Ireland, Bible, Burn

I've been chasing a thread down a rabbit hole, to mix metaphors: burning Bibles in Ireland. 

I have been trying to follow up my previous post, Books condemned to be burned, by instancing episodes of Bible burning in Ireland. I am confident they're there (I recall seeing occasional newspaper accounts that I didn't log at the time) and, although I've found just one instance between 1789 and 1830 (see below), I keep looking.

There was a fair amount of burning in general in Ireland. In the rumbling sustained violence of English control, fire was a general and occasional weapon of the marginalised poor in the south of the country in particular. It could be a particular weapon against protestantising missionaries, not least the Hibernian Bible Society (wiki) and the linked Hibernian Sunday School Society.

Protestant intent

The Hibernian Bible Society (established 1808) promised much more than merely distributing scripture. Its prospectus - for a Protestant audience - set out multiple mixed threats all of which could be countered by biblical benevolence. (Quotations below are from an address "by a respectable clergyman of Ireland" as reprinted in the Royal Cornwall Gazette, Saturday 05 November 1808 p4. Cols.1-2) 

The first perceived threat was the ignorance which overwhelmed the peasantry and was "dreadful beyond description." The second was religion: "Bigotry and superstition reign with a deplorable and alarming influence" for which read Roman Catholicism.

There was a numerical and political threat: in 1731 there were said to be fewer than two Catholics to each Protestant in Ireland. By 1808 it was four to one, and significantly more outside Ulster.

The threat was also moral: "Indeed, among the lower orders, scarcely any books are to be found, but such as are of the most infamous description, these are sold by Hawkers who go among them, and are calculated to the greatest degree, to vitiate the minds the readers."

Underlying all these anxieties was the prospect of chaos. it was no wonder that "people who are neither well fed, nor well taught, should be constantly prone to disorder."

There was, however, a remedy: Biblical education. The provision of bibles was of primary importance for the peace and prosperity of the land. The Bible "... has been confessed by all enlightened men to be the most effectual remedy for the evils which prevail in Ireland." It alone could meet the darkness of "Bigotry and superstition" (again, read Roman Catholicism). "by which evil-minded persons within, and an active and persevering foreign enemy [ie the Pope], may not only disturb the peace, but even strike at the vitals of the empire."  The Hibernian Sunday School Society set up its schools wherever it found opportunity and teachers. 

There was evidence for the Society's conviction, of a kind, by comparison with England: /col 2 "The efficacy of such institutions, in ameliorating the condition, and improving the morals, of the lower classes of society is happily exemplified in this county, where such advantages have been long enjoyed." Conversely, "in several parts [of Ireland], the Bible cannot procured, at least, by the lower classes. A letter from a Clergyman in very populous district of the North of Ireland, stated to your Committee, that the Bible could not procured there for any money." QED.

1820

By 1820 the London Hibernian Society for establishing Schools and circulating the Holy Scriptures in Ireland was strongly established. William Wilberforce [wiki] was its most prominent Vice-President. It reported an increase from 1819 of 49 new schools with over 11,000 pupils, and could not accommodate all applicants. (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser - Thursday 01 June 1820. p3 col3.)

The Society's Annual Report for 1819 declared "From the Schools, and through the medium of the Masters, the Inspectors, and the Readers the Scriptures, the light of Divine Revelation diverges in every direction, sheds a benign influence on the numerous inhabitants of the cabins [ie the poorest peasant], and points out the way of life and holiness so clearly, that even the way-faring man shall not err therein." The Bishop of Kildare (a recent VP) "asserted, that the ignorance which prevailed in that country on the subject of Religion was not to be conceived; that the doctrines of the Reformation were utterly unknown in many parts of it."

However, insufficient funds and a significant debt, the perennial problem of voluntary societies, meant work was hampered and prospective pupils had been turned away. The continued and increased hostility of the Roman Catholic clergy was also a problem. Rome had written to the Irish bishops with the instruction to "keep the youth away from these destructive Schools, and to establish Catholic Schools, wherein salutary instruction may be inputted to paupers and illiterate country persons." This was not a light concern: "Another holy warfare must be fought, with all the armour which pure Protestantism should supply."

Roman Catholic attitudes to the Protestant Bible

Before the advent of Bible societies Pope Pius VI (1778-1779) had said, “… you judge exceedingly well that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Bible; for this is the most abundant source which ought to be left open to everyone to draw from it purity of morals and doctrine.” (The Catholic Church and the Bible (pamphlet) Brooklyn, International Catholic Truth Society). But the message had hardened just a few years later when Pius VII (1800-1823) said

“We have been truly shocked at this most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined: and having, because of the great importance of the subject, convened for consultation our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, we have, with the utmost care and attention, deliberated upon the measures to be adopted by our Pontifical authority, in order to remedy and abolish this pestilence as far as possible.” Letter from Pius VII to the Primate of Poland (29/6/1816).

The main target of such a statement was not the bible per se, so much as the combination of Protestantism's foundational message of Scriptura sola (wiki) with the assertive evangelism and anti-Catholicism of the various bible societies. Out-proselytising Rome was at least as powerful a motivation as the missionaries' self-assumed religious duty to bring Christian enlightenment - ie Protestantism - to all corners of the world. 

Bible burned and resurrected

As an instance of this warfare one man, told by his Catholic priest that the Testament he had read would send his soul to hell, threw it into the fire. He later bought a Douay(sic) Bible, as authorised by Rome, and was astonished to find "that the principle truths he had learned from the Protestant version were in this also." He subsequently condemned the priest as both ignorant and wicked.

Neither Catholic nor Protestant had any interest in the similarity of the scriptures and I have not found this story repeated. In any conflict it is important that battle lines are kept clear and unmuddled.

Handle with care

Conversely, a story that was repeated supposedly displayed the superstitious religiosity of the Irish Catholic peasant.  With a bible half-burnt a man picked it up with tongs in order to ensure its complete destruction. This seems to me to have been an entirely practical action. But it became an italicised instance of the level of superstition that Protestant missionaries had to deal with when talking to Catholics. And it usefully embodied the Protestant canard that "the Papist could not lay his finger upon that book without burning himself to the quick, …” (for example letter in Belfast Commercial Chronicle - Monday 13 February 1832 p2 col 3).