BACK PAGES:The battle for souls between the Catholic and Protestant churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was every bit as intense as the parallel battles over land and Home Rule. An incident in 1908 in Swords, Co Dublin, illustrated the sensitivities. A local shopkeeper held an evangelical meeting in a house he used as a store; a hostile crowd gathered and threw stones at the building, and held marches and demonstrations for several nights. This report covered one aspect of the aftermath.
THE DISTURBANCES that took place at Swords, Co Dublin, last week in connection with religious meetings have abated, and it is hoped that there will be no more trouble. The combined influences of the Rev P Scott Whelan, Rev Father Russell, and Col Forster have so far proved successful in quelling the scenes of the disorder. Extra police are, however, still in the village in case of any fresh trouble.
At the Morning Service yesterday, the Rev P Scott Whelan, in the course of his sermon, referred to the recent disturbances in the town. He said that a man of the town who did not belong to that congregation, but who worshipped the same God, had used the right which he and every other Christian possessed of holding Christian meetings in one of the houses of the town. He or his friends had invited some of their church people to go to the meetings, and he had a perfect right to do so. It was, or it ought to be, a free country, and men ought to have freedom of thought and action.
He and those with him had met with most violent intolerance from their Roman Catholic neighbours, who had ruthlessly stoned the house of meeting, and had for the past week destroyed the peace of the town, and made night hideous with senseless yelling and ribaldry.
For that foolish ignorance and bigotry there had been no adequate cause, no proselytising or street preaching. If there were any grievance of any sort it would be a grievance of that congregation for the tendency of such missions unauthorised by the church had always been to withdraw the people from their attendance at the services of the church. He had no fear that any mission of dissenters held in that town would diminish his congregation.
Even if he was afraid of such a result, he would still condemn the violent intolerance which in a free country had rudely and senselessly insulted God-fearing men. That was the way all over Ireland.
The lower classes of Roman Catholics in the country were very ignorant, and made a ready prey for any bad leading and bad passions. So sensitive were they about religion they would hardly mention the subject, and the least suspicion of proselytising on the part of Protestants – which he was glad to say their church never attempted – was quite enough to drive their Roman Catholic neighbours of a less educated class into paroxysms of senseless intolerance such as they experienced in Swords last week.
Considering the prejudices, it was not a discreet thing to introduce a novel form of Protestantism and spring it on a very Roman Catholic town like Swords. It would not be indiscreet in an English town or a large Irish town, or even a small one where the people were better educated. Anyone who knew the distinct character of the people of Swords would have told them beforehand that to attempt any form of public religious novelty was dangerous and doubtful. But that did not in the least condone the violent intolerance which hooted and ill-treated Christian people in the exercise of their right to worship God as they choose.
He was not there to uphold that novel mission, for he did not know what their creed was. For the sake of peace and goodwill, he trusted that they would not continue their mission, as it would be most undesirable and productive of further bitter strife and ill-feeling. They should show their disgust with that senseless bigotry; otherwise it might be supposed that they approved of such violent conduct.
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