UNIDADES DE OBRA

Something of the meeting point between the past and the present can of course be understood in the fact that some of the young people researched would no doubt have parents or family who would still be religiously active, and this can of course allow some opportunity to suggest a connection between Catholic identity and Irish identity. Janet when characterising the experiential difference between rural Ireland and urban Dublin emphasised religion as one of the essential markers of difference:

very Christian [in the rural community] like you know but up here [Dublin] it‟s so busy. (Interview conducted Winter 2005).

Brennan (2001) highlights that on evidence based on mass attendance there is a different level of meanings towards the church in rural and urban Ireland. The rural community, for instance, can still make practical demands upon religious observances, as pointed at by Edward from a situation he encountered:

Like if you didn‟t go [to mass in rural area] people would be talking about you. And I know lads who are living up in Wicklow and they like missed mass one

Sunday cause we were getting back from a [rugby] game and we got back about 1 o‟clock in the afternoon and their parents rang them up and were quite angry with them cause they weren‟t back for mass. It was more cause they weren‟t going to be seen and people were going to be talking about them. (Interview conducted Winter 2004).

Brennan sees, and this is a point shared by Edward, that Church attendance may be different in rural and urban Ireland relating to „differing patterns of social life in rural and urban communities‟:

Although it has diminished somewhat, there is still a fairly strong sense of community in rural Ireland in contrast to the atomistic character of the larger towns and cities (2001:81).

A different level of social experience is suggested as occurring between not only rural and urban Ireland but with young peoples‟ parents and themselves through religious practice. Lee feeling that his parents would „have to be there [at mass] to be seen‟ or Edward‟s feeling that co-students parents would be upset that „they weren‟t going to be seen‟ is intuitively suggestive of Inglis point that „Being catholic was as much a public as it was a private affair‟ (1998:68).

Janet and Niamh, who as was shown completely de-linked any notion of Catholicism and Irishness, also each suggested a difference in how religion was and importantly is experienced in rural as against urban Ireland. For the benefit of family and community each actually would involve themselves in religious practice when in a rural settling:

Niamh – And down the country [people would be more religious].

Janet – Yeah down the country [more religious] and we‟d get it from them [religious identity]. Like I‟m not particularly religious but I‟d get things from my nanny you know? My friend was wearing rosary beads around her neck the other day and I nearly died it wasn‟t me that cared it was just my nanny used to do it. I think when they all go [older people] it will die in all of us as well, its deteriorating like [...] when I go down [the country] I have to go to mass, if I go down with my Da, and we‟re not religious at all like, we wouldn‟t go near a church here [in Dublin] at all but when we go down [the country] all the relatives are going in you have to go like. Not to go only on a Sunday [would be an issue],

sometimes you have special days on a Wednesday [and] you have to go like. (Interview conducted Winter 2005)

This was a point reiterated later by Janet when asked again about feelings of being compelled to attend religious service; „In Galway [I would go to mass] but not here [in Dublin]... no sure no one would care you don‟t know your neighbours here [in Dublin] like‟. Niamh, who is as we have seen spiritually reflexive, suggests that „when you go down the country whenever you do actually hear mass, big thing Sunday mass, it‟s where people meet, all that kind of thing‟. It can be seen that Niamh also suggests the „sociable thing‟ offered by Edward in distinguishing how Mass may have been engaged with in the past and how it is engaged with in the present. Certainly for Niamh, and this point will be further considered when discussing Irish Rurality in a later chapter, a religious cleavage is presented to exist between urban and rural Ireland and that outside of Dublin Irish identity could be differently experienced:

Niamh - The whole religion thing the whole very very Catholic [in rural Ireland]. You know the whole Irish Catholic kind of thing that‟s very big down the country [but not in Dublin].

We also saw above with Janet that her, and her father‟s, attendance at Sunday mass if in Galway was also motivated by sociality and probably „know[ing] your neighbours‟ in Galway but not in Dublin. These experiences highlight the socialisation patterns followed as consequences of family experiences but also a marked distinction between notions of rural and urban community. Taking a broad view of the Generalised Other - to include Rural Ireland - it can certainly be read that Catholic identity is firmly embedded with how the Generalised Other may understand Irishness as „very very Catholic‟ for Niamh.

4.5 Conclusion

Samuel Huntington describes Catholicism as „essential‟ to Irish identity (2004:365). However how young Irish people position their own self-conception of identity suggests that Catholicism is, if anything, largely unnecessary to their own valued understanding of Irishness. Young people certainly consider themselves Irish but they do not suggest Catholicism is „essential‟ constitute of how they prize identity. White highlights how social changes have impacted upon religious practices and identities in Ireland:

In the Irish case the arrival of cafeteria Catholicism, personally selecting those items on the menu of Catholic faith one wishes to believe, threatens to unravel the historical fusion of Catholic and national identity. The Irish continue to be dedicated to Catholicism as a badge of national identity, but a consumer orientation to the religious world undermines the Church‟s capacity to shape individual values (2006:253).

The situation for these young people when researched - so not necessarily the attitudes these people now hold or attitudes that may be held in the future - is not even readily suggestive of any commitment towards a „cafeteria Catholicism‟. The idea of „Catholicism as a badge of national identity‟ does not necessarily fit easily with how many young people articulate their own understandings of Irish identity. Though a slender majority of young people may offer some symbolic attachment towards the Catholic Church it appears that linking religious identity as a popular expression that securely connects to Irish identity is strongly avoided, particularly when young people are questioned in focus groups.

There is essentially a distance from any religious identity coupled with any personalised marking of national identity where even the questionnaire comments offered scant coverage of any positive mention of religion or religious identity connecting to Irishness. Regarding Catholic identity what can be seen is that young people do not seem to see it as some necessary condition to being Irish. This does suggest there is a pluralist space within conceptualisations of being Irish. The privileged place that Catholicism once enjoyed within Irish identity is de-privileged by young people and what predominantly marks Irish identity for these young people are conceptualisations of a modern and in many respects a post-religious Ireland. Young people do not see themselves as religious, they generally do not seem to attend mass and seem to treat religion as outside of who they are and indeed in many cases something to be avoided. It is difficult to accept that Catholic identity will - without the effort of changing to connect or reflect more so with an Irish identity young people may identify with - even greatly mark Irishness in the future „as a badge of national identity‟.

Brennan‟s assessment of the religious beliefs circulating within Irish society, based upon in-depth interviewing of five young people, somewhat approaches how the young people involved in this project engaged with religion:

When one considers that until a generation ago the influence of the Catholic Church permeated Irish society, it is not surprising that a residue of Catholic belief and practice, as well as an openness to the spiritual dimension of life, is an inherent part of these young lives (2001:122).

The idea of „a residue of Catholic belief and practice‟ still characterises views held towards the Generalised Other and clearly a majority of young people symbolically identified with the

Catholic Church. However though the Generalised Other is certainly privileged in associating

religion with a sense of Irish identity it is typically a relationship that can be constructed not necessarily around widespread shared meaning but rather having meaning in particular pockets in Ireland, like in Northern Ireland or with the importance of how mass attendance can be viewed within Rural Ireland. Perhaps nothing better symbolises how young people negotiate religion than the experience of A1 School. Here is a school site absolutely welded to the notion of Catholic Ireland - even at least one teacher was noted for making anti-Protestant remarks - but yet the majority of students make little personal connections between their sense of Irish identity and that of religion.

The formalisation of religious identity into the needed practising of religion - the need to attend Mass to be religious for instance - ensures that the opportunity to connect Irishness with Catholicism on this level of practice is largely absent for many young people. People may be baptised Catholic, undertake Confession and Communion ceremonies - so this may have some affect upon symbolic identification - but the seemingly widespread non-attendance of mass reinforces a de-coupling of religious and Irish identity, and importantly seeming to remove religious identity from saying anything of significance about Irish identity. Young peoples‟ relations, however, to religion are not solely formed by how they formally engage with religion - for instance if all the people involved in this research started attending Mass they would not somehow mechanically develop a strong connecting sense of Irishness through religion. The process of secularisation and pluralism has also affected young peoples‟ attitudes towards identity and just as in wider Irish society, religion is not as valued as it may once have been, which is reflected by young people themselves.

The place of religion in Irish society may remain, to quote Janet‟s, „definitely there‟ but in another sense religion is most definitely not there. Both the definitely there/not there is touched on by Tom when he claims that even though his sister attends a Protestant school „It

doesn‟t change anything‟. Tom, an atheist, can mark a distinction between Protestant and Catholic but he can actively remove any religious distinction between Protestant and Catholic. Religion can still matter, which is illustrated by the young person who would like to make „people more aware of other religions‟ but it does not necessarily matter for a great many young people in how they may positively construct Irishness. Catholicism can be allowed to hold some association with Irishness but it cannot, for young people, be allowed to define Irishness in any substantive manner.

This chapter has shown how a dominant historically constitutive feature of Irish identity has generally failed to offer a commonly embraced, shared and accepted understanding of Irish identity for the young people who participated in this research. Though Catholicism may still continue to hold some symbolic presence within and around Irishness, it is extremely difficult to maintain that it presents any encompassing and the defining understanding of Irishness, or that they somewhat continue to work to help maintain and support any particularly shared or accepted understanding of Irish identity for many young people. The next chapter will consider the place of the Irish language, which, along with notions of Catholic, has historically enjoyed a privileged connection to Irishness.

Chapter 5

The Irish Language and Irish