This work details traces the origins, development and impact of the proselytizing organization, the Society for Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics, from its Protestant foundation during the famine of 1845ñ47 to the early decades of Irish Free State. It argues that the foundation of this ostensibly religious society was also underpinned by social, political, and economic factors and demonstrates that by the mid 1850s the mission operated on a very substantial scale. As might be expected, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was aghast at what was perceived as an onslaught on the faith of its flock and gladly returned shot for shot, blow for blow. In addition to providing schools and orphanages to rival mission establishments, riots, verbal abuse, boycotting, setting farm houses and turf stores alight, beatings, and ostracism were all used in the reply of the Catholic Church. The poorest of Irelandís inhabitants, the peasantry of Connemara and the slum-dwellers of Dublin, found themselves as pawns in the ensuing power-struggle between a well-funded mission from England and the might of the Catholic Church. This work examines the missionís role in the shifting political realities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The impact of this inter-faith power struggle and its legacy to the present day are explored by examining contemporary sources, folklore evidence, and the depiction of proselytizing missions in both Catholic and Protestant denomination literature and fictional writings.
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