THE RELIGIONS OF IRELAND
ANDREW GREELEY

(FIRST DRAFT)

"North of the border are the best Protestants in the world. South of the border there are the best Catholics in the world. There are very few Christians in the whole lot of them."

Frank O'Connor

"Well I don't trust the Prots up here much, but I'll tell you one thing: I trust them more than I do them Catholic fockers down below."

Northern Irish Catholic with Republican sympathies.

(Paper prepared for a conference at Nuffield Collge, Oxford 1996)

INTRODUCTION

I take it that my assignment in this paper is to investigate the possible differences between or possibly among the religions of Ireland and ascertain whether there is any convergence taking place in these religions. I further assume that my responsibility, given my training and experience, is to undertake this task through the analysis of existing social survey data sets. I leave it to those who study the same phenomenon from the viewpoint of history or anecdotal comparisons or lived experience - exercises which I do not deprecate - to collect and analyze their own survey data if their impressions seem incompatible with those I find in my data.

I note in passing that I am somewhat puzzled that a "Yank"-or as I would prefer it an Irish American - should be asked to undertake this task. Perhaps those who have convened this conference thought that an outsider would more likely be objective on such a subject. In point of fact I am more likely to be pro-Irish, and I mean all three colors of the tricolor, than almost any Irish sociologist I know. Objective? No! Sufficiently ambivalent to be the functional equivalent of objective? I hope so.

I note that as I remarked in a recent article (Greeley 1996) everyone takes surveys. Anyone who generalizes about Ireland has listened to people, observed phenomena, analyzed the words and observations, and generalizes from them. The survey analyst differs from others who offer generalizations only in that he is explicit about his sample, questions, methods, and the limited nature of his generalizations.

I propose to work with three data sets, the 1991 International Social Survey Program study of religion, the 1993 International Social Survey Program study of environmental attitudes and the 1990 European Value Study. The data have been collected for these three surveys by reputable data collection agencies. In Ireland by the ESRI and in Northern Ireland by SCPR and British Gallup. All samples were probability samples and all interviews were face to face.

Because the studies in Ireland and Northern Ireland were different projects, they represent valid samples of both regions but when one combines them they do not represent valid samples of the whole Island. One can legitimately compare the two regions but one cannot estimate to the whole island, unless one weights for the relative size of the two populations. Moreover sample sizes make it impossible to consider any but the three major religions of the island - Southern Catholics, Northern Catholics, and Northern Protestants. In Ireland in the 1991 study, for example, there were 67 respondents who were not Catholic - 30 Anglicans (C. of I. ) and 30 with no religious affiliation. These respondents were excluded from the analysis as were their counterparts in the North.

The case bases for the three surveys were as follows:

No survey is perfect. Each of the three on which I base this analysis has flaws. The ISSP data are collected in a fifteen minute module which in each of the participating countries is added to another study. The questions are hammered out at frequently acrimonious yearly meetings. I will not attempt to defend the collective decisions of my colleagues, many of whom are neither interested in or sensitive to religion. The omission of important religious questions in the Environmental module was sheer folly, especially since data were available to show that religion had an important impact on environmental issues. (Greeley 19 19 ).

The EVA data set is based on a large mixtum-gatherum of survey items derived from the collective unconscious of the survey fraternity, especially as this fraternity has been shaped by the various Gallup organizations around the world. The study in both its 1981 and 1990 manifestations is utterly without theoretical orientation other than the assumption that religion is declining. (See Whelan et al for an intelligent us of the EVA data and for a mindless use of the same data). Moreover, unlike the ISSP data which are available for all users as soon as they are archived at ZA in the University of Cologne, the investigators of the EVA in various countries are notably anal retentive with their data. One does one's best with the data that are at hand. Anyone who insists on better data is welcome to try to raise the money to fund a better project.

The data in the three studies were not collected this summer or last summer. The EVS data is six years old, the ISSP data five and four years old. It is doubtful that the kind of attitudes with which my analysis is concerned have changed much in five years. If one wants fresh data, then one may do one's own survey, though the lag behind data collection and report writing in international studies is usually between two and three years.

Finally, I have no way of connecting the religious attitudes and behaviors which I will report with political unrest in Ireland. Civil unrest and violence is so rare in the countries studied in both the ISSP and the EVS that no thought has been given to concentrating on that subject. Moreover, it does not require many people to launch a riot or a progrom and not many more to support a secret army. The Irish are not, however, a people who are given to demonstrations in numbers higher than in most other countries. 17% of Southern Catholics, 24% of Northern Catholics, and 27% of Northern Protestants have participated in demonstrations as compared to a 23% average in the Values Study. Short of much more elaborate research one can only speculate about the relationship between the findings I will report and possibilities of peace in Ireland. The political surveys indicate that members of all three communities overwhelmingly supported the peace process. There are no data which would enable us to judge whether religion has any impact on the "hard men" (and the "hard woman").

There are two issues to be faced in this analysis: what are the religions of Ireland and are the differences between or among the religions diminishing. It would seem at first consideration that there are patently two religions, Catholicism and Protestantism. Catholics in the North and South are led by a single hierarchy, ministered to by priests taught at the same seminaries, taught by the same kinds of religious orders of brothers and nuns and engage in the same kinds of religious devotions. But there is a possibility that after years of repression (seventy five or three hundred, depending on when one wants to start counting) Northern Irish Catholicism might have diverged somewhat from its Southern counterpart. In fact the data suggest strongly that the latter is the case: there are three religions in Ireland.

In the absence of time series data one must approach the issue of the diminution of differences by comparing the young and the university educated in the three populations to see if the differences among them are less than the differences among the total populations. In fact, there is little evidence of a decline in religious differences among the three religions of Ireland, as much as good secularist might hope that such a decline (which they take to be inevitable) might contribute to the peace process.

Survey research often proves that what everyone knows to be true is not true at all. Survey research on Ireland sometimes goes further than that: it suggests that what everyone knows cannot possibly be true is in fact true. Thus for example Ward and Greeley (19 ) have demonstrated that the Irish (Ireland in the sense used in this paper) are the most tolerant of the English speaking peoples of diversity among neighbors and the most likely to approve of homosexual marriage ceremonies. One should approach the study of Irish religion with a readiness to be surprised.

ISSP 91: WORLD VIEW, FAITH, AND DEVOTION.

The first two variables in Table 1, which are drawn from the 1991 International Social Survey Program study of religion, are based on a series of questions about fundamental world views:

There is very little people can do to change the course of their lives.

The course of our life is decided by God.

Life is meaningful only because God exists.

Life is meaningful only if you provide meaning yourself.

We each make our own fate.

The first three variables cluster on a factor I call CALVIN because it seems to indicate a sense of predetermination or predestination. The fourth and fifth variable cluster on a factor which I name after PELAGIUS, a monk who did battle with Saint Augustine on the issue of whether humans could do good without God's help. Pelagius, who was Irish, held that they could. Southerners are significantly more likely to be PELAGIANS, Notherners more likely to be CALVINISTS. There are no significant differences between the two Northern communities. Among those who have attended university and those under thirty five, the differences persist.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate graphically the method to be used in this paper. Factor scores were computed for a wide variety of variables in the three studies. Then the scores were dichotomized and the proportions above the means for the three religious groups were calculated. Thus in Figure 1 Northern Catholics were eleven percentage points more above the mean on the CALVIN scale than were Southern Catholics and Northern Protestants were twelve percentage points more above the mean than Southern Catholics. Both differences are statistically significant. Thus one concludes that on this scale Northerners, whether Catholic or Protestant, are more inclined to CALVINISM than are the Southerners, but that Catholics and Protestants in the North do not differ significantly with one another.

Then in Figure 2 the populations are divided into those who have had university education and those who have not. As the right hand set of bars shows, far from diminishing the differences between North and South on CALVIN, a university education seems to exacerbate them because such an education leads to a more notable decline in CALVINISM among Southerners than among Northerners.

The three tables in this paper summarize the differences which would appear if we were to produce seventy eight graphs, three for each of the twenty six variables to be analyzed. The first two columns are the equivalent of Figure 1: they present the differences in comparison of Northern Catholics and Northern Protestants with Southern Catholics. The second two columns depict the same thing as the right hand bars of the Figure 2: the differences among those who have attended universities. The third two columns represent the differences among those who are less than thirty five years old.

Thus CALVIN wins in the North (and presumably St. Augustine) and the Irish monk wins in the South. Insofar as our measures tap fundamental world view, Northern Catholics are as pessimistic as their Protestant neighbors, perhaps because the culture of the six county majority has been absorbed by the minority community.

On matters of religious FAITH (God, heaven, hell, life after death, bible) Northerners are also substantially more faithful than Southerners. Neither youthfulness nor higher education diminishes these differences. However, Catholics in both regions have higher levels of DEVOTION (prayer and church attendance) than their Protestant counterparts, differences which again are immune to youthfulness and higher education. Protestants are significantly lower than both Catholic groups in their devotions.

Thus, while Northern Catholics are similar to Northern Protestants in their world view, they are similar to Southern Catholics in both their faith and their devotion, perhaps this "via media" is what one would expect from a group which is pulled by two different cultures.

ISSP 91: SUPERSTITION AND MORALITY

There were four questions in the 1991 ISSP project which measured attitudes towards superstition and magic - astrology, good luck charms, fortune tellers, and faith healers. Greeley (1991 and Jagodinksi 1996) have analyzed these items and the factor which the form and report that rates of magic are lowest in countries where religious faith is strong (Ireland) and in countries where it is weakest (East Germany). In countries which are in between (Britain and West Germany) magic seems to have the strongest appeal.

The Northern Irish, both Catholic and Protestant, are significantly higher on the magic scale than the Southern Catholics and are not significantly different from one another. Among the university educated Catholics, the difference between Northerners and Southerners disappears, though not among the young. The difference between Southerners and Northern Protestants is not affected either by youthfulness or education.

The results of my analysis so far suggest that a key question in this project is on what variables Northern Catholics will be more like their Protestant neighbors and on what variables they will be more like their Southern co-religionists.

On the matter of sexual morality (premarital, extramarital, same sex sexuality) they are more like their Southern coreligionists; indeed, they are more orthodox than the Southerners and than their Northern neighbors. A group under pressure might well elect to emphasize those aspects of a religious culture that the leaders have most strongly proposed as essential. The Vatican is more likely to be concerned about abortion than about fortune tellers.

The Irish Catholics however have one of the highest rates of opposition to the death penalty of any country in the world and the Northern Irish are even more likely to oppose it than their Southern neighbors, perhaps because they see some of their young men as potential targets for the death penalty or perhaps because they have less confidence in the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. (Table A). Thus on a factor which combines support for the death penalty and for harsh sentences for criminals, Irish in the north are significantly more tolerant than Irish in the South and Protestants are significantly less tolerant than are Catholics in either community. Among university educated Catholics, there is no significant difference between Catholics and Protestants. Ireland, incidentally has one of the lowest murder rates in Europe and Northern Ireland has the lowest rate of non-political crimes in the United Kingdom.

However, Irish Catholics in both regions are more likely to approve of cheating on taxes and government compensation forms and Northern Catholics are also significantly more likely to think it is all right to cheat the government than do Northern Protestants. Professor Liam Ryan explains this lack of scruple as a survival of the old feudal sense of community which distrusts the modern state. It is also possible that the consoling Catholic doctrine that tax laws are "purely penal" (bind in conscience only to accept punishment if one is ca ught) plays a part in this relaxed attitude. Well trained in casuistry that they are (especially by their Jesuit teachers) the Irish can be depended on to know about "purely penal" laws.

Two variables serve as a short hand measure for FEMINSIM in ISSP 91:

A husband's job is to earn money; a wife's job is to look after home and family.

Family life suffers when a woman has a full time job.

On the FEMINSIM scale Irish Catholics in both regions are more likely to take a feminist position than are Northern Protestants who are significantly lower in their support for FEMINISM than are Catholics. Indeed (Table A) there is no difference between Irish Catholics and Britons or Americans on this issue. Neither youthfulness nor education have an impact on these differences.

ISSP 91: HAPPINESS, WORK, CHURCH AND STATE

Although it was claimed recently in Society magazine that Scandinavians report the highest levels of psychological well-being as measured by the "happiness" item; in fact the Irish of whatever religious persuasion in fact have the highest score, though it is lower among Catholics in Northern Ireland than in the South. As Table A demonstrates, however, Northern Irish Catholics are slightly higher than Americans and significantly higher on this measure than Britons.

Despite their happiness (or perhaps because of it) Southern Irish work longer hours than members of the other two communities, almost forty four hours a week as opposed to slightly under forty for the Northerners. If number of hours worked is a sign of the Protestant Ethic, then Irish Catholics are the last Protestants in Europe. These differences disappear among the young and the well educated, one of the rare times in the present analysis that we discover that youthfulness and education do lead to a convergence in behavior.

Finally a series of items attempted to measure attitudes towards Church-State relationships:

Politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for public office.

It would be better if people with strong religious beliefs held public office.

Do you think that churches and religious leaders in this country have too much power?

Catholics are more likely than Protestants to think that Church leaders have too much power. Neither education nor youthfulness diminish this cross-border difference. Moreover (Table A) on the third item Southern Catholics are more likely than Britons or Americans to think the Churches have too much power - arguably because the do.

A FOURTH IRISH RELIGION

In the above analysis I combined all Christians who were not Catholic in the North in to one category as a preliminary strategy. The question remains, however, whether there might be a fourth Irish religion, Northern Church of Ireland. Therefore I compared Presbyterians(217) and Anglicans(167) on the variables in table one. One two of them was there a statistically significant difference: Presbyterians were fifteen percentage points higher on the DEVOTIONAL scale and, not surprisingly, eleven points higher on the CALVINIST scale. If one compares Northern Anglicans with Southern Catholics one will find inevitably, given the previous analysis, that the two groups differ significantly on many of the measures available in the ISSP data. Catholics are more DEVOUT, less MORAL, more satisfied the relationship between CHURCH and state, more PELAGIAN, more tolerant of CRIME and of those who CHEAT.

On the measures used in this project therefore there does not appear to be a fourth religion in Ireland. Yet devotion and world view might be considered the most important of the religious measures in Table 1. Northern Anglicans are on both measures different from both Southern Catholics and Northern Protestants, less devout than either Catholics or Presbyterians, less Pelagian than Southern Catholics and less Calvinist than Presbyterians. If devotion and world view are defining characteristics of religion, then Ireland indeed has a fourth religion - Northern Anglican.

ISSP 91 SUMMARY

Protestants in the North differ systematically from Catholics in the South on all items except personal happiness. Clearly then, as these indicators measure religious differences, there are two different religions on the Island, not completely different, but different enough. Southern Catholics are more PELAGIAN, less CALVINIST, more faithful, more devout, less superstitious more sympathetic to criminals, more likely to cheat the government, more likely to be strict on sexual morality, more feminist, more likely to work longer, and more opposed to the power the Church. They do not however different from Protestants in the proportion who are very happy. Only in hours of work do education an age seem to diminish the difference.

Northern Catholics are somewhere between the two. In world view faith, superstition, and hours of work, they are more like their Protestant neighbors. However they are stricter morally and more "faithful" than the Southern Catholics and even more sympathetic to criminals. They do not different from Southerners in their devotion, their propensity to cheat the government, their feminism and their views on Church and State.

There does not appear to be a fourth religion in Ireland because Presbyterians and Anglicans in the North differ from one another only in their levels of religious devotion and in adherence to a Calvinist world view.

Tentatively we may conclude that this "third" Irish religion is the result of tension between the culture in which they live as a hated minority and the religious culture they are taught in their churches and schools. Does this greater similarity with Northern Protestants suggest they might be more open to accommodation? Or is it more probable that the culture conflict might increase their hostility?

The data do not enable us to make a choice. If I were forced to speculate I would lean to the latter alternative.

EVS 1990

In the Value study many scales were administered to respondents which might be interpreted as linked somewhat to religion. The most obvious is the FAITH scale which replicates the finding reported about the FAITH scale in the ISSP study: Northerners are more FAITHFUL than Southerners.

The EVS however presented a different measure of Moral absolutism:

Here are two statements which people sometimes make when discussing good and evil. Which one comes closest to your point of view?

There are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. These always apply to everyone, whatever the circumstances.

There can never be absolutely clear guidelines about what is good and evil. What is good and evil depends entirely upon the circumstance at the time.

Southern Catholics are not different from Northern Catholics in their moral absolutism as measured by this item. However, Northern Protestants are more absolutist than Southern Catholics on this measure.

Northerners of both religions are more likely to want children who are obedient and hard working than are Southern Catholics. In fact as Figure A shows Southern Catholics are similar in this respect to Americans and Britons and Northerners, Catholic and Protestant are very different. This seems to be a case of the minority group absorbing the values of the majority group through psychological processes of emulation mixed with dislike. Catholics in the South are under no pressure to do the same thing.

There are more protests (petitions, lawful and unlawful demonstrations, boycotts, occupation of buildings) in Northern Ireland than in the Republic a finding which can hardly be called surprising. Moreover when demonstrations are considered separately, there are also more likely to be found in the two Northern Communities. As noted earlier, protests and demonstrations are more frequent in the North than the EVS average and less frequent in the South.

The EVS provides a twelve item list of people a respondent would not like to have as neighbors:

People with a criminal record

People of a different race

Left wing extremists

Heavy drinkers

Right wing extremists

People with large families

Emotionally unstable people

Muslims

Immigrants/foreign workers

People who have AIDS

Drug addicts

Jews

Hindus

Southern Catholics are more TOLERANT than both Northern Catholics and Protestants. There is no difference between the two Northern groups on this tolerance measure. Irish Catholics (in the South) continued to be the most tolerant people in the English speaking world, as Ward and I reported of the 1981 EVS study, and Northern Irish among the most intolerant, whether Catholic or Protestant.

There were three "morality" factors to be found in the EVS data set. On only one were there differences among the three Irish communities, a factor I call CIVIC VIRTUE:

Please tell me for each of the following statements whether you think it can always be justified never be justified or something in between:

Taking and driving away a car that belongs to someone else

Taking the drug marijuana or hashish

Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties

Buying something you knew was stolen

Sex under the legal age of consent

Northern Catholics are more likely to reject approval of these activities (as represented by the factor score) than are Southern Catholics, though there is no difference between Northern Protestants and Southern Catholics. It is possible that is a phenomenon which represents an over-adjustment of the minority group to the perceived norms of the majority.

One item in the long morality battery may have special implications for an island in which civil unrest seems endemic, a question which asks whether political assassination is ever moral. 19% of Southern Catholics think that it may on occasion be moral as opposed to 11% of the Northerners of both denominations. In Britain 30% think it may be moral as do 23% of Americans. The average support for assassination in the EVS is 22%. If this item be taken as a measure of support for political violence, the Southern Catholic percentage is not particularly high, but the Northern percentage, for both Catholics and Protestants, is exceptionally low - perhaps because both communities have had the chance to see the impact of political assassination. The gunmen patently do not speak for the people.

The final four items in Table 2 are based on responses to questions about work. The first two deal with what makes a job attractive, the second two with why one works. The questions which create the first two factors are:

Which one of the following do you personally think are important in a job:

Pay

Security

Interesting

Opportunity for promotion

Useful

Responsibility

Respect

The first two cluster on a factor that is called SECURITY and the remaining five on a factor called CHALLENGE.

Irish Protestants do not differ on these factors from Southern Catholics but Northern Catholic are more likely to reject challenge and opt for security. As is perhaps not untypical of a minority, they want to take no chances.

Finally, a number of items seek to determine why people work:

The more I get paid the more I do.

Working for a living is a necessity.

I will always do the best I can regardless of pay

I enjoy my work.

The first two items form a cluster called MUST WORK; The second two constitute LIKE WORK.

As we would now come to expect with regard to the EVS data, Northern Catholics are higher than the other two communities on the MUSTWORK factor and low on the LIKEWORK factor; and there are no differences between Southern Catholics and Northern Protestants.

The pattern in the Value Study data seems to be that the Northern Catholics are either more like the Northern Protestants than Southern Catholics or at least tend to be unlike Southern Catholics. Only on moral ABSOLUTISM are they not significantly different from Southern Catholics. Moreover on most variables they are significantly different from Southern Catholics even when Northern Protestants are not significantly different from Southern Catholics. This pattern strongly suggests a values system which has been heavily influence by minority status, by the experience of a group which has been "on the bottom" for a long time as opposed to a group which has been "on the top" for a long time. One might argue that these variables are graphic proof of the impact of the Northern Ireland polity and culture on its Catholic citizens. Since virtually none of the variables are affected either age or education, the data do not present a very hopeful picture for the future. Contrary to the dictum of the character in Roddy Doyle's The Commitments, the Negroes of Europe are not those who live on the North Side of Dublin, but rather Catholics who live in the North.

ISSP 94 -- THE ENVIRONMENT

Attitudes towards the environment may be a an important effect of religious because they may represent a stance towards life and its purpose. A series of fifteen questions about the threat of chemical pollution, industry, water pollution, and nuclear energy and the dangers of these to one's family generated four factors of which three differentiated among the three Irish communities: CHEMICALS, TEMPERATURE, and NUCLEAR.

On all three factors (Table 3) Southern Catholics are substantially more concerned than Northern Protestants, and on CHEMICALS Southern Catholics are also more concerned than Northern Catholics. Northern Catholics are also more concerned that their Protestant neighbors about the dangers of nuclear energy. Table A establishes that concern about the nuclear threat among Irish Catholics (of North and South) is notably greater than not only of the Protestant community but also of the citizens of the United States and Great Britain. Indeed the concern of Irish Catholics about nuclear power is the highest in the world - and this in a country where there are no such stations.

It may be that the liberal wing of the Irish Church has scored points with its people by insisting on the danger of nuclear energy, an insistence which is cost free in a country that doesn't have any nuclear energy - just like attacks on the policies of the United States in Latin America are cost free. Moreover the Catholic respect for nature as sacramental may account in part for the Irish horror of meddling with the power of the atom. Finally a well-publicized nuclear incident in Britain and fear of what would happen if there would be an incident across the Irish sea in Wales may be of considerable importance in explaining the intensity of Irish feelings on the subject.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

There can be little doubt that there are two different religions on the island of Ireland. Northern Protestantism and Southern Catholicism are not completely different. They are both Christian, European, Western, English speaking. Yet of the twenty six variables we used in trying to trace out rough outlines of religion and religiously related culture, only on the "happiness" measure is there no significant difference between the two communities. One supposes that this finding surprises no one, though it might be deemed worth while to have documented it. Moreover, there is no indication that the differences are diminishing among the university trained and those under thirty five.

The third religion of Ireland presents a more complex and intricate picture. It is Catholic (in the sense of being like Southern Catholicism) in its faith, devotion, morality and some of its attitudes (feminism, sympathy for criminals, tolerance for cheating, two attitudes towards the environment), but it is not Catholic in its world views or much of anything else. It is significantly different from Southern Catholicism on twenty of the twenty six variables. It is significantly different from Northern Protestantism on DEVOTION, CRIME attitudes, FEMINISM, and CHEATING. On the various work values it is different from the Catholicism of the South in matters on which the Northern Protestants are not different from Southern Catholics. The religion of Northern Catholics fits nicely into the model of a (repressed) minority group torn between its traditional heritage and the cultural environment in which it finds itself.

Finally one might argue that Northern Anglicans constitute yet a fourth Irish religion, different from their Presbyterian neighbors and Southern Catholics in that they are less DEVOUT and in that they are less PELAGIAN than the Catholics and less CALVINIST than the Presbyterians.

Given the history of the six counties, on reflection this result ought not to be surprising - though it would surprise the American media and American intelligentsia who are not inclined to view Northern Catholics as a minority, to say nothing of a repressed minority. By definition in the United States Catholics are not a group which deserves sympathy. I doubt that the reaction in Britain, and perhaps even in Ireland, would be much different .

I will be pleasantly surprised if the data presented in this paper do not stir up a firestorm of recrimination at Nuffield.

One can deny reality indefinitely of course, especially in Ireland. One can pretend that there is not a third religion on the island, a religion of a repressed minority and be none the worse for such a pretense. But then one ought not to be surprised that peace efforts are less than successful.

Table 1 Religions of Ireland (ISSP)

(% Different from Southern Catholic)

*Not significantly different from Southern Catholics

** Significantly different from both Northern and Southern Catholics

Table 2 Religions of Ireland (WVA)

(%Different from Southern Catholic)

*Not significantly different from Southern Catholics

**Significantly different from both Southern and Northern Catholics,

Table 3 Environmental Concerns (ISSP 93)

*Not significantly different from Southern Catholics

**Significantly different from both Southern and Northern Catholics,

Table A Ireland Compared to Other Countries