DEPENDENT OR INDEPENDENT? THE CHURCH OF IRELAND AND ITS COLONIAL CONTEXT, 1536–1649

Abstract

The Church of Ireland, was in many ways a clone of the Church of England. The Irish reformation legislation which established the Church of Ireland was largely a copy of Henry VIII's acts establishing the Church of England. And many English politicians and clergy thought of the Church of Ireland as wholly dependent on the Church of England. But for those clergy who were born in Ireland, or who made their careers there, there was an alternative view which saw the Irish church as a separate, sister church to the Church of England. Here Archbishop James Ussher, the dominant protestant intellectual force in early-modern Ireland, provided an important sense of independent identity for the Church of Ireland. He traced its origins back to Patrick, and insisted that it was separate from the Church of England, as in 1634 when he refused to adopt the English Canons verbatim, but insisted on drafting separate Irish canons. The result is that the Church of Ireland was Janus-like, looking both to England and to Ireland, relying on the protection of the English monarch and state in times of difficulty, but proclaiming its sturdy independence in better times.

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