Type: Article
Kelly, James. ‘Inter-Denominational Relations and Religious Toleration in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland: the paper war of 1786-88’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 3 (1988), pp 39-67.
With the repeal of the penal laws and the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, late eighteenth-century Ireland appeared to experience a dilution of inter-denominational hostility. However, according to Kelly, the protestant-catholic tolerance of this period must not be exaggerated. Concessions of catholic civil liberties caused protestant insecurity and catholic suspicion, actually strengthening religious tensions and hostility. Kelly draws on the Rightboy disturbances of the mid-1780s and the ensuing paper war of 1786-88 as evidence of continued inter-denominational conflict. Discussed are the writings of Fr Arthur OLeary, and his radically conservative protestant opponents Patrick Duigenan and Richard Woodward, who considered OLeary to be the instigator of a catholic plot to destroy the Church of Ireland. Kelly refers also to the worries of protestant liberals, who saw the granting of equal power to catholics as a threat to the protestant constitution.