Understanding our neighbour

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHRISTIAN IRELAND
By Crawford Gribben
OUP. 318 Pages. £25 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 198 868 187

Whatever your prejudiced view of Ireland, this outstanding book, based on extensive research, and commended by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, will take you beyond your prejudices deep into the fascinating history of the ‘land of saints and scholars’.

Crawford Gribben, who taught at Trinity College Dublin and now at Queens University Belfast, is one of our best Christian historians at the top of his game. He takes us on an intriguing journey, meeting a cast of characters including Patrick, Columba (and Nessie!), Vikings, the original Strongbow, Malachy of Armagh, Archbishop Ussher, J.N. Darby, Sir Edward Carson, the Modest Dress and Deportment Crusade, and Ian Paisley. Rarely have I found a book so compelling.

He divides Ireland’s history into five phases.

‘Conversions’ takes us from pagan antiquity to the early missionaries. Was it Palladius or Patrick who came first? On the edge of the known world, the gospel flourished in Ireland even as the Roman empire collapsed. Patrick is celebrated for his gospel zeal, as are the monks that came after him, making Ireland a place of Christian study.

‘Foundations’ explores the attacks of the Vikings, their settlers eventually melding into Christian Ireland. Henry II’s invasion in 1171 established the two Irelands, within and beyond the Pale, beginning the long and confused history of English intervention.

‘Reformations’ explains how the Reformation in England and Scotland affected Ireland differently. It was attempted by the English, in English, a move away from Latin that failed to translate the Bible into the Irish vernacular until much later, thereby stalling the Irish Reformation. A century later, the Irish Confession was more Puritan than its predecessors, but a strange triangle between the Church of Ireland as the establishment, and Catholics and Protestants as dissenters, created the familiar polarities of Irish Christianity. The bloodshed of Cromwell in Ireland, followed by William of Orange, is perhaps dealt with too quickly for all the grief and bitterness that has flowed from it.

‘Revivals’ covers the 18th and 19th centuries, an era of which I knew nothing. I was unaware of the bloodbath at the end of the 18th century that led to the Act of Union. The growth of Protestant Ireland in the north is well covered, and, curiously, the birth of dispensationalism in Ireland, along with the growth of Brethren and Baptist churches and the revivals of the 1850s. The rapid revival of Catholicism throughout Ireland in the Victorian era is perhaps the surprise – so Ireland wasn’t always as Catholic as we like to think?

‘Troubles’ charts the painful history of Irish Nationalism and Unionism facing off and leading to partition in 1922. Finally, in the most moving part of the story, the edifice of Irish Catholicism collapses under the shocks of abuse scandals. In his moving conclusion, Gribben calls Christians not to rely on religious nationalism, but to rediscover the spirit of Augustine and Patrick.