Beatrice's Religion

Is Beatrice and her family Catholic? I recall Lora talking about being Irish, and Irish usually means Irish-Catholic. And John is probably Catholic (since Hercules Mulligan is from Ireland), does this mean the family id Catholic? Also, is 18th century Beatrice Catholic as well?

They could be descended from transplanted Protestant English settlers in Ireland.

But most of the Protestant settlers were English, and they were all of the landlords for the Irish. We also don't know if her relatives came from Ulster, which they would be Ulster Scots.

I just saw this post. Hercules Mulligan was a protestant. He was, hmm... I don't have my notes in front of me and it's been awhile. He went to a Presbyterian church I think. (Two churches at different points of his life. Trinity for awhile and the Presb. also I think.) And he was on the board as an elder or something like that at different parts of his life, too.

As for Bea, when I write her, I never think of her as having any sort of religion really. In this latest issue, #11, she's going to Voice Lessons on Sunday morning and her parents are home for once and don't look like they're going anywhere.

I bet Liz goes to church every Sunday, though. ^__^ And so do Alan and Nathan and Knowlton and I bet Fred gets drug there too.

Aw, there's always time for evening mass.

It's quite possible that if Mulligan was Presbyterian, he was descended from a mix of Catholic and Presbyterian (probably originally Scottish) Irishmen. This was far more common in 18th and 19th century Ireland than you'd think, due to intermarriages and religous conversions. The politician and philosopher Edmund Burke, who was from Cork, the same county as the Mulligans, was Anglican/Episcopalian but his family were recent converts from Catholicism. The playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan came from a family of Gaelic chiefs who converted to Anglicanism in the 17th century. These are just two very well-known 18th century examples, but my basic point is that tribal/religous identity in Ireland was more fluid than stereotypes or politics try to make us believe.

Also, many Irish Catholic immigrants in the 18th century converted to Protestantism in America in order to get ahead. Philadelphia was the only city in the colonies with a Catholic church, and many people were virulently anti-Catholic.

This may be more than anyone wanted to know about religion in 18th century Ireland and America, but oh well...

Hercules Mulligan came over to the US when he was 6. So any converting that may or may not have happened was probably his parents, not him.