Unit Three Section I: Religion: The Irish Experience

Part three: Christianity in Ireland

Topic 3.2 Religion, Spirituality and land

Procedure
Introduction – The sacredness of the land

Brainstorm students on the meaning of the word ‘sacredness’.

Take feedback and refer to Section A part 2.2 The Tradition of Response (evidence of
religious and spiritual behaviour in ancient societies, and the sense of the sacred in
contemporary culture).
Explain that sacredness refers to a person, object or place that is set apart as the object of
veneration or awe (sacred comes from the Latin word “sacer” meaning set apart or
restricted). Sacred places are associated with God/gods or mysterious power. The sacred
is always manifested as something different from the profane or normal reality. The
supernatural or spiritual reality is said to manifest itself in the sacred.

Discuss: Why has land been at the heart of many disputes in Ireland when the
landowner dies?

Take feedback and explain to students that land has been the source of power and wealth
in Ireland since ancient times. As well as being the physical necessity for provision of
crops and livestock it is deeply embedded in the Irish psyche as a symbol of family
belonging and roots. People depended on the land for survival – poor land could mean
poverty and starvation. Thus in ancient Ireland some pagan rites and festivals celebrated
the fertility of the land and sacrifices were made to ensure the continued fertility of the
land. The land in Ireland belonged to the “derbfine” and was considered a sacred
inheritance and land ownership was usually kept within the derbfine.

The cultic marriage of the Rí with the land

Recall students’ knowledge of Junior Certificate History material on ancient Ireland.

Question: What was a ‘tuath’?
Take feedback and conclude that a tuath meant “a people” and it referred to the basic
political unit in early Ireland (approximately 5 th century). There were about 150 tuath or
independent kingdoms, and the population of the country was about half a million.
Sometimes tuatha joined together to form more powerful local kingdoms, ruled by more
powerful over- kings. These larger groups formed provincial kingdoms under superior
kings. The major kingdoms were ruled by the northern Uí Néill, the Airgialla, the Ulaid,
the Connachta, the southern Uí Néill, the Laigin and the Eóganachta. A local king was
called a rí but he had very little power. He could not be a judge of his people and could
not enact laws. He led the people at war time and had some recognition as a sacred
person. Certain taboos were associated with the rí. He had to be accompanied by an
appropriate retinue and could not use implements that were considered degrading. For
the king of Tara it was taboo to be in bed after dawn when near Tara or and to break his
journey when passing through the plain of Breaga (Co. Meath). It was seen as lucky for
him to eat fish from the river Boyle and bilberries from a place near Ardagh. The people
gathered to watch the inauguration ceremony of the king. The local goddess was
represented by a mare, with whom the king-elect mated in public. The mare was then
killed, dismembered and boiled. Her flesh was eaten by all present and the king bathed in
her broth. Thus pagan religious beliefs and practices were common at the inauguration of
early Irish kings. Early Christians tried to have such rites and rituals abolished. Attempts
were made to Christianise the inauguration of kings. Colum cille ordained kings when he
anointed Aedán mac Gabráin as king of Dál Riata in Iona in 573. However, the “banais
ríg” (initiation rite), the wedding of the king (symbolic marriage of the king and the
goddess of the land/fertility), persisted for many centuries despite the efforts to
Christianise it. The king and goddess would give birth not to a child but to a fruitful
harvest. It was commonly believed that the fertility of the land within a kingdom was
linked to the righteousness of the ruler, and the king’s inauguration was linked to the
future fertility of the land. The king had to be a person of integrity, honesty and justice as
well as possessing other noble qualities in order to prove himself acceptable to the
goddess of fertility. The wealth and survival of the entire kingdom depended on this
symbolic union of king and goddess. A king who was righteous and good would be
rewarded by the goddess by her blessing of the land through its fertility. A king who
proved himself unworthy of the goddess, unjust or dishonest could cause certain famine
or drought and ultimately the death of the tuatha. Thus the bainis rí was a reminder to all
of the sacredness of the land in early Ireland.
(Adapted from Religion: The Irish Experience, J.R. Walsh, Veritas, p49-51))

Reading suggested by teachers: Where Three Streams Meet. Celtic Spirituality – Seán Ó
Duinn

The sacredness of the land in Judaism,

land and religion

Locate Israel on a map and recall students’ knowledge from Junior Certificate R.E. about
the geography and historical background of the Holy Land (Section B), and (Section C)
the historical and geographical background to life at the time of the foundation of a Major
world Religion (Judaism).

Reading suggested by teachers - Religion: The Irish Experience – J.R. Walsh, Veritas,
p51-54

Explain to students that throughout the history of Judaism there has been a recurring
theme of having to leave the land due to famine, drought or oppression and be exiled in
another place. At the beginning of Judaism Abraham was called by Yahweh out of Ur in
Mesopotamia and asked to lead his people to the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.
The nomads were asked to worship Yahweh in return for this great promise (Gen 15:7).
Deuteronomy 26: 5-9 recalls how the Hebrews were kept as slaves in Egypt and how they
implored the help of Yahweh to deliver them from this foreign land. Thus began the
Exodus journey from Egypt, across the desert wilderness into the land of Canaan. The
Book of Joshua 21:43-45 tells of the peoples’ entry into Canaan glorifying Yahweh for
his intervention. The Hebrews had been promised the inheritance of this land in return
for their loyalty and worship of Yahweh. The story of them worshipping the golden calf
in the Book of Exodus shows that the people struggled to remain faithful to their promise.
Leviticus 25:23 reminds us that the land still belonged to Yahweh, and the Hebrews
would be as custodians on the land. Joshua 22:19 tells us that the true king was Yahweh
and that the land was his domain. Therefore the people had no right to sell it. God’s
ownership of the land resulted in early religious Jewish laws limiting the rights of human
occupants. Deut 23:25-26 said that the wayfarer had a right to satisfy his hunger by
consuming the grain in the field as he passed by. Leviticus 25:23 allowed land that had
been alienated to be returned to its original owners in a Jubilee year (every 50 th year)
Prophets condemned wealthy absentee landlords who controlled huge estates of land
(Isaiah 5:8 and Micah 2:2). The practice of letting of lands to tenants later emerged.

The land provided a livelihood for many people. Fishermen earned their living from the
Sea of Galilee. We read of shepherds minding their sheep in the hills. The land also
supported camels, donkeys, goats, vines, fig trees, mustard plants lilies, darnel, manure
and topsoil. Farmers were at the mercy of the weather, prices and inflation and had to
pay high taxes to the religious and civil authorities. Others earned a feeble existence as
day labourers and servants. Jesus used much agrarian imagery in his parables – eg. The
Wicked Tenants (Mk 12: 1-2), based on Isaiah 5:1-7 in which Israel is symbolised by the
Lord’s vineyard. In this parable, the vineyard (the kingdom of Israel) will be transferred
to other tenants (Jews and Gentiles) and that the Promised Land in no longer just
Palestine and that the Chosen People are no longer just the People of Israel but all of
humanity who believe in Jesus Christ.
(Adapted from Religion: The Irish Experience, J.R. Walsh, Veritas, p49-54)

Land ownership and confiscation according to religious affiliation from the 17 th

century onwards
Brainstorm the word ‘plantation’.
Recall students’ knowledge of the plantations from their Junior Certificate history course.

Take feedback and explain that plantations were systematically organised attempts by the
British Government to gain control over Ireland by ‘planting’ different areas of the
country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with English and Scottish settlers who
would be loyal to the English Crown. Since the native Irish were distrusted by the British
monarchy their loyalty to Britain could not be secured. Thus the new settlers were
granted large areas of land for small rents and in return they pledged their loyalty to
Britain and encouraged the spread of the English language, the Protestant faith, British
law and customs and British farming methods. They were discouraged from marrying
the native Irish so that eventually British rule would remain strong and would not be
watered down through intermarriage. Settlers were frequently attacked by the native Irish
who had been driven off their lands and many returned home to Britain. This led to the
failure of the first plantation in Laois and Offaly. The next plantation happened in
Munster under Queen Elizabeth 1. English settlers (“undertakers”) undertook to
introduce the English way of life and the protestant faith into the area. This meant that
the land was confiscated from the native Irish who were Catholics. The result was that
future land ownership would be linked to Protestant religious affiliation whereas
Catholicism became linked to dispossession and poverty.

The most successful plantation was the Ulster plantation under King James 1, 1609. After
the Flight of the Earls Ulster was without a leader and was therefore a prime location for
plantation. Six counties were successfully planted. The new English and Scottish settlers
built new towns and large stone enclosures (bawns) as fortifications to prevent the vicious
attacks from the native Irish. The fertile land of the six counties now belonged to the
British and Scottish and before long religious affiliation to the Protestant faith
outnumbered Catholic dwellers. Thus the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian faith
grew in strength. The Catholic minority resented this dispossession and engaged in
prolonged hostilities with the Protestant settlers.

In 1649 Cromwell was responsible for banishing the remaining native Irish landowners to
Connaught – land that was poor, rocky and had poor fertility. Thus came the expression
“to hell or to Connaught”. This was soon the only part of Ireland where Catholics were
allowed to own land. Laws were passed to limit the property rights of Catholics. Land
ownership among the Catholic population fell from 22% in 1688 to 5% in 1778. Thus it
became almost impossible to be Catholic and to own land in Ireland in the late
seventeenth century. The Penal Laws in the 1700s cemented the control of the Protestant
ascendancy in Ireland, depriving Catholics of land ownership, education, political power
and religious freedom. The presence of Mass-rocks and hedge-school sites in Ireland
today is evidence of the determination of the Catholic Irish population to resist attempts
to oppress and dis-empower them. The fact that Mass had to be celebrated in movable
locations created a stronger bond between the Church and the dispossessed Catholic Irish
who also had no real fixed abode.

Questions:
1. How might you have felt as a Scottish settler coming to live on confiscated lands
in Ulster during the plantation?
2. How might you have felt as a dispossessed Catholic landowner during the
plantation?
3. What was the result of the policy of plantation on the relationship between
Catholics and Protestants in Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

Land ownership and landlessness as part of the religious identity of Irish people
Questions:
1. Describe a time when you accidentally lost something of value to you. How did
you feel?
2. Have you ever had something precious taken away from you deliberately? How
did you feel? Was your reaction exactly the same as in question 1? Why / not?
Take feedback and explain that when something precious is taken away from us, and for
an unjustified reason, we can feel a range of emotions such as sadness, loss,
abandonment, disappointment and anger. We often want to retaliate and fight for what
we feel was rightfully ours.

In the eighteenth century only about 5% of people in Ireland owned land. There was no
real upper class of Catholics any more. Catholicism became synonymous with poverty
and the lowest social class, lack of political power, subjection to the Protestant elite, and
lack of education. Many sons of the dispossessed Catholic gentry went on the join the
priesthood or else serve in the military. Political power was reserved only for those who
were land owners. This meant that Protestantism was synonymous with political power,
wealth, education and social respect. Protestants were viewed as the alien, colonial
power who had acted unjustly. Huge social differences therefore emerged between
Catholics and Protestants. Catholics felt angry not just for the way in which they had
been dispossesses by the British monarchy but also because the burden of taxation fell on
them, and their taxes were upholding the social exclusivity of the Protestant ascendancy.
Protestant religious identity was equated with land ownership. Catholic religious identity
was equated with landlessness. Many dispossessed Catholic expressed their anger at the
Protestant ascendancy through open hostility and revenge. The protestant ascendancy
was suspicious of the Catholics and perceived them as a real threat to their power and
wealth. These ongoing divisions and tensions have left an indelible mark on Irish history
to this day. People’s national, social and cultural identity became bound up with their
religious affiliation in Ireland. These identities would clash and inflict huge acts of
destruction on each other in the centuries ahead. The Plantations symbolised a travesty of
injustice, a widespread betrayal and a mighty act of dispossession and disempowerment
by the British in the psyche of the Catholic Irish. Cultures and religious traditions
continue to heal from those wounds to this day, especially in Northern Ireland.
(Adapted from Religion: The Irish Experience, J.R. Walsh, Veritas, p57-61))

Question: Is there a similarity between the Jewish appreciation of the land and the
ancient Irish understanding of the land? Discuss.

Links: Section F Issues of Justice and Peace Topic 3.2.

Reading suggested by teachers:
Religion: The Irish Experience, J.R. Walsh, Veritas
Where Three Streams Meet. Celtic Spirituality, S. Ó’ Duinn, Columba Press
Travelling Through Time, G. Healy pp165-173
Door to the Past, R. Quinn and D. O’ Leary, pp170-179
‘The Colonisation of Ulster and the Rebellion of 1641 (1603-1660)’, A. Clarke in T.W.
Moody and F.X. Martin eds. (1967, reprinted several times), The Course of Irish History,
Mercier, pp189-203
Suggested activities:
While discussing ‘the sacredness of the land’ students might be asked to relate this to the
Irish Land War (1879-82). See Moody and Martin eds; ‘The Course of Irish History’
pp274-293.
www.usna.edu/English Dept/ilv/landwars.htm
Invite students to read or view John B. Keane’s play ‘The Field’ and discuss the theme of
the sacredness of the land.