Comparing Protestant-Catholic Conflict in France and Ireland: the Significance of the Ethnic and Colonial Dimension

Abstract

There is a widely held view that Protestant-Catholic conflict has been more intense and persistent in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe, rooted in the colonial manner in which the Reformation was introduced and the consequent overlap between religion and ethnicity. The argument can certainly be made for the north-east of the island, today’s Northern Ireland, but does it hold for the rest of Ireland? Three questions will be addressed in this chapter: first, excluding the north-east, how exceptional has Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland been in European terms; second, what was the relative importance of the two dimensions, the ethno-colonial and the religious; third, does an ethno-colonial dimension survive in Protestant-Catholic relations today, and if so, what form does it take and how important is it? I deal with these questions through a French-Irish comparison, beginning at the national level, then moving to the local, looking at County Cork in the south of Ireland and the department of the Gard in the south-east of France.¹