Abstract
In this remarkable final volume, the late Raymond Gillespie drew together much of the research he conducted over the five decades of his distinguished and wide-ranging career and presented the culmination of an intellectual process that began with the publication of Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 1997), a general survey of the central role of faith and devotion in early modern Ireland. This general approach, developed and refined subsequently in innumerable articles, lectures and conversations, now crystalises in a case study of what religion meant for the different communities that frequented the Collegiate Church of St Nicholas, Galway, in the two centuries between 1550 and 1750.
And what a motley crew they were! Too small to be a diocese and too proud to defer to the archbishops of Tuam and bishops of Annaghdown, the unique position of the Collegiate Church and the Wardenship of Galway fuelled endless disputes about precedence and independence within both the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions that lasted well into the nineteenth century. It also meant that the city’s corporation took a particular interest in the affairs and finances of the church and college, something that worked to its advantage during the upheavals of the seventeenth century.
The prologue (pp. 11–36) on the establishment and operation of the Wardenship throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is both brilliant and concise and Gillespie’s discussion of similar collegiate foundations in Ireland sets the agenda for further investigation of these under-researched institutions. The efforts to introduce Reformed religion between 1590 and 1642 forms the subject of the first chapter (pp. 37–75) and Gillespie deftly leads us through the maze of what this implied in a period when no one was entirely sure what it actually meant to be either Catholic or Protestant. The objective of the City Fathers throughout was to maintain peace and concord so that Galwegians could continue to do what they do best: engage in commerce. This conciliatory approach was occasionally upset by zealots like the evangelical Warden William Daniel who, in 1596 after a bout of iconoclasm, boasted of “rooting out their famous idols” and who denounced his Catholic counterparts as “the filthy frogs of the synagogue of Antichrist.” Still, after that it could hardly get worse. Then in 1605 the Jesuits showed up.
The period between 1642 and 1690, covered in the second chapter (pp. 76–131), was probably the most turbulent in the history of the church as possession of the Wardenship and its revenues oscillated between Catholics and Protestants, something reflected throughout the country. Even within denominations, tensions developed with the emergence of dissenting groups like Presbyterians and Methodists within the Protestant camp and ongoing tensions between continentally trained, city-based clergy and more conservative rural elements within the Catholic community. All of this was occurring against a backdrop of warfare, disease and famine. As the third chapter (pp. 132–82) demonstrates, the relative stability of the city after 1690 saw St Nicholas emerge as a firmly Protestant institution, with a well-maintained fabric and an effective system of pastoral care, despite the relatively small size of the city’s Protestant population. All of this was made possible by the ongoing support of the city’s Corporation. The experience of the Protestant community in the nineteenth century is documented in the epilogue (pp. 183–94) and although primarily a tale of demographic decline and crumbling infrastructure, it also demonstrates the resilience of St Nicholas as a symbol of civic pride and corporate identity. While noting the significance of corporate worship in establishing a sense of religious identity, Gillespie laments the lack of the type of personal sources that permit an insight into the devotional and spiritual outlooks of individual believers.
This final volume is emblematic of all Raymond’s Gillespie’s work as a historian, and three particular facets stand out. The first is that all history is somehow local. Regardless of their transnational or national significance, all the great ideas, the conflicts, the compromises had to be worked out locally in a specific time and place. The second is that religion matters. It’s not something that can be set aside or glossed over. It motivated, divided, inspired and discouraged; but on a fundamental level, it mattered. Conversely, it is not the only thing that matters, and it has to be examined in the broader economic, environmental, social and political context. Finally, history is personal. It involves the flesh-and-blood experiences of real people, their intellectual, spiritual and emotional struggles, their hardships and their joys. These three threads formed the warp and weft of all of Ray’s work and come together wonderfully in this marvellous final masterpiece. Finis coronat opus—“the end crowns the work” as Ovid put it, and what a glorious tapestry it is, even if the weaver was parted from the loom far too soon.