Encyclopaedia of Irish Spirituality Free

Ms Jestice is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southern Mississippi and her work especially focuses on the history of religion. “Accommodation”, she states in her preface, “is the theme of this encyclopaedia: how the Irish have adapted, revived and reinterpreted the past to create a uniquely Irish spirituality”. She “has tried to include the most familiar issues, places and figures of Irish religious history”. She is not specific about the readership she is aiming at but it seems likely to be North Americans of Irish origin rather than academics or libraries.

In the introduction Professor Jestice sets out her very definite thesis. Ireland, she considers has “a unique and wonderful” spirituality in that many religious beliefs can be traced back to Neolithic times. In Ireland alone did Christianity absorb pre‐Christian beliefs and religious sites. Elsewhere these beliefs were simply demonised and pagan sites were obliterated by Christian missionaries. The Irish adopted the more optimistic view of the human condition attributed to Pelagius rather than the austere views of Augustine. They were wooed into Christian belief rather than, as in the Roman empire, compelled by their rules. In the Middle Ages European ideas were introduced but their influence in Ireland has been incomplete. Once again, accommodation was reached. The only force that the Irish could not absorb was Protestantism since its adherents were English and Scottish settlers who rejected Irish culture.

It is important to set out this thesis at some length since the encyclopaedia is intended to demonstrate it. It does, however, present certain difficulties. It is not in fact all that uncommon for Christianity to absorb from pre‐Christian cultures. Greece has so many examples and Pope Gregory advised Augustine of Canterbury on his mission to Southern England not to destroy pagan sites. Examples can also be found of Irish saints rejecting pre‐Christian practice fairly decisively. Irish Christianity did not exist in isolation. There was always contact with churches in other Celtic regions and elsewhere in Europe. The whole question of who adopted Protestantism after the Reformation and, indeed, of the racial make‐up of the Irish population are far more complex and controversial than she allows.

Her thesis naturally leads Professor Jestice to concentrate on pre‐Christian beliefs and the pre‐Norman church. Here much useful information is provided. She has read widely and has kept up to date with scholarship in the field. Most of the major pre‐Christian Cult figures are covered. There are detailed biographies of many Irish saints and descriptions of a large number of religious sites. There are also articles examining a variety of topics such as death or nature and carefully exploring continuities between pre‐ and post‐Christian religious practices. On the whole her treatment is scrupulous and she manages to avoid some of the wilder speculations which are so common among certain approaches to early Irish Christianity. The photographs are interesting and of good quality. Her bibliography can be recommended to any student of Irish religion.

However, the thesis does assert itself from time to time. Professor Jestice is clearly rather embarrassed by the austere figure of Columbanus but is too honest a scholar to pretend that he does not quite fit with her view of Irish Christianity. Stress is continuously placed on the uniqueness of Ireland. Thus it is implied that the stories about Irish saints and their empathy with animals form part of a unique Irish theology of nature. In fact parallels exist in a variety of Christian cultures from the Desert Fathers of the fourth century to St Seraphim of Sarov in nineteenth century Russia. Professor Jestice belittles any idea of a wider Celtic Christian inheritance. She is dismissive of Wales and apparently unaware of Cornwall. She sees all that is good in Anglo‐Saxon Christianity as coming from Irish missionaries. All this comes across as rather chauvinistic, although I do not think that Professor Jestice is aware of it. Certainly it is not what she intends.

It is when she comes to tackle modern Irish religious history that Professor Jestice comes more seriously adrift. She attempts to cover Protestantism conscientiously. However, her lack of understanding leads her into statements which are either misleading or downright inaccurate. The great medieval philosopher John Scottus Eriugena is described as “the only Irish philosopher/theologian to have gained an international reputation”. This is an extraordinary statement to appear in a book published not so very far from a university campus called after George Berkeley. Members of the Church of Ireland (of which I am one) disagree about many things but would unite in not recognising the description of their church as “a small religious denomination favoured by the pro‐English party within Ireland”. State persecution of the Irish Presbyterians did not continue until 1869 and Irish Methodists do not have bishops. I could provide further examples.

Yet Professor Jestice’s problems with modern Irish spirituality are not confined to Protestantism. Catholicism, as it had developed in Ireland since the eighteenth century, simply does not fit her thesis. Strongly influenced from France by Jansenism it espoused the very Augustinian theology she so deplores. Her treatment concentrates on folk rituals and popular Catholicism but otherwise is rather cursory. Important areas of modern Catholic experience like confraternities or the cult of the Sacred Heart are simply not mentioned.

The truth is that the Ireland of Professor Jestice is in many ways a country of the imagination. In spite of her wide reading she provides no evidence of actually having visited it or even having talked much to Irish people. The interesting and complex nature of modern Ireland’s encounter with secularism and pluralism seems to have passed her by.

All this is said because good reference books on Irish religious experience are badly needed. While Celtic mythology is well covered[1] I know of no good scholarly reference source on all aspects of Celtic Christianity. However, even apart from Celtic Christianity there is a variety of Irish religious experience which deserves notice. From Ireland have come religious phenomena as diverse as Plymouth Brethren, the Elim Pentecostalists and the Legion of Mary. Irish religious figures include: Matt Talbot, the saintly Dublin worker; George Tyrrell the modernist theologian; Robert Dolling the Anglo‐Catholic slum priest; Helen Waddell the Presbyterian interpreter of medieval Latin hymnody. There has been a Jewish presence in Ireland for at least 350 years and there are other non‐Christian religions active[2]. These spiritual traditions are different from the Celtic church but all authentically Irish. While valuable materials[3] exist, a reference work documenting all these strands of spirituality would be of inestimable value. Sadly, the most that can be said of Professor Jestice’s encyclopaedia is that it will satisfy its natural Irish American market – and will be more scholarly and less offensively chauvinistic than many publications intended for it.