A Second Visit to the Cahan’s:
I attended another wonderful meeting in the Cahan’s Presbyterian meeting house in Stranooden, County Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland. Monaghan, my home county, is part of the Province of Ulster, but not a part of Northern Ireland, which is sometimes, poetically, called “Ulster”. Again, the topic of Presbyterian decline came up.
One of the speakers was an atheist, from a Roman Catholic background, called Jake. Jake, does not believe in a God, but he considers the Presbyterian structures in Northern Ireland to be beneficial. However, Jake, like myself, is a secularist, and ultimately believes that clerical involvement in education is harmful. Jake is involved in setting up Irish-language secondary schools in Northern Ireland that have no clerical input, whatsoever. That Jake could say that the involvement of clergy in Irish education is harmful, in a room with at least three Presbyterian ministers in it, says a lot about the freethinking nature of mainstream Irish Presbyterianism. That an atheist could be given a platform to speak his mind in a Presbyterian Church speaks to the openmindedness of Irish Presbyterians. Mainstream Irish Presbyterians do not seem to be horrified by an opposing opinion, and this is to their credit.
Jake made the point that in Loyalist areas of Northern Ireland that if the Protestant Churches do not step up to lead the Protestant community, then the Loyalist paramilitaries will. In Jake’s mind, either mainstream Protestant Churches, like Presbyterianism will lead the Protestant Community, or the likes of the Ulster Defence Association will. As antitheistic as I am, I would prefer for Northern Protestants to be led by sensible, tolerant, civilised clergymen, like Reverend David Moore, than by Loyalist Paramilitaries.
The Reverend Gentleman, David Moore, seemed to have a case of religious paradolia. He saw the workings of his god in everything. There was a lot of God-talk, and I thought to myself, defiantly: ‘God does not exist!’ God, seemingly, was very near to Reverend Moore; guiding his steps; opening up opportunities for him in a manner indistinguishable from His not existing at all… and yet God is extremely far away, ’twould seem, from babies suffering from bone cancer, or from children starving to death in Gaza, or from any number of sentient creatures suffering from horrendous suffering, as we speak. It takes a myopia of Biblical proportions to talk of the god of the Universe at one’s beck and call when this same god of the universe is strangely absent from those starving to death, or from those dying, in infancy, from bone cancer.
As sympathetic as I am to a lot of the things that Presbyterianism does in Ireland, of secular value, nevertheless, I remain an antitheist. Eventually, I want Christianity to go away, in Ireland. Some of the things that the Presbyterian minister, Reverend David Moore, said about the decline of Protestant Christianity in Ireland, was encouraging. One thing that he said was that there were entire Irish counties, like Limerick, that no longer have an active Presbyterian Congregation in it. That is good news for those of us who want a more rational and more secular Ireland.
Another positive thing that Reverend Moore said, from the perspective of my own personal antitheism, is that only 1% of Protestants on the Shankill Road, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, attend Church. This is marvellous!
It is tempting, when thinking of Northern Ireland, and its ‘dreary steeples’ to think of it still as a Calvinist New Geneva. However, from what I am hearing from Presbyterian ministers, Northern Ireland appears to be as secular, in its demography, as any other Northern European Country. Northern Ireland, ’twould seem, is as post-Christian, in its demographic makeup, as anywhere else in Northern Europe.
However, as Antony Alcock points out in Understanding Ulster (), every election in Northern Ireland is a referendum on the union. Every Election, in Northern Ireland, is basically a plebiscite as to whether Northern Ireland should continue to be a part of the British state, or whether Northern Ireland should be annexed by the Irish Republic. Thanks to a first-past-the-post system, this causes an increasingly secular Unionist electorate to vote for the Protestant Fundamentalists who largely make up the Democratic Unionist Party and Traditional Unionist Voice. Northern Ireland’s Unionist politicians are still, by and large, staunchly Christian and staunchly Churchgoing, however more and more the typical Unionist on the street is secular. The typical Unionist, increasingly, is Protestant in Name only. Northern Protestantism is increasingly the name of a tribe and not the name of a set of Reformation-derived propositions largely believed in by Northern Protestants.
I have a signed copy of Lord Dean Godson’s biography of Northern Irish First Minister,
As an antitheist, the secularisation of “Ulster”, and the island of Ireland, generally, is a wonderful thing to behold. Ireland has lived under Christian dominion for more than a millenium, and is now, finally, shaking off its Christian fetters. Out about on the street, Irish people, North and South, appear to me to be every bit as secular as people in atheist England. England is now, thoroughly, post-Christian, and Ireland, North and South, is catching up to England, and the rest of Northern Europe, very rapidly.
However, as Mick Nugent of Atheist Ireland points out: many of the vestiges of the old Catholic theocracy remain in Ireland. Ireland is a secular country burdened still by a Catholic constitution; Catholic laws and Catholic privilege. I marvel that in England the dismantling of the Anglican Theocratic state, despite the atheism of the populace, has scarcely begun, and I likewise marvel that in Ireland, the dismantling of the Catholic theocratic state has scarcely begun, either. Secularism, unfortunately, does not seem to be a live political issue in Ireland.
[1] ‘The Dreary Steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone’ was a phrase employed by Winston Churchill, (–) when discussing the Irish Home Rule Crisis, and the Ulster Question. Given the almost equal number of Catholics and Protestants who lived in Fermanagh and Tyrone, back then, it was unclear as to whether they should be included—in whole or in part—in Southern Ireland, or in Northern Ireland. In the end, they comprised two of Northern Ireland’s six counties.
Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.
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