Why is popular piety so strong in Ireland?

Résumé du document

This video shows the arrival of the Pope John Paul II in Ireland on the 29 September 1979. This video clip is an extract from the live broadcast of this event by the national television channel RTE2. It seems clear that the purpose of such wide broadcast was to permit to the whole Ireland to follow what can most likely be considered as the religious event of the century for the Irish Catholics. The enthusiasm of speakers transpires through the screen, and it most surely represents that of the Irish people. What is stunning in this video is the huge dispositive set up for welcoming the Papal sovereign. First, the Dublin airport is incredibly crowded.

Furthermore, it is astonishing to see that the whole Irish state apparatus is there to welcome the Pope; the speaker talks about "the President (Patrick Hillery), the Government, the Council of State, and the Hierarchy", all of them religiously waiting for the Pope. The tremendous popular support of the Pope will however not be limited to this welcome; no less than 1 million people, almost 1 out 3 Irish citizens, will go listening to the Pope later that day in Phoenix Park, showing the extraordinary faith of the Irish people. How to explain such incredible popular faith?

Extraits

[...] The comparison with the French society is actually very interesting. France managed to unite his people around the ideas of nation and Republic thanks to the laicization of its schooling system under the Third Republic[8], thanks to the Jules Ferry's law of 1822. Such movement towards “modernity” and Republicanism spread to the whole French society which built its identity against the Catholic Church; one striking example of the power struggle between the Church and the Republic was the Dreyfus affair, which eventually led to the separation of the Church from the French state in 1905. [...]

[...] Why is popular piety so strong in Ireland? Commentary of the Papal visit in Dublin video (available at http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/681-history-of-rte/705-rte- 1970s/289832-papal-visit-to-ireland/) This video shows the arrival of the Pope John Paul II in Ireland on the 29 September 1979. This video clip is an extract from the live broadcast of this event by the national television channel RTE2. It seems clear that the purpose of such wide broadcast was to permit to the whole Ireland to follow what can most likely be considered as the religious event of the century for the Irish catholics. [...]

[...] Donnelly Jr, peak of Marianism in Ireland, 1930-60' in Stewart Jay Brown & D.W. Millar Piety and power in Ireland 1760- 1960: essays in honour of Emmet Larkin (Belfast & Notre Dame, 2000) Chapter 2 land of faith: impressions of Irish Catholicism in the 1950s', in Louise Fuller, Irish Catholicism since 1950: the undoing of a culture (Dublin, 2002) Photos of the Celebration of the centenary of the signature of Roman Catholic Relief Act, available at: https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/result.html?_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXACTION_= query&_IXFIRST_=5&_IXSR_=zbpdMTExnFV&_IXSS_=_IXMAXHITS_%3d10%26_IXFPFX_%3dte mplates%252ft%26_IXFIRST_%3d1%26%252asform%3d%252fweb%252fsearch_forms%252fa dvanced%26%2524%253dsi%3dtext%26_IXACTION_%3dquery%26_IXINITSR_%3dy%26%2524% 253dsort%3dsort%2bdescending%2bsortexpr%2bimage_sort%26search%3dsearch%26%25 2aiexe%2bSECURITY_filter%3d%252e%26%2524%253ds%3dcatholics%26text_search_con text%3dcatholics%26%253cphoto_taken_date_earliest%3d&_IXSPFX_=templates%2ft& _IXFPFX_=templates%2ft accessed the 11th/02/2013 James S. [...]

[...] A hundred years later, this huge celebration happening while Ireland is in the middle of what will be a 9 years civil war after the signature of the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 demonstrates the role of the Catholic church to maintain Irish unity, and in the construction of an Irish identity in opposition to the Anglican England. In the 1950's, the Irish faith hasn't decreased, as almost the country was almost 100% catholic. It is important to stress out that faith was deeply anchored in the Irish minds. Church was actually involved in almost all the aspect of the Irish quotidian life. [...]

[...] How to explain such incredible popular faith? Irishmen did not wait the visit of the pope to demonstrate their piety. They were fascinated by the catholic religion all along the 20th century, especially by Lourdes, where National pilgrimages were organized. The first of them, in 1913, gathered 750 thousand people[1], which was an even more big number a hundred years ago. A replica of the famous grotto of Massabielle even opened in Ireland in the 1930's, becoming the “Irish Lourdes”, which was visited by more than one million of Irish people in two years[2]. [...]