. To what extent were these social as well as religious
events?

Q3. This excerpt describes religious practices in an early 20th century
Irish family. In what ways have religious practices in the home
changed in recent times and what has brought about these
changes? Are there any practices that have remained the same?

Prayers at home, 1920s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH125 (female, born in 1929)
http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-century-ireland

INT: Was there a lot of religion in the house?
RESP: Oh there was, father would say the rosary* every night and all had to be down on their knees.
INT: Was this before or after the ramblers** were in?
RESP: It would be after the ramblers.
INT: So nobody got to bed until after the ramblers had gone.
RESP: No but of course they didn't delay that long you know, I suppose they came about half [past] ten or that
you know, they'd be in early. But the rosary had to be said and was said [unclear]. He was a great man
for the rosary and mass every Sunday, walked to mass. My brother used to say to him, “daddy you
should have been a priest!” [laughs]
INT: How was that received?
RESP: He didn't say yes or no.

*rosary: A form of Roman Catholic devotional prayer in which
fifteen decades of prayers are repeated
**ramblers: people going from house to house to socialize in the
evenings

4. Ideological Control
“*I+deological control
was ... reinforced by the churches’ control of
institutions such as education, health and social
welfare and the generation of ‘expert knowledge’”
(Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007, p.413)

"A political discourse that focused on national identity
based on difference from 'Protestant England' ...
helped to solidify the ideological control of
Catholicism [in Ireland during the Twentieth
Century]" (Share, Tovey and Corcoran, pg. 413)

The phenomenal power of the Catholic Church in
Ireland during the 20th Century is captured by Fintan
O’Toole’s ‘cradle to grave’ explanation of the welfare
system that was established post-independence...

Image courtesy of The National Library of Ireland

“An Irish person was and is likely to
be born in a Catholic hospital,
educated at Catholic schools,
married in a Catholic church,
have children named by a priest,
be counselled by Catholic marriage
advisors if the marriage runs into trouble,
be dried out in Catholic clinics
for the treatment of alcoholism
if he or she develops a drink problem,
be operated on in Catholic Hospitals,
and be buried by Catholic rites”
(O’Toole cited in Share, Tovey & Corcoran, 2007, pg. 414).
Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

“The modern institutional church and the modern Irish nation
state developed simultaneously and ‘gestated in mutual
interdependence during most of the nineteenth century and
into the twentieth’”. (Nic Ghiolla Phadraig cited in Share,
Tovey & Corcoran, 2007 pg. 415)

On the formation of the Irish Free State, the Catholic Church
“became the effective arbiter of social legislation, having a
ban on divorce inserted into the Constitution, encouraging
the introduction of draconian censorship of books and films,
delaying the legalisation of artificial contraception until 1979,
retaining largely unquestioned control over schools and
hospitals funded by the taxpayer, resisting the slow
development of a welfare state.” (O’Toole cited in Share,
Tovey & Corcoran, 2007, pg. 404)

Think about...
Read the newspaper excerpt on the next slide and
think about the following questions

Context: Excerpt from a letter sent by the Bishop of Ferns to the Taoiseach, on the 10th of
October 1950, expressing the objection of the Catholic hierarchy to the proposed ‘Mother
and Child’ health care scheme. The Scheme was dually withdrawn by the Government in
1951, and on the 12th of April 1951, as a result of this controversial clash between his office
and the Church, Minister for Health, Dr. Noel Browne resigned from his ministerial post. On
the morning of his resignation Dr. Browne released to the Irish Times the correspondence
between the Government and the Catholic hierarchy over the proposed scheme.

Q1. What aspects of the ‘Mother and Child Scheme’ were of particular
concern to the Church, as detailed in the exerpt?
Q2. Considering the outcome of the proposed scheme, how did this
incident reveal the power of the Catholic hierarchy to “resist* + the
slow development of a welfare state” (O’Toole cited in Share, Tovey
& Corcoran, 2007, pg. 404)?

[Letter from] Bishop of Ferns to Taoiseach
10th October, 1950

“Experience has shown that physical or health education is
closely interwoven with important moral questions on which
the Catholic Church has definite teaching.

Education in regard to motherhood includes instruction in regard
to sex relations, chastity and marriage. The State has no
competence to give instruction in such maters. We regard with
the greatest apprehension the proposal to give to local medical
officers the right to tell Catholic girls and women how they
should behave in regard to this sphere of conduct at once so
delicate and sacred.” (Excerpt from letter from the Bishop of
Ferns to the Taoiseach on 10th October 1950, published in the
Irish Times, April 12th, 1951).

5. Segregation and
sectarianism

5. Segregation and sectarianism
“Sectarianism *is+
the process ... whereby religious differences are
noted – through picking up cues from names,
accent, school attended, sports played – then
evaluated and sometimes acted upon in a way
that is discriminatory” (Share, Tovey and

5. Segregation and sectarianism
Historically “religion became a key signifier
between *Protestant ‘English’+ settler and
*Catholic ‘Irish’+ native (Share, Tovey and

“‘Otherness’ was, and is created and re-created
through practices like endogamous marriage ...
and segregated or ‘denominational’ education”
(Share, Tovey and Corcoran, pg. 409)

Think about...

Q1. What evidence is there that the two groups in this community,
Catholic and Protestant, were integrated with one another?
And what evidence is there that they were segregated?

Q2. The participant says that the woman “was afraid that
someone would say to the priest that [she] went inside the
railings of a Protestant church”. How did the physical
separation of the two groups foster a sense of difference
between Catholics and Protestants living in the same
community?

Protestantism and Catholicism in Ireland, 1960s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH218 (male, born between 1945 and 1954)

INT: And were your grandparents from outside were they religious at all?
RESP: Everybody was religious then. You had no choice, I don’t know. I don’t know because there was a
lot of superstition and there was no way that you would not dream of going to the church. There
was no way, I mean you had to be one or the other. I mean I can remember going, our local
shopkeeper, I lived over beside the ‘Five Lamps’ and our local shopkeeper was a Protestant and
when his daughter was to be married. Now to us, I realise now he wasn’t very wealthy, but to us
he would have because he owned a shop and he had a car. And when his daughter was being
married in St. Barnabus church, which is now knocked down, I can remember all the people
from the corporation flats going down to see her and they couldn’t go inside the railing into the
church. And one woman broke ranks, she ran up and looked in the door, she wanted to see the girl
actually being married rather than coming out in her dress and going in with her dress and she
turned round to the other auld ones, ‘auld ones’ is a loving term that we use, it’s not meant in a
rude way, and she turned round, “Don’t fucking one of yous, fucking tell on me or I’ll fucking kill
yis”. She was afraid that someone would say to the priest that so and so went in, inside the
railings of a Protestant church and she would have been called down, so I don’t think you had
much choice but to be religious.

6. Secularism
Secularisation is defined as
“the process by which sectors of society and culture are
removed from the domination of religious institutions and
symbols” (Berger cited in Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007,
pg. 417)

“Fahey et al. suggest that the conflicts over church doctrine
[for example, on contraception, divorce and other questions
of sexual morality], as well as the impact of church scandals
have contributed to a longer term decline in confidence in
the church” (Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007, pg. 420)

6. Secularism and modernity
“*Secularism+ suggests a ‘disenchantment’ of
society (Weber’s evocative term): a process
whereby the spiritual and the supernatural
come to play a lesser role in people’s lives and
may be replaced by more mundane, rational
and scientific modes of thinking and
expression” (Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007,
pg. 417)

6. Secularism in Ireland:
2011 Census
No religion
[According to the 2011 Census of Ireland]
“between 2006 and 2011 the number of
people with no religion grew by 83,500 to
269,800.
The majority of this group were Irish nationals
accounting for 176,180 of the total and
increasing by 64.4 per cent since 2006.
The majority of those with no religion was
concentrated in the age group 20 to 49 years”.
(CSO, 2012, emphasis added)

6. Secularism in Ireland
Data source: WIN-Gallup
International
“Ireland has the second greatest drop GLOBAL INDEX OF RELIGIOSITY AND
ATHEISM - 2012
globally, in those claiming to be
religious since 2005” (Red C, 2012)
80%
69%
70%

60%

50% 47%
44%

40%
2005
30% 25% 2011

20%
13%
10%
10%
2%
0%
0%
A religious person Not a religious A convinced atheist Don't know/refused
person
Red C Opinion Poll (2012)

6. Secularism in Ireland

A number of recent survey into religious
attitudes in the Republic of Ireland have
revealed that attendance at
church, considered a fundamental part of
religious commitment, has been in decline
over the past twenty years.

Religious Practice (McGreil)
Weekly religious worship in the Republic of Ireland has fallen from
79% in 1988-89
to 42% in 2007-08

Monthly religious worship in the Republic of Ireland has fallen from
85% in 1988-’89
to 54% in 2007-08”
(MacGreil, 2009)

Religious Practice (McGreil)
The findings [of this survey] also reveal that the
predominant reason given by those who did
not “attend weekly worship” was: “Just don’t
bother” (65%)
(MacGreil, 2009, emphasis added)

Discussion point: Return to the church during times of uncertainty?
A 2009 telephone survey* found that weekly church attendance increased to 46%, and monthly attendance to
65% ... [the increase has been associated by with the downturn in the Irish economy ] ... McGarry quotes David
Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, who states that this is “anecdotal evidence that church attendance has
been increasing since the recession began” (McGarry, 2009.)
*Red C poll conducted between October 19th and 21st 2009, for the Catholic Iona Institute and based on telephone interviews with a random
sample of 1,000 adults aged 18 and over.

Religious Practice (EVA)
Data source: European Values Study 4th wave

Q: Apart from
Once a month, 16%
weddings, funerals and
christenings, about how often
do you attend religious
services these days?
(Base: Catholics in R of Once a week, 36%
Ireland)

Only on special holy days, 11%

Once a year, 9%

Less often, 11% More than once a week, 9%

Never, practically never, 8%
O’Mahony (2010)

Think about...

Q1. The interview participant describes not attending mass as, “the
big rebellion”. How was non-attendance at mass a ‘rebellious’
behaviour?
Q2. Religious control is seen to have lessened within family life and
the community in the last two decades. “We were sixteen we
were allowed go on our own” - how does this description of
prayer time and structured worship compare to the description
in the first excerpt?
Q3. Is the decline of traditional religion in the community a natural
progression in a global society? Can you think of specific events
that have lead to the recent decline of traditional religious
practices, such as attending mass, in Irish society?

Young people and traditional religion in the late 1980s
Audio clip Source: Life Histories and Social Change Project, LH315 (male, born in 1970)

INT: And what sort of values would you say your parents instilled in you, like what were the things that they wanted
[yous]?
RESP: [They] wanted us to go to mass every Sunday and we didn't. I think that was the big rebellion
INT: That was a big change in Ireland as well?
RESP: Yeah, mm
INT: And did you go to mass every Sunday?
RESP: We kind of switched, when Saturday night mass came along we kind of switched and went down to Saturday
night mass, looked in, seen who it was and then got an hour free. You didn't have to come home till nine o'clock to
twenty to nine whatever it was
INT: So they didn't go with you?
RESP: No cos we were sixteen we were allowed go on our own and they trusted us and we just looked in said,
"ah it's father whoever it was" and then we’re gone
INT: You knew how long he'd take [laughs]
RESP: Yeah, you'd see the crowd coming out of mass and you'd go "right five minutes" and we'd have to go
INT: But when you were younger, say growing up as a young child, would they have brought you every Sunday to mass?
RESP: Oh yeah
INT: They were religious people?
RESP: Yes, yeah every Sunday
INT: And are they still religious people?
RESP: Yes, yeah my mum lights candles and she goes to mass everyday during Lent and all that stuff, so
INT: What religion do you mind me asking?
RESP: Roman Catholic. The usual

However, measuring religiosity in terms of attendance at church
services has it's limitations.

“*W+e see an increasing number of adherents for many churches
in Ireland; and matters of religion still occupy an important
place in public discourse” (Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007, pg. 417)

“Ireland remains the overwhelmingly Catholic country of the
English-speaking world, according to results of the April 2011
census, published [on the 29th March 2012]. Over 84 per cent
of people in the Republic, or 3.86 million, described
themselves as Roman Catholic in that census.” (McGarry, 2012)

2011 Census
Figure 35 Population classified by religion 2006 and 2011
“Ireland remains a predominantly
Not stated Catholic country despite the large
increases in other religions seen in
No religion
recent years. No other religion comes
Other close in importance with over 84 per
cent declaring themselves Roman
Apostolic or Pentacostal Catholic. The graph below shows that
while the number of Catholics overall
Orthodox
increased by 179,889, or 4.9 per
Presbyterian cent, since 2006 much of this increase
came from the non-Irish (mostly
Christian European) national community”.
(CSO, 2012)
Muslim (Islamic)

Church of Ireland 2011

Roman Catholic 2006

0.00 500.00 1,000.00 1,500.00 2,000.00 2,500.00 3,000.00 3,500.00 4,000.00 4,500.00 (Thousands)

Data source:
‘This is Ireland – Highlights from Census 2011, Part 1’

7. Ireland and ‘new’
religions

7. Ireland and ‘new’ religions
“Critics of the secularisation thesis have argued (Aldridge, 2000, pg. 103-106)
that it is liberal capitalist societies – such as the United States – that are
most open to the growth of new religious forms ... [than] European
societies, where the state is far more closely aligned with established
religions ... it will be interesting to see whether future religious change in
Ireland takes us in the direction of ‘Boston’ or ‘Berlin’” (Share, Tovey and
Corcoran, 2007, pg. 427).

“*T+he fastest growing religions between 2006 and
2011 in percentage terms were Orthodox, Apostolic
or Pentecostal and Muslim … Evangelical and
Methodist showed the largest decline compared with
2006”. (CSO, 2012)

8. Disenchantment?
“The typical end point of decline in religious adherence is not total
rejection and indifference towards religion but a shift from
strong and highly institutionalised attachment towards more
intermittent and lukewarm adherence and towards various
forms of privatised belief and commitment” (Fahey et al. Cited
in Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007, pg. 423)

“The practice of personal prayer is still relatively strong and its
decline has been less severe than the drop in formal worship
and sacramental participation” (MacGreil, 2009)

“ 72% pray ‘weekly or more often’”

8. Disenchantment?
Belief in... Base: Catholics in R of Ireland; source: European Values Survey
100%
10.10%
90%
23.40% 24.70%
28.40%
80%
49.80%
70%
70.10%
60%
No

50% Yes
89.90%
40%
76.60% 75.30%
71.60%
30%
50.20%
20%
29.90%
10%

0%
Belief in... God Life after death Hell Heaven Sin Re-incarnation

Data source: European Values Study 4th wave
(O’Mahony, 2010)

8. Disenchantment?
“Irish people are still very comfortable with the central
spiritual claims of the Christian church, but are less
likely to agree with its direction in other areas of life”
(Share, Tovey and Corcoran, 2007 , pg. 420).

“86% of the total sample admitting they felt
a degree of closeness (to God)”

References
Central Statistics Office (March 2012) This is Ireland Highlights from Census 2011, Part 1. Stationery
Office, Dublin, Ireland.
Mac Greil, M. (2009) Summary of report The Challenge of Indifference from “Cardinal Launches
McGreil Survey”, 16th June 2009. Accessed at:
http://www.amdg.ie/2009/06/16/cardinal-launches-macgreil-survey/
McGarry, Patsy ‘Mass attendance in Ireland is up’ in The Irish Times , 2nd November 2009. Accessed at:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/521520817/fulltextPDF/139686A658572E0AAEC/1?accounti
d=12309
McGarry, Patsy ‘Ireland remains overwhelmingly Catholic’ in The Irish Times, 30th March 2012.
Accessed at:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/958728232/13968645A6D67EF4720/151?accountid=12309
O’Mahony, E. (2010) Religious Practice and Values in Ireland. A summary of European Values Study 4th
wave data. Maynooth: Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Red C Opinion Poll.(2012) Global index of religion and atheism. Press release. Accessed at:
http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-release-Religion-and-Atheism-
25-7-12.pdf
Share, P., Tovey, H. and Corcoran, M.P. (2007) A Sociology of Ireland, third edition. Dublin: Gill &
Macmillan.
The Irish Times ‘Bishop of Ferns to Taoiseach’, 12th of April 1951. Accessed at:
http://search.proquest.com.jproxy.nuim.ie/docview/524197283/13992B7D44D4F9FA19D/11?acc
ountid=12309

Note on this teaching resource
IQDA Teaching Resources by Irish Qualitative Data Archive is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.iqda.ie/content/life-histories-and-social-change-20th-
century-ireland.

Life Histories and Social Change was funded by the Irish Research Council (IRCHSS).

Images on slides 2, 11, 12, 17 and 18 courtesy of The National Library of Ireland. Reproduction of
this images is with the written consent of The National Library of Ireland only.

This teaching resource was prepared by Ruth Geraghty. IQDA would like to acknowledge Linda
O'Keefe and Aileen O'Carroll for their work on this teaching resource.

Preparation of this teaching resource was assisted by an NDLR Learning and Innovation Project
grant from the NUI Maynooth Centre for Teaching and Learning.

Irish Qualitative Data Archive, 2012

Religion IQDA2012

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