Old Catholic Ireland was far from insular
SIR – In his article reviewing the periodicals and pamphlets read by those who lived in old Catholic Ireland (Feature, March 11), Michael Duggan gives them what amounts to a backhanded compliment. He mentions some things that are to their credit, such as their concern for the “golden mean” that Catholic social doctrine can bring to the workplace. But the overall impression I get from his article is that the people in old Catholic Ireland were rather dumb. He lists three of those people’s worst faults. I will take just the first, “insularity”. How on earth does he come to that conclusion, when in those days scores of Irish missionaries were serving people in a vast number of countries? Has he not read missionary magazines of those days, such as The Far East, which gave its readers insights into the lives of peoples on the other side of the globe, to whom those generous Irish citizens often sent financial help they themselves could ill afford? Many of the people of old Catholic Ireland were poor materially, but their faith enabled them to call their soul their own; and churches in the many lands to which they emigrated bear witness to the depth of their faith. Besides, the people in old Catholic Ireland did not confine their reading to periodicals published in Ireland. Many, including my parents, read magazines published in England, such as The Catholic Fireside, to which Flora Thompson, of Lark Rise to Candleford fame, regularly contributed. Flora was not a Catholic. In considering the ebbing away of the Catholic faith in Ireland, Michael Duggan makes no mention of the rapid transformation that took place in the 1960s, when the people of what once was a country where dire poverty prevailed came quickly to experience prosperity and its concomitant secularism. Yours faithfully, Fr Michael G Murphy Bishopstown, Co Cork
