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It whisper’d too, that freedom’s ark
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly;For, Freedom comes from God’s right hand,
And needs a Godly train;
And righteous men must make our land
A Nation once again!A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!—Thomas Osborne Davis, “A Nation Once Again.”
St. Patrick’s Day rolls around again today on Monday, March 17, 2025. As always, all eyes turn – in reality or remembrance – to the Emerald Isle. The Jews may have invented the word Schmaltz, but no one has perfected its use quite like the Irish outside Ireland – and especially in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, and other centres of the Irish-American diaspora, like dear old Pearl River, New York, home to descendants of generations of policemen and firemen from the Big Apple. Rivers will turn green; the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, and other such societies will parade; oceans of Guinness and Jameson’s will flow from countless pubs and bars; and equally countless corned beef and cabbage dinners will be served in lieu of the actual bacon and cabbage consumed in Erin.
My own Irish ancestry, if DNA can be trusted, hails primarily from Cork and Kerry, two counties of the ancient Kingdom of Munster. I am proud that they refused to join the 1798 Rebellion, being, in the words of Irish Nationalist Historian Seumas MacManus, “too Jacobite ever to be Jacobin.” We may be distantly related to Michael Collins; that would not make me unhappy, as he was an admirer of Chesterton and a devout Catholic. But to be honest, I am rather uncomfortable with the whole Irish Nationalist thing – especially as it has altered in my own lifetime.
To be sure, after the successive victories of Cromwell and William III (who, to no one’s comfort, was an ally of the then-Pope when he defeated King James II at the Battle of the Boyne), Catholic Ireland was subjected to successive injustices. I am certainly proud of Daniel O’Connell, whose work liberated not only his countrymen but his British co-religionists from the worst disabilities they had laboured under. I certainly love the Irish rebel songs. But I know – both being founded by members of the Masonic Order – that the Fenians and the Orange Lodges, despite their mutual hatred had the same grips and countersigns. I know that the agitation for Home Rule ruined the work of men like George Wyndham and Horace Plunkett. I know that DeValera’s overthrow of the 1922 Treaty ensured that the Ulstermen would not trust the South. I know that Frs. Denis Fahey and Edward Cahill were prophetic as regards what would happen to Irish society. I know that both the Provos and the UDA of my childhood and youth – while keen on kneecapping the unarmed, leaving bombs, and murdering single members of the other side – never indulged in pitched battles with each other, unlike the street gangs of LA, whose combats I witnessed growing up. That Sinn Fein was instrumental in convincing the Southern Irish to vote in infanticide and sodomy was bad enough; but then they teamed up with the ministers of the Crown to enforce the former on Ulster. Yet it is weirdly heartwarming to see Orangemen and Nats marching arm-in-arm to oppose immigration.
At any rate, given the heroic self-image Irishmen of every stripe have of their particular histories, modern Ireland presents a pathetic picture. Whereas in most countries, the modern immoralities were imposed upon unwilling countries by judicial or parliamentary fiat (however much their decadent populations may love them now), in Ireland, overwhelming majorities endorsed them. This, of course, is partly due to the perceived and real decadence of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which from 1932 to 1973 held a particular moral sway over the Island, the Irish Constitution of 1937 recognising “the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.” Of course, even as Frs. Cahill and Fahey predicted, this seemingly secure position was in reality a slippery slope that would one day end where we are. A good barometre of spiritual power in Ireland has historically been the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle, one time seat of the British Viceroys in Ireland. Built in 1814 as an Anglican edifice, in 1942 it was consecrated as the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity. Since 1983 it has been a “nonsectarian meditation space,” thus reflecting the religiosity – if we may call it that – of Ireland’s current ruling elites.
Ireland surely presents a desperate picture to-day, to be sure. But much remains. Speaking at the Roundtower Association Conference in Galway last month, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Quas Primas, I was impressed by the people that turned up. These were not merely nostalgics, pining for the days of The Quiet Man. They were resolutely looking to Ireland’s future – a Catholic future. Among the attendees was an Anglo-Irish – and Anglican – college student from Wexford, currently attending university in Dublin. He is being drawn to the Faith, not least because he has a deep understanding of Irish history.
As with any country, Ireland is the sum total of her past. Even now, the preamble to the Irish Constitution still reads:
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,
We, the people of Éire,
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,
And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,
Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
Now, to be sure, there are very few in Irish political or public life to-day who could honestly echo these sentiments. But one may compare them with the British version of King Charles III’s Accession Proclamation:
Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second of Blessed and Glorious memory, by whose Decease the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is solely and rightfully come to The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George: We, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm and Members of the House of Commons, together with other members of Her late Majesty’s Privy Council and representatives of the Realms and Territories, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, and others, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George is now, by the Death of our late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lord Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom we do acknowledge all Faith and Obedience with humble Affection; beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign to bless His Majesty with long and happy Years to reign over us.
In all likelihood, just as few politicians who echoed these words across the UK and similar ones around the Commonwealth could actually mean them, with such a great percentage being republicans or atheists or both, but even modern politicians and judges, despite their constantly enacting things that spit in God’s face still feel the need to cover themselves with some sort of Divinely-based legitimacy. This is why even our United States Supreme Court – for all of their many anti-religious or immoral judgements – open every session with “God Save the United States and this Honourable Court!” So it is with Ireland.
Of course, rule by the irreligious came late to Ireland, as did the corruption of the majority of her people – and as we know from history and experience, change for good and evil is brought about by determined minorities. To travel through Ireland – and anywhere in Europe – is for the believing Catholic American a bit like touring Sleeping Beauty’s Castle: the Faith is to be seen in the landscape, the architecture, and even the living customs of the people. What is missing is their conscious acceptance of it, rather than just the somnolent enjoyment of its remaining fruits. As I have written elsewhere, one comes to wonder what cheek must be kissed, what challenge bellowed to what gate, what sword must be drawn from what stone to awaken the sleepers. But the many Irish shrines and Holy Wells – and above all, the Faithful still attending them – give hope that the Faith survives in enough people, if it can be aroused.
But there are a number of things in Irish history that must be dealt with. It has always seemed to me that the devil’s greatest tool in Ireland has been to associate the Crown with heresy and the Faith with treason. In so many ways, this has caused divisions that have poisoned the country. While the Ulster Scots may hate the Faith as a result of its being identified with the Nationalists, they are the most solid pro-life group in the island; contrariwise, as noted Sinn Fein supported the coming of Infanticide to Ulster. So it is that I have always been fascinated by that minority of faithful Catholics – more or less in the Jacobite tradition – who responded to the change in attitude on the part of the Monarchy toward the Church, starting with George III. Among these, interestingly enough, was Daniel O’Connell, who, for all his work to repeal the Union, was loyal to the Monarch – having seen the horrors of the French Revolution himself as a young student in Paris. There were a number of others, down to and including James McNeill, second Governor-General of the Irish Free State, and Kevin O’Higgins, the Free State’s Foreign Minister, who proposed a separate Irish Coronation for George V in Dublin.
It seems to me that the first step for Ireland’s recovery is of course for her people to regain their Faith – which in the immediate means a proliferation of groups like the Roundtower. Ultimately of course, the hierarchy of Ireland have to regain a sense of evangelisation – as do those of most countries. This would include the unthinkable – a sense of mission toward the Anglo-Irish and the Ulster Scots. Without a doubt, extension of the Ordinariate to Ireland would help in this endeavour. Certainly, if the Anglican Church of Ireland were somehow folded back into the Catholic Church it would mean regaining hundreds of historic churches that were sanctified by great Saints. Rather than being contented simply to regard them as more or less hostile outsiders, it must be seen that reconciling these folk to the Catholic Faith is a religious and patriotic duty. But it is highly unlikely in the North to ever happen if Catholicism continues to mean knee-jerk antipathy to the Monarchy. Catholic Ireland must one day take a new look at the King and his heirs.
The Irish nation was always intensely Monarchical; the Monarchy that came in time to unite the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland was Catholic for the greater part of its existence. Neither Ireland as a republic nor that Monarchy since 1688 can be said to have done all that well by themselves or to each other. But a truly Catholic Ireland would, at the very least, be a reservoir of prayer for the conversion of its sister nations in the British Isles. Since 2015, it has been legal for the Monarch to be married to a Catholic. Continued growth of the Faith in the United Kingdom might well overcome that last obstacle to once more having a Catholic King – and what a great role that in itself might play in creating at last a United Ireland – both in Faith and political allegiance.
It is hard to believe, given to-day’s sad realities. But who knows what lies ahead? In any case, on this feast of St. Patrick, we can offer this prayer of King James II the Church in all three Kingdoms:
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God! Who only workest great marvells, show the riches of Thy goodness to Thy desolate and persecuted Church, that now sits mourning in her own dust and ruins, torn by schism and stripped and spoiled by sacrilege.
And Thou, who after a long captivity didst bring back Thy people to rebuild their Temple, look upon us with the same eyes of mercy.
Restore to us once again the publick worship of Thy name, the reverent administration of Thy sacraments; raise up the King, that we may once more enter into Thy courts with praise and serve Thee with that reverence, that unity, and order, as may be acceptable in Thy sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Photo by Gregory DALLEAU on Unsplash