Republicanism in a Christian Country -
Past, Present and Future

Martin Mansergh

Issue 355, vol.89, Autumn 2000

The subject is the process of adaptation, in the sweep of history and mainly in an Irish context, of Republicanism and Christianity in their several forms, as well as addressing some contemporary problems.

The Republic, in the sense of representative government and even democracy, is one of the great legacies of the classical world. The essence of Plato’s ideal republic was justice: ‘no ... government provides for its own benefit, but ... it provides and prescribes what is for the benefit of the subject, seeking the advantage of him who is weaker, not the advantage of the stronger’.

But in the Roman Republic, Cicero’s ideal political arrangement was one ‘where government was in control of the States’ principles, but in a free society accepted and supported their ascendancy’. Not surprisingly, this was unsustainable. If Julius Caesar pushed away the crown three times shortly before the Ides of March, his heir Caesar Augustus was not so reticent. Thus, Christianity was born in what had finally become, de jure, a great Empire. That Empire, having other gods, meant that Christ and his followers needed to keep their reserve. The classical biblical text for a separation of Church and state is Christ’s judicious reply to a question about lawfulness of tribute: ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’. There was also Christ’s reply to Pilate: ‘ My kingdom is not of this world’; otherwise, he claimed, his followers would fight . By the time of the Emperor Constantine the advantages of conversion and transmission of the faith from the top down with the support of the secular power were apparent.

When the Pope visited France to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the conversion of Clovis in the uncertain heat of battle, French historians sought in vain for evidence of other virtues in this warlord. Modern guerrilla warlords tend to recreate on either side that more primitive world. Seamus Heaney in his translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf writes:

Behaviour that’s admired is the path to power among people everywhere .

Prowess in warfare is what principally exemplified leadership qualities at that time. While the poem contains dutiful religious references, such as the line that ‘Past and Present, God’s will prevails’, the real influence of Christianity was slow to manifest itself in the Dark Ages. In Ireland, too, at that time, there was a dichotomy between the contemplative world of saints and scholars and the epic battles and betrayals of the sagas.

Justice with humility, which is a thread running through all the Gospels, continued as an early Christian ideal also. The Irish monk, John Scotus Eriugena, who taught in the Carolingian Empire, wrote in the 9th century:

For here in this life shrouded in mists, there is, I believe, nothing perfect in human striving, nothing that is free from all error, in the same way as the just who still live are not called just because they are just, but because they wish to be just and strive for perfect justice in the future, and are so called only because of the yearning of their temperament.

Justice is a shared ideal both of classical Republicanism and Christianity, with the philosophers perhaps more confident that it can be achieved in this world, and the Church more certain that it ought to be so achieved, but providing some comfort sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, the extent to which divine justice operates in this world or the next is a moot point. A secular equivalent is judgement by the tribunal of history, to which politicians bruised by the present have always made appeal.

Freedom of conscience and expression was slow to be tolerated for many centuries because it represented open or potential opposition to either religion or State. Rebels and heretics perished pre- and post-Reformation. Forms of religious tolerance existed precariously for periods in the Castille of Alfonso the Wise or the government of the Ottoman Empire after the capture of Constantinople, but in general dissent was viewed as a seed of revolt and armed conflict. Where toleration was conceded, it was often, as in the case of the Edict of Nantes of 1598, a recognition of the limits of power at the time to impose uniformity, not acceptance of any profound principle.

One inspiring figure of 16th century Europe worthy of study is the first William of Orange, William the Silent, who was Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, in that order. Of course, having been a Catholic and married a Catholic, the founder of the House of Orange would have been automatically disbarred from membership of the Orange Order, no matter how great a champion of civil and religious liberty he may otherwise have been. Unusually for his age, William the Silent believed in religious tolerance. He defended his Dutch Calvinist fellow-countrymen against the savage persecution of the Emperor’s son Philip 11 of Spain, and his commander the duke of Alva, immortalised as a Herod-like figure in Bruegel’s ‘Massacre of the Innocents’.

William told Philip’s advisers in 1564: ‘However strongly I am myself a Catholic, I cannot approve of princes attempting to rule the conscience of their subjects’. In 1572 the State of Holland passed a law at his request, which promised freedom of worship to all the reformed religions and to Roman Catholics, in public or in private, in Church or in chapel. By this stage, he had come to share the Calvinist faith of many of his people, and had married the daughter of Admiral Coligny, the principal victim of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France.

Ireland in the same period was subject to similar political and religious repression at the hands of Elizabeth. The Irish chiefs, whether like O’Neill of Gaelic descent or like Desmond of Anglo-Norman descent, did not for the most part aspire to complete independence, which might be a source of temptation to rival powers, but to a large autonomy, political and religious. If educated leaders of Gaelic Ireland ever toyed with the idea of a republic, the first serious eruption of Republicanism into Ireland came from the opposite quarter, from Cromwell’s puritan Commonwealth. Cromwell represented himself even in his most terrible actions as an avenging angel of God. His officers regulated divine service. The mass was not tolerated. By February 1660, the disadvantages of military rule in the absence of legitimate authority or representative institutions were eloquently recognised by the mostly young officers of the Munster Army: that would have later parallels in Irish history.

One of the most extraordinary about-turns in Irish history was how in the space of a few months at the start of the Restoration, most Republicans and Commonwealth men suddenly became ardent Royalists in order to preserve and legitimise their confiscations and seizures. The progress of democracy has seen the wider and wider application of liberal and representative principles to the entire adult population, male and female, where they were previously limited to male property owners of one religion.

The ‘Glorious Revolution’ established the principle of government by consent, the theory of which was expounded by John Locke, who postulated that conquest conferred no right to expropriation and that a conquered people had a right of revolt until given a government they could consent to . In many ways, England, in the years from 1689 to 1832 was an aristocratic republic, ruled by a chosen monarch. Behind the facade and pageantry of Buckingham Palace, it has always seemed to me that the reality of power in Britain is better represented by Cromwell’s statute on horseback outside the Palace of Westminster. This makes doubly ironic continued insistence on the oath of allegiance from Irish Republicans, a throwback to the old days of Test Acts.

James II in his political testament warned his son of the Republicans in the North by which he meant the Ulster Scots Presbyterians, and, in Jacobite histories, those described as the Loyalists were the Catholic gentry of Ireland. The purchase of the battlefield of the Boyne by the State is an acknowledgement of the importance of the event in Irish history.

It is, I believe, an Orange myth that the Pope celebrated the victory of William of Orange at the Boyne, a claim which is found in none of the standard text books, but is sweepingly conjectured by Macaulay. Pope Innocent XI, godfather of James’ infant son, was indeed an enemy of Louis XIV, and by tradition commented ‘salus ex inimicis’ on learning of William’s landing at Torbay in November 1688, but he died in August 1689, almost a year before the battle of the Boyne. His successor the elderly, Alexander VIII, sought a rapprochement with the French King, and his dévote wife and companion Mme de Maintenon. Indeed, James II’s Ambassador reported the opposite attitude regarding the earlier false report that William had been killed by a cannon shot, which he claimed had been received with ‘all the expressions of a sincere joy in His Holiness for so important, so unexpected a success’ . One need not take that completely at face value to conclude nonetheless that there is no basis for the Orange claim.

In the 18th century, the disenfranchised and dispossessed hidden Ireland was Catholic, Jacobite (and even pro-Bourbon). Advanced political philosophy associated with New Light Presbyterianism was more sympathetic to Republicanism. Francis Hutcheson believed strongly in accountable government and the people’s right to change their rulers. He believed the ideal state was a small republic, where rulers and ruled stayed close to each other . American Republicanism, upon which he had much influence, attributed human rights to a divine origin, and placed the nation under divine auspices. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence stated with succinct eloquence:

We hold those truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among those are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the famous Gettysburg address of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed the ideals of the founding fathers, and renewed the resolve that ‘this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.

Both the American colonies and Ireland had been part of Britain’s Atlantic Empire. The Irish Volunteers soon ran into the limits of powerful self-interest that confined reform to religious tolerance and civil rights that fell well short of equal political rights. But Grattan and contemporaries like John Philpot Curran had a fathomless contempt for sectarian bigotry, and optimistically believed that it belonged to a benighted past. 18th century idealism on this score is a standing reproach to some of the more extreme attitudes that seriously claim to champion politico-religious identity today. When it comes to causes of scandal, even if the issues are different, Protestant Ireland has as much to be embarrassed about as Catholic Ireland, though one would never think it from the patronising comments of some clergy basking in the sure approval of the liberal media. The gospel injunction ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?’ should surely be one of the ground rules in inter-church relations and commentary.

The French revolution paradoxically was destructive of the power of the Catholic Church in Europe, but, in mainly Irish Protestant eyes, showed that Catholics could be in the vangaurd of liberty. Wolfe Tone was the perfect disciple, in that he combined negative attitudes to the Catholic Church and the Papacy with the espousal of the political rights of Catholics. The first Declaration and Resolutions of the Society of United Irishmen of Belfast in October 1791 set out as their core objectives ‘the promotion of constitutional knowledge, the abolition of bigotry in religion and politics, and the equal distribution of the rights of men through all sects and denominations in Ireland’ . This, with a correction for gender equality, still sums up an excellent programme for a modern Republicanism. William Drennan, a son of the manse, and the Chairman of the Society who remained aloof from the revolutionary phase, and who has some claim to be the founder of the constitutional Republican tradition in Ireland, wrote to his brother-in-law Sam McTier on 3 February 1792:

I don’t understand the term ascendancy: it is really an astrological term denoting the star which had uncontrolled dominion over our nativity; and is the language of a soothsayer rather than of a politician. My toast should be- ‘the Sovereignty of the People - not of any party: the Ascendancy of Christianity - not of any Church.

Unfortunately for Ireland the French Revolution turned sour. The abolition of religion, except for an absurd and self-destructive cult of reason; a bloodthirsty reign of terror; and the strategic threat to Britain, all created a tragic context, in which reasonable demands for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation were rejected. The establishment of Maynooth in 1795 was intended to capitalise on the anti-revolutionary sentiments of the Catholic Church, and to tame it by providing a seminary at home.

Idealistically, 1798 can be seen as a rebellion designed to lead to a civic republic on the French model. It involved an alliance between the more secular and mainly Protestant United Irish leadership, and the Catholic Defenders. The Orange Order had been credited to counter and disrupt Protestant-Catholic unity, and, though the Orangemen were undoubtedly to be feared, one of the most pernicious mobilising actions of the young and inexperienced United Irish leadership was to spread the propaganda that the Orangemen were out to exterminate Catholics. The rebellion in Wexford and its savage repression had an undeniable sectarian dimension which was its nemesis. The leadership, at some remove from the people, underestimated the deeper forces in the Catholic population and its potential power. Nevertheless, as a result of 1798 the national independence was established as an ineradicable goal.

When I was in the United States in March, a New York friend gave me a copy of Thomas Jefferson’ s letter of 1807, while he was President, on the rebellion:

Th. Jefferson returns thanks to Mr. MacNeven for the copy he has been so kind as to send him of his Pieces of Irish history. It is a record of documents and facts which interested all the feelings of humanity when they are passing, and stand in dreadful account against the perpetrators. In this the United States may see what would have been their history, had they continued under the same masters. Heaven seems to have provided them with an asylum for the suffering, before the extinguishment of all political morality had prepared the scenes now acting in the world.

Some of the United Irishmen emigrated to America. One of them, Thomas Addis Emmet, became Attorney General of New York, where he helped establish the equal civil rights of Catholic immigrants . Prophetically, in a Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry in an exchange with Archbishop Agar of Cashel in 1798, who scorned the economic viability of an independent Ireland, Thomas Addis Emmet replied: ‘America is the best market in the world, and Ireland the best situated country in Europe to trade with that market’. He also said:

I think she has grown out of her connection with Great Britain ....... I think this might be the happiest country in the world, if it was established as an Independent Republic .

The 1790s are very important formative period being the one and only time when a substantial section of Protestant Ireland had the self-confidence to support complete independence and rally to the green flag. Irish patriotism came naturally. Drennan had asked on 25 January 1800: ‘Dare the people of Ireland, even like the people of Scotland whose Covenant was their country, dare they make a Solemn League and Covenant ......... that they will maintain their country ?’ - before concluding that, ‘No - they do not’. When that idea was finally taken up, it was in 1912, with Presbyterian Ministers prominent in backing the Solemn Covenant to maintain the Union, describing even modest Home Rule as a conspiracy to be defeated. Indeed had the Orangemen marched in Dublin on the 200th anniversary of the Act of Union they might have remembered the unanimous resolution of Lodge 652 in Dublin who declared:

Resolved unanimously, that as a loyal and Protestant association, and attached as we are to our most gracious sovereign and happy constitution, we cannot without the utmost indignation and regret see a momentous question of a legislative Union. That, sorry as we are to differ in opinion from the Grand Lodge, we should consider our silence as being accessory to the annihilation of the Constitution which as Orangemen and Freemen, we have solemnly sworn to support. That we consider the friends of that abominable measure a Union with Great Britain, as the greatest enemies of our most gracious sovereign - a measure which would destroy our existence as a Nation, and eventually involve the rights, liberties, and even the lives of the people of Ireland .

Of course, their concept of the Irish nation was in political terms narrow, and they were opposed to Catholic Emancipation that was to accompany the Union. Another Orangeman, Sir Jonah Barrington, wrote with devastating force of the corrupt methods used to secure passage of the Union in his Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation. It has taken the discovery of Secret Service Papers to convince some modern historians, what all of 19th century Ireland knew, that the Union had been passed corruptly.

For all sorts of reasons over the course of the 19th century, economic, religious and political sentiment divided sharply. Some blame O’Connell’s campaign for Catholic emancipation, others the cultural nationalism of Young Ireland and the Gaelic League. But, realistically, plans for polity based permanently on playing down the Irish or Catholic identity were never realistic.

Nevertheless, subsequent generations of Irish Republicans have in one of the most vital respects not been good disciples of Tone. In his famous credo, he defined his objects as being ‘to subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England.... and to assert the independence of my country’. But his means, which were ‘to unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter’, were abandoned, no doubt as impractical, despite further repeated efforts by Young Ireland and even the cultural revival of the early 20th century. The failure of the means did not prevent eventual independence, but it meant that it would be incomplete. When force was used, it did not unite, nor to be fair did it seek to unite, the whole people of Ireland, and the absence of such unity could not legitimately veto independence, least of all for the greater part of Ireland, where minorities were very small.

The mainstream Nationalist project in the 19th century was self-government, not independence of a republic. Gradually, in the South, Daniel O’Connell with liberal Protestant allies established a largely Catholic movement for democracy. The Church frowned on revolution, because of its hopeless prospects, and because it wanted no repetition of the slaughter of poor vulnerable people on the scale of 1798, and also because of its suspect anti-religious associations. This was in the context of the aggressive secularism of in particular much French Republicanism, and the later blow delivered to the Papacy’s temporal jurisdiction by a united Italy. The Fenians were certainly anti-clerical. But Bishop Moriarty of Kerry, who, said that ‘hell was not hot enough nor eternity long enough’ to punish the Fenians, also described the Home Rule Association as ‘in the present circumstances of the country, one of the most mischievous movements to which you have ever been urged or excited.’ For a long time, the Catholic Church built up its strength in unofficial concordat with the British Government under Peel, and later the Liberals.

The more forward Archbishop Croke subscribed to a fund to help Charles Kickham, Tipperary novelist and President of the IRB, and said of him that ‘apart altogether from and independent of his attractions as an Irish poet, soldier and patriot, I take him to be of all men that I have ever met about the gentlest, the most amicable, the most truthful and the most sorely and searchingly tried, at the same that I believe our most holy mother the Church has few more dutiful sons’. Croke battled vigorously against British influences in the Vatican, and of course was founder and patron of the GAA. Under the leadership of Archbishops Walsh and Croke, the Catholic Church realigned itself with its flock, though it was placed in great difficulties by the Parnell split, which was a tragedy for the church as much for the party or the country.

Pádraig Pearse was the subject of a critical article posthumously published by Fr. Francis Shaw in the Summer 1972 edition of Studies at the height of the Northern troubles . While he had some legitimate criticisms about the exclusive canon of Irish history, and, from a religious point of view, of Pearse’s messianic language and glorification of the patriotic sacrifice of bloodshed, Pearse remains a key figure in the foundation of the State. His father worked for the church as a monumental sculptor, and Pearse was more respectful of religion than almost any previous Irish revolutionary, and not a few Home Rulers, even where he had differences with the Church. If Pearse eventually became a revolutionary, having been previously a cultural nationalist willing to accept even quite modest advances towards self-government, he nonetheless wrote in ‘The Spiritual Nation’:

If we accept the definition of Irish freedom as ‘‘the Rights of man in Ireland’’, we shall find it very difficult to imagine an apostle of Irish freedom who is not a democrat .

Obviously, the temporary arrogation of political authority by a small, unrepresentative conspiratorial minority, even if given a large measure of ex post facto justification and democratic sanction in the 1918 General Election, inevitably aroused significant unease, both then and subsequently, and created a precedent that could be misused. But, against that, I think it can also be argued that Pearse and Griffith and de Valera after him were intent on creating an Irish constitution tradition that would owe nothing to Britain, and that would be the foundation of independence. Constitutional Nationalism or Republicanism can be viewed very differently, depending on whether or not the constitutional framework in question is a British one or an Irish one. The proclamation envisaged a democratic society, guaranteeing religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities for all its citizens, ‘cherishing all the children of the nation equally’, including both men and women, an advance on the position of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

The 1916 Rising did not cause partition. It took place because partition was already virtually a fait accompli. This was so because Ulster Unionists were adamant that they would not accept a different and modified form of Union, in which there would be Home Rule, because democratic advances since 1800 would make them a minority. The danger of North-South civil war was greatest in 1914. The 1916 Rising was implicitly a decision in those circumstances to go quite literally a separate way. I would not accept Fr. Shaw’s contention that the pursuit of a separate Republic, particularly one that would be externally associated with the Commonwealth, constituted extremism. The problem following the 1918 General Election and during the Treaty negotiations arose because the British Government refused to accept the principle of government by consent of the governed, if it meant their having to accept the setting up of a Republic . The British had a substantial responsibility for precipitating the civil war, which many historical commentators do not sufficiently avert to, though both the Treaty and anti-Treaty sides were also at fault.

The 1916-21 period was one of political advance and excitement, but also of moral exaltation amongst a leadership and rank and file that were for the most part devoutly religious. P.S. O’Hegarty, writing of Éamon de Valera in this period, said:

His great value to the country was his honesty and his simplicity and his single-mindedness. He re-stated, in plain simple language, in speeches which were of general application to the nations, as well as of particular application to Ireland, the unassailable moral and international principles upon which Ireland’s case rested, while his personality and integrity had a big influence at home in ranging all sectors of nationalist opinion behind the movement of which he was the spokesman .

He was an inspiration to later national movements abroad as well. Not just the Church but some of the political leadership had moral qualms about the guerrilla campaign, which were offset by anger at the Black and Tans. Important insights advanced the cause: de Valera’s recognition of the need for strategic guarantees, and moving away from alliances with Britain’s enemies; the disavowal of coercion vis-à-vis. Northeast Ulster; and the recognition that the army should be subordinated to the Dáil. Unfortunately, the movement stumbled at the last fence, and could not forge a common strategy to deal with the difficulty of Britain’s refusal to go the final step of the way. The civil war was seen in many eyes as moral disintegration, with the Church excommunicating Republicans, but also strongly disapproving of arbitrary State executions . The defeated side picked itself up quickly, accepting majority rule, with de Valera declaring in July 1923 that ‘the war as far as we are concerned, is finished’ . The IRA remained, but mainstream Republicanism moved towards an exclusively political path. The followers of Michael Collins were of course also Republicans.

It was perhaps an accident of history, through the split and the deaths of Griffith and Collins, that the Irish Free State was led for the first ten years by one of the most confessionally minded of all the Sinn Féin leadership, W.T. Cosgrave. But it was inevitable that in the aftermath of independence the Catholic Church would want to enjoy its place in the sun, and act at least de facto as the State church. The small Protestant and for the most part ex-Unionist minority, after the turbulence of a revolution, in which they were in greater danger of losing their property than their lives, valued stability more that anything else and this by and large they got. The Cosgrave and de Valera Governments were scrupulous about non-discrimination and tolerance, but of course a new ethos pervaded the State. As Churchill recognised privately by 1924, the dominion status and allegiance to the crown in the Treaty proved an empty illusion .

There had been two competing projects, both of which had had to compromise, the original Unionist vision of the whole of Ireland continuing in the Union as an integral part of the UK, and the later Nationalist Republican vision of an independent and united Ireland.

In the circumstances of the time, de Valera and others were right to see their main task as being to consolidate and build up the state and make a success of it. Séan Lemass was later to make this an explicitly economic and social mission. As he said in Tralee on 29th July 1963:

Freedom was seen as a beginning, not an end – the beginning of a battle to secure the rehabilitation of our nation, to build its economy and to strengthen its capacity to provide decent livelihoods for all its people .

In many respects the first post-independence generation did well. Despite the sobering effect of the civil war, which was unfortunately a fairly standard phenomenon in the new European democracies, there was a pioneering spirit. An industrial base was built up. Social problems were tackled.

We sometimes speak as if Ireland, which played an active role in the Commonwealth up to and including 1932 and in the League of Nations, deliberately isolated itself from other countries. But the influences from the Europe of the Dictators, and of Nazism, Fascism and Communism, were something from which we did well to insulate ourselves.

Ireland was to all intents and purposes a Catholic democracy in this period, and if in certain respects it was by today’s standards openly or covertly repressive, the repression bears no comparison with what was happening on much of the Continent of Europe at that time. Much of what was contained in the papal encyclicals of Leo X111 and Pius X1 was socially progressive. The constitution was a fine amalgam of liberal democracy, Republicanism and Catholic social philosophy. The church was perhaps too paranoid about Communism, which was very thin on the ground in Ireland. However, was it so wrong about an ideology that to consolidate a seizure of power in Russia inflicted appalling suffering and misery over a large part of the globe in the name of misguided utopian ideals? We are also apt to forget the eugenic experiments or worse that occurred in Scandinavia, as well as institutional or child abuse in countries where Catholicism was not a significant influence; but we have learnt that no human institution, not even the Church, can be given unreserved trust.

In his homespun 1943 St. Patrick’s day speech, de Valera was undoubtedly trying to keep up public morale in hard times. There is a myth that Ireland from the 1920s to 1950s was stagnant in every sense and suffered from a stifling conformity, for which de Valera and the bishops were largely responsible. De Valera was simply the most senior, the most measured and most eloquent advocate of the ideals of a whole generation of leaders steeped in the Gaelic League. Society was far livelier than we give it credit for. Because it is practically dead now, we tend to assume, wrongly, it was dead then. There was all the excitement of building a new state. James Deeney came down from Lurgan to be Chief Medical Officer, and in his memoirs paints a very different picture of life in Ireland in1943, from what you will find depicted, say, in the columns of the Irish Times.

Coming to Dublin was wonderful. For the first time I discovered my country. I suddenly felt a free citizen of a free country and began the process of getting the repression and bitterness of the North out of my system. Everybody had opinions and expressed them. You were not the recipient of the odd quiet warning to watch what you said’ [note - recollections differ on that point]...’I also had to learn and understand the interactions and tensions between political parties, personalities, trade unions, churches, civil service, the Anglo-Irish, and between institutional, professional and other factional interests. I had to realise that I was witnessing a national democracy, in place of what I had hitherto experienced, the one-party, long -continuing repressive, fascist-type rule in the North .

Although gradually improving, social conditions remained in many instances harsh and primitive. The resources were often not there. The ingrained ethos of public administration was spartan, and the attitude long survived that we could not afford the services and standards taken for granted by wealthier countries. Society could be punitive towards those who displayed deviant behaviour or who for reasons of birth or family circumstances were partially rejected. Corporal punishment was pervasive at the time, and most people would not have believed the possibility of sexual abuse by people who commanded social authority. Yet there should be positive recognition that the Church took on enormous social responsibilities, before the more systematic development of the welfare state. Much Catholic social teaching of the period was progressive, balancing individual freedom against the common good, and critical of laissez faire capitalism as well as of socialism and communism. The principle of subsidiary is incorporated into the later EU treaties.

There is no doubt that parties competed strongly for the Catholic vote and even Church endorsement, Cosgrave in 1931 hoped it would be his trump card, and Sean MacBride later frowned on Noel Browne being photographed with a Protestant Bishop. Republican anti-clericalism was fairly vestigial. According to Michael Yeats’s memoirs, when the independent- minded Dan Breen from Tipperary suggested, at a parliamentary party meeting in the early 1950s after the Mother and Child débâcle, that it was a terrible pity that 30 years previously, when they had the chance, they didn’t shoot a few bishops, de Valera looked glum. When Breen went probably for the first time to a soccer international with Yugoslavia in defiance of the Archbishop, it was ‘to fire his last shot for Ireland’. Yet religious zeal that strayed too far into politics or economics was not accepted uncritically by de Valera and his colleagues.

My sister’s godfather, Professor W B Stanford of Trinity College, wrote a couple of vigorous pamphlets in the mid-1940s on the civic place of Protestants in the new State, which were both critical and self-critical . I once asked him if I should read them but he advised me not to. His advice was poor, even if he subsequently felt some of his criticism of ‘jobbery’ was a little exaggerated. He admitted that, when he joined the Senate in the late 1940s, where for 20 years he represented the minority, he discovered that his contribution was welcomed. But it was a time of strict demarcation, when there was from the side of the Catholic Church and imitated sometimes at a local level a certain squeezing of minorities and of their institutions, - though Archbishop McQuaid, in fairness, reversed the take-over of the Meath Hospital. There were times when the Church appeared to over-reach itself, as in the Mother and Child and Fethard-on-Sea controversies. But, as Ruth Barrington observes in her history of the health services, it is a moot point as to whether we would be better off today with a universal health service than with the mixed partly insurance-based system we now have . In either case, the problem is always the limited resources. Despite further progress, until we decided on a coherent, economic strategy Ireland lost competitive ground in the late 1940s and 1950s, when other countries were heavily engaged in post-war reconstruction. The isolated Republic of the early to mid-1950s was not a success. Although people welcome the opening up of Ireland from the 1960s, one also hears the associated materialism decried. While the complaint is not without some justice, many of those who implemented the plans of Lemass and Whitaker were inspired in what they did by Christian values. A selfish individualism was never adopted by the state, or preached by the Church.

Republicanism has always had a strong social dimension. The last decade has seen unprecedented economic success, which gives us an equally unprecedented opportunity and resources to deal with the main outstanding social problems, so creating a quality of life in our country that our ancestors could only dream of. If in the past the Church sometimes aligned itself with wealthy vested interests that is hardly the case today. The Conference of Religious in Ireland(CORI) is a driving force in the community and voluntary sector, and the Church and State back agencies working in the poorest parts of the world, such as Lesotho and East Timor. This is a voice (echoed by secular allies) determined to keep the focus on persistent social ills, and to prevent complacency or greed from prevailing. The reform of social legislation has been worked through, resulting in some greater separation of Church and State, and stimulating much more debate on the relationship of the two - for example, in the Bishops’ presentation to the New Ireland Forum. But potential for controversy remains not only over abortion, but over issues that impinge on social change and family values such as individualisation at the higher rate of income tax.

Both Republicanism and Christianity underlie this State, without at this stage there being any obvious incompatibility. What of the North?

There is little doubt that partition itself and the absence of a credible Northern policy left Northern Nationalists a vulnerable minority. The denial of legitimacy of Northern Ireland after the Boundary Commission débâcle, subsequently set down in Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution, had some limited value in putting down a marker, and expressing militant sentiment. From 1950 onward there were a few visible small-scale North-South projects. The political case for ending partition was frequently aired. Militancy was, to a fair degree, contained, until after the brief Lemass-O’Neill détente.

While some constitutional Nationalists regard themselves as Republicans, the term has been largely appropriated by a more militant Republican Movement. This movement in the course of a 30 year conflict committed many aggressive acts deeply repugnant to any notion of Christianity, though they were not of course the only ones to do so. The problem was that, with routine and institutionalised provocation during the previous 50 years and even during the early stages of the Northern Troubles, constitutional politics, which was seeking civil rights, equal treatment and a right of participation, faced an uphill task, and sometimes had great difficulty in maintaining credibility in face of the obtuseness of others. Great care must be taken not to allow such a situation to arise again.

De Valera was not believed, when he warned in the 1950s that violence would not work and even if it could it would ruin life for generations . In the early 1970s, it was tempting to see a divided Unionism as being on the point of capitulating as the British State run from Dublin Castle did in 1922, while not adequately recognising the fundamental difference made by a deeply divided society. The 1970s Republicanism had become entirely sectional and did not attract prominent people, let alone significant support, from other traditions. Northern Republicanism did not in any meaningful way succeed in reaching across the divide, and sincere but rather belated efforts to generate dialogue have only been made in recent years. The belief was prevalent that British withdrawal and/or Unionist consent to Irish unity could be forced, whether militarily or politically. Ideologically, there is still some reluctance to accept the concurrent votes in the 22 May Referendum as a valid exercise of self-determination.

The Churches, while sometimes part of the problem, in the main sought to moderate conflict, and to maintain the threads of a Christian society. Many of them acted as a spur to much valuable inter-church dialogue and common worship. Certain clergy played a very active role in trying to bring the conflict to an end, by contact work, by preaching and also by example. People like Frs. Alex Reid, Gerry Reynolds of Clonard Monastery, Cardinals O’Fiaich and Daly, Archbishop Eames and Rev. Roy Magee, and many others like Gordon Wilson, played a key role in hastening peace. The peace process involved separating out legitimate Republican political goals and Nationalist rights from unacceptable physical force methods. Gusty Spence, when announcing the Loyalist ceasefire, expressed abject remorse, but the sentiment was not much in evidence in the television series called ‘Loyalists’. Expressions of regret have been very cautious and of a limited character on the Republican side.

The Good Friday Agreement, the very same name of which seeks to incorporate the most central Christian event of suffering and redemption, is the signal that every tradition, including Republicanism, must move on. The situation can only move forward on the basis of mutual agreement. The opposite side of the coin to that is mutual veto, which still tends to be even more in evidence. Democracy is not only about exclusively peaceful means, but implementing the will of the people. A democratically validated Agreement and a new dispensation renders redundant private armies, that can only get in the way of the operation of the new institutions. The fundamental principles and requirements of democracy, as originally set down by George Mitchell clearly and unequivocally, have been accepted by all parties and apply equally, barring any necessary period of transition, North and South of the border, (making allowance for the fact that the Irish Government is a sovereign government with full responsibility for justice, security and defence, whereas the Northern Ireland Executive is a devolved government, with no responsibility for those areas which remain reserved powers of the British Government.)

As the Downing Street Declaration stated in the words of John Hume, ‘Irish unity would be achieved only by those who favour this outcome persuading those who do not, peacefully and without coercion or violence’. The same goes pari passu for the retention of the Union in the longer term, when a natural majority for it may cease to exist. It is obviously important to maintain a consensus behind the peace strategy, and to leave no opening that will encourage intractable dissidents, but it was never clear how retaining fully armed paramilitary organisations was likely to assist in persuading peacefully anyone from the other side, as neither community is prepared to be intimidated, let alone coerced. The May 2000 proposals for putting arms completely and verifiably beyond use, and for confidence-building measures involving inspection of dumps by two international figures, represent a major breakthrough, which has facilitated the restoration of the institutions on the basis agreed at Hillsborough. One presumes that much of the obsolete ideological armoury will also be quietly dumped.

How many intelligent and pragmatic members or leaders of a supposedly progressive political organisation can still believe that the only lawful Government in Ireland is a private army - or an Army Council? Is it really possible to ignore completely and disparage comprehensively the achievement of an earlier generation of Republicans, pro-treaty, who created and sustained the Irish State for 80 years, with all its successes and failures? How are we in this era of openness, transparency and accountability to believe in the existence of ‘a Government of the Irish Republic’, whose names are not even known with certainty by the general public? At least, the people of Iraq and the people of Chile under General Pinochet were given that much information.

Irish Governments have spent huge efforts in trying to seek redress for abuses of human rights by organs of the state, that rightly created a great deal of indignation, and gave rise to demands for independent enquiries. Should we not require at least the same standards of human rights from organisations that still mete out barbaric physical punishments, and who still retain the death penalty in ‘policing’ in their own community? A new beginning in policing leading to an acceptable police service would remove much of the social pressures for punishment beatings, which Michael Collins considered degraded the perpetrators even more than the victims .

It is right for the Church (by which I mean all Churches) to express apologies and regrets for wrongs committed in the past and it is right for the State to admit when it has acted wrongly, and where appropriate to compensate and rehabilitate the victims; then is Fr. Faul not right, when he spoke about certain moral obligations that also have to be faced up to by all those who participated in a terrible and unnecessarily prolonged conflict? On 12 March 2000, I attended a peace mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, held in the presence of the Taoiseach, at which Cardinal Clancy read out a letter from the Catholic Bishops of Australia, supplementing the Pope’s letter, and apologising in particular for the church’s part in the unjust treatment of the aboriginal population as well as for abuses that occurred in orphanages. Both the Pope’s and the Bishops’ statement were noble and measured. In his visit to Israel, an important part of the Pope’s mission was to improve relations between the three great monotheistic religions. As a non-Catholic, listening in Sydney Cathedral, I had two reactions: an interest in what the Irish Bishops might be saying - I gather they did not choose to add to the Pope’s statement, which received less attention here than in Australia - and secondly, a wish that the Church of Ireland, to which I belong, and other Protestant Churches in Ireland might frame or subscribe to a similar statement. Compared with Roman Catholicism, which is of course the dominant religious tradition in Ireland, I regret that there is a distinctly greater reluctance to engage in articulate and confident self-criticism amongst the main Protestant denominations. (Indeed, there is a current of thought, especially in the south, which claims that they have been too apologetic. But, of course, confident apology is a sign of strength not weakness). I except Archbishop Eames’ statement on the famine, and the success of last year’s Synod in putting historic documents like the Thirty-Nine Articles in context and affirming the ecumenical orientation of the present-day Church, and no doubt there are similar examples in the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches and amongst the Quakers that can be pointed to. I know it was the strong conviction of the late Presbyterian Dr. George Dallas who gave evidence to the New Ireland Forum and whose writings were recently republished in Belfast by Roderick Evan , and of a number of others of a like mind, that a root of the political and religious malaise in Ireland has been reluctance to confront the injustices and guilt arising from the past, something which he attempted. In the North, the ethical foundations of what the late Hugh Munro called ‘political Protestantism’ are either defiantly asserted or a subject simply ignored. Acknowledgement of wrong and a will to do better provides a firmer basis for going forward into the future. If individuals sin or do wrong, so do institutions, collective groups and communities, and even whole nations. The Lord became very angry with the people of Israel, as his Son did with the Scribes and the Pharisees, not just with individual transgressors.

The peace process has required almost superhuman patience and forbearance by many of its participants, some of whom have taken grave physical risks. We have come far, but we must not fall, as happened in some respects in 1922, at the last fence, because of an inflexible self-righteousness on any side or on any issue. Let us at least be clear for the honour of our country that Irish Republicanism today means North and South a pluralist democracy, not army rule, and that it is in a democratically endorsed setting a constitutional and no longer a revolutionary political period.

At this stage, true Republicanism, true Unionism and true Christianity all point in the one direction: friendship, co-operation, working together in trust, breaking down barriers, removing peace walls and watchtowers and arsenals because they are no longer necessary, respecting the integrity and conviction of at least the more reasonable majority of those who belong to the other political or religious tradition, and not seeking a priori to exclude anyone. Neither overriding the other community nor separate development are viable or sustainable approaches. Neither Unionism nor Nationalism can progress very far on their own without facing the necessity for genuine accommodation.

It has been 200 years since there was any significant co-operation between the mainstream traditions in Ireland or substantial sections of them. Today, it is at long last again a prospect, even if on limited terms to begin with. Seizing that opportunity, whatever outcome it may eventually lead to, is surely what Republicanism in a Christian country as well as Unionism must be about today.

Dr Martin Mansergh is special advisor to the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern. T.D

*Based on a Public Lecture given at All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, Dublin, 22 March 2000.