John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1939 and 1959, exercised significant influence over his denomination for almost half a century. He was an authoritative senior clergyman and held high office for much of his sixty-three-year career. According to his grandson, the public saw Gregg as the “Marble Arch” because of his “unbending rigidity reinforced by a degree of shyness.”Footnote 1 This perception of Gregg as an unyielding leader has become entrenched in the historiography of the Church of Ireland. It is based mainly on an extensive and sympathetic biography that relied on Gregg's personal papers and the recollections of his contemporaries. His papers were, at his request, destroyed after publication.Footnote 2 Given that the biography was published over fifty years ago, a reevaluation of Gregg is a timely endeavor, albeit one rendered more difficult by the absence of much source material. This article, chiefly using the period between 1939 and 1945 as a case study, reexamines accepted perceptions of Archbishop Gregg by drawing on previously unexplored material from his sermons and public addresses.
Employing Gregg's wartime ministry as a case study brings several benefits. First, ecclesiastical responses to periods of international conflict reveal the nature of denominations, their relationship to the state, and engagement with wider society.Footnote 3 In Gregg's case, as Primate of All Ireland, his very title presented a particular challenge that was exacerbated by the war. He led a denomination that, from the partition of Ireland in 1921, was forced to operate simultaneously in two distinct political jurisdictions. The outbreak of war in September 1939 compounded the problem; Northern Ireland became a belligerent, while Éire adopted a policy of neutrality. Examining Gregg's experience of war and the challenge of leading a church across two states in that context enhances our understanding of a significant figure in twentieth-century Irish church history. His wartime rhetoric reveals not only his strong leadership but also his interpretation of the conflict, politico-national identity, theology, and understanding of the role of the church in society. In short, it facilitates a more balanced understanding of Gregg than that of the “Marble Arch.”
Second, the case study contributes to the historiography of the Church of Ireland more broadly by assessing the impact of war on Gregg's desire for cross-border unity. Studies of post-war efforts to preserve unity across the Church have made little reference to the impact of the conflict. Certainly, after partition, the denomination sought to preserve its image as an all-island Church.Footnote 4 Daithí Ó Corráin has claimed, without giving significant attention to the challenges of the war years, that Gregg held his denomination together between 1921 and 1945.Footnote 5 With the establishment of the Republic of Ireland in 1948, the denomination's leadership was eager to ensure unity across the border in light of increased cultural, political, and economic divergence. Gregg, having served in both jurisdictions, was well-placed to oversee this emphasis on unity and, in 1949, appealed for “hands across the border.”Footnote 6 During the controversy surrounding state prayers, which followed the establishment of the Republic, Gregg ensured denominational unity across the border while recognizing the separation of political loyalties in the two states.Footnote 7 This post-war Anglican desire for unity across the border must be evaluated in its broader Irish historical context. It has been suggested that the war contributed to a strengthening sense of separate identity within the twenty-six counties of Éire, an identity that did not include inhabitants of the six northern counties.Footnote 8 How, then, did Gregg's desire for unity within his island-encompassing Church align with the increased separation across the two states on the island?
Third, by setting Gregg's wartime rhetoric in context with that of other Anglican church leaders, the article contributes to the broader historiography of Christianity in the United Kingdom and Ireland during the middle years of the twentieth century. Historians of wartime Northern Ireland have provided comprehensive overviews and detailed analyses of the period from social, political, economic, and cultural perspectives. These works, rather than treat religion as a phenomenon worthy of study on its own terms, address religious matters from other perspectives, often using source material from religious leaders to underpin points about the political, economic, and social situation.Footnote 9 This can also be said of the historiography of Éire during the Emergency.Footnote 10 By contrast, there exists a substantial historiography of Christianity in wartime Britain, much of which deals with clerical interpretations of the conflict.Footnote 11 That corpus also includes several detailed studies of aspects of the Church of England's wartime role, such as its responses to the Holocaust and micro-historical studies of the Church in localized areas.Footnote 12 Furthermore, historians of the Church of England have given significant attention to biographing its wartime bishops.Footnote 13
Following Ian d'Alton's suggestion that the broad history of the Church of Ireland should be constructed from narrowly focused studies, this article's reevaluation of Gregg seeks to add one block to that historiographical edifice.Footnote 14 It begins by providing a brief biographical sketch of Gregg before examining the validity of the existing perception of Gregg as a dominant leader through a case study of his involvement in the church reunion movement during the 1930s and 1940s. In the second section, we consider Gregg's interpretation of peace and war in its British context, undermining the assumption that he was merely a strong leader. This part draws attention to Gregg's sense of British identity in supporting the war, his pastoral concerns, and his desire for post-war evangelism. The third section deals with how Gregg handled the cross-border dimension of his role during the war, assessing the extent to which experiences of wartime fostered a post-war desire for unity within the Church of Ireland. It also discusses Irish Anglican engagement with the British war effort and Irish neutrality, suggesting how these experiences shaped, and were shaped by, desires for denominational unity. In the final part, we push further beyond the perception of Gregg as the “Marble Arch” by pointing out several aspects of his life and work, which particularly distinguished him as a churchman within Northern Ireland.
I. The “Marble Arch”
Gregg was born in 1873 in Gloucestershire, into a family with strong ties to the Church of Ireland. He studied classics at Cambridge, showing himself to be a capable ecclesiastical historian. He took up a post in Ireland as assistant curate in Ballymena in 1896 before being appointed curate at Cork cathedral in 1899. He was to remain in the south of Ireland for the next forty years. In 1906, Gregg became rector of Blackrock and, in 1911, received the position of Professor of Divinity at Trinity College, Dublin. His academic career came to an end in 1915 when he took office as bishop of Ossory, Ferns, and Leighlin, holding that role until his appointment as archbishop of Dublin, the second most senior position in the church, in 1920. Gregg declined the primacy and archbishopric of Armagh in April 1938. Having spent much of his career in southern Ireland, he perceived Northern Ireland as a strange place “spiritually and politically.” Hence, Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, confirming Gregg's opinion, stated that “the political Protestantism of the North” would have made his position difficult. The primacy, therefore, went to J.G.F. Day, who died within two months of taking office. Gregg was again nominated to the primacy and, interpreting it as divine providence, accepted, taking office in 1939. He retired from the archbishopric of Armagh in 1959 and died on May 2, 1961.Footnote 15
Gregg's popular epithet, the “Marble Arch,” draws attention to his influence over the Church of Ireland. This emphasis on Gregg's dominant leadership has become the standard interpretation of Gregg within the historiography and is by no means a caricature. R.B. McDowell states that, for almost forty years, “the Church of Ireland was led (or some would say dominated) by” Gregg.Footnote 16 According to Alan Acheson, Gregg's “towering presence” contributed to the stability of the church until his retirement.Footnote 17 Such was Gregg's influence that his successor to the Archbishopric of Armagh suggested that future commentators would interpret Gregg's retirement as “the end of an era in Irish church History.”Footnote 18
Gregg's role in exploratory talks on church reunion between Presbyterians and Anglicans during the 1930s and 1940s bears out scholarly assumptions about his leadership. Gregg set the tone for the belief and practice of the denomination. He was committed to apostolic succession and Episcopalianism; the teachings of the church were to be safeguarded through the generations by a succession of bishops. No matter how strongly he may have desired union with other churches, his doctrinal position compelled him “to resist any proposals for union which either deny the sufficiency or threaten the integrity of the Church's inherited faith or order.”Footnote 19 By 1934, efforts toward reunion between the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church had stalled over interdenominational differences on clerical ordination. A joint committee of clerics from both denominations proposed a compromise that, in a united church, ordinations could be performed by a group comprising Presbyterian and Anglican clergymen along with a bishop. Gregg opposed this and dissented against a revised proposal, which recommended that each denomination simply recognize the validity of the other's ordination practices. He opposed this revised proposal at the 1935 General Synod. Such was his influence that the Synod rejected the proposal, bringing an end to negotiations.Footnote 20 He also prevented the denomination from further explorations of church union during the 1940s while Irish Methodists and Presbyterians, not to mention churches of all denominations in England, were pursuing closer links.Footnote 21
II. In peace and war
After the First World War, churchmen throughout the United Kingdom advocated the preservation of peace at almost any cost. Clerical desires for lasting peace stemmed from the horrors of the Great War and a sense of shame for how they had engaged with that conflict. They had hastily interpreted the Great War as a struggle between good and evil in which God would use Britain to remove German militarism from the world.Footnote 22 The trauma of industrialized international warfare contributed to the rise to various forms of pacifism among the clergy.Footnote 23 Conferences instigated by the Church of England, therefore, adopted resolutions condemning warfare, culminating in the Lambeth Conference of 1930, which proclaimed that war was incompatible with the teaching and spirit of Christianity.Footnote 24 This set the tone for how many Anglicans publicly reflected on international relations, war, and peace throughout the decade.
Clerics in Britain and Ireland demonstrated their commitment to peace by supporting the League of Nations.Footnote 25 They deemed international arbitration and collective security the best means of defusing tensions that could have led to war. Indeed, until the mid-1930s, most Church of England clergymen optimistically assumed that the League had effectively outlawed warfare.Footnote 26 Indicative of the extent of this commitment to peace, Anglicans across the United Kingdom supported the League of Nations Union, an organization established to foster support for the League.Footnote 27 Addressing a “packed” meeting of the Union in Belfast during November 1935, Bishop J.F. MacNeice of Cashel and Waterford, warned that “if the League of Nations fails, the future will be as black as night,” a future of “nationalism, militarism, economic chaos, and new perils of war.”Footnote 28 At the General Synod in May 1936, Gregg evinced his high hopes for the League, acknowledging his denomination's disappointment at the League's failure to prevent the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. Nevertheless, he praised the “noble” ideals which had underpinned the League.Footnote 29
Anglican churchmen on both sides of the Irish Sea viewed the increased prominence of totalitarian regimes in the 1930s as a threat to Christianity and its place in society. Nevertheless, for most of the decade, they remained committed to peace, believing war to be a greater threat than totalitarianism. They interpreted the threat of totalitarianism in religious terms; by subordinating God to the authority and demands of the state, totalitarianism represented a new form of paganism.Footnote 30 For instance, in Northern Ireland, MacNeice condemned Nazism as “the revival of Paganism, the enthronement of Paganism,” an ideology that implicated churches in “deifying the German state.”Footnote 31 Yet, given their commitment to peace, most Anglican clergy supported the policy of appeasement.Footnote 32 Gregg likewise endorsed appeasement, commending it to his denomination as “a very sane form of practical pacifism” in which “some great Christian qualities were reflected.”Footnote 33 Clerical endorsement of appeasement reached its apotheosis with the signing of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, an event that Church of England bishops interpreted as divine providence in response to prayers for lasting peace.Footnote 34 William Shaw Kerr, Dean of Belfast, interpreted the Munich Agreement as “a mighty advance towards the outlawing of war, and the settlement of national disputes by forbearance and conciliation, by reason and conference.”Footnote 35
Germany's violation of the Munich Agreement in March 1939 compelled churchmen to reconsider their attitudes toward Nazism and warfare. The totalitarian threat now transcended the fear of war, so leading Anglicans began to engage with the government about the prospective wartime role of the church, all the while hoping that peace might last.Footnote 36 Gregg's reinterpretation of the Munich Agreement, outlined at the 1939 General Synod, demonstrates his belief in providence, the justice of a potential war against Nazism, his pastoral sensitivities, and his abiding distaste for conflict. Rather than guaranteeing peace, Munich, “in the mercy of God,” had given time “to the democracies for self-defense.” Drawing on the doctrine of providence, Gregg offered hope, since “the God whose Word has outlived the ruthless and mighty kingdoms of the Pagan East and Pagan West, will find His own way, and will guide the steps of His people through the present accumulation of trials to Faith.” He acknowledged that a war, fought in self-defense, could be justified but, due to the legacy of the Great War, urged listeners to “eschew aggressiveness.”Footnote 37
Gregg's early response to the war reflected that of many British churchmen and demonstrates his British patriotism. He had little difficulty in accepting the justice of the British war effort and threw his support behind it. Nevertheless, eager to learn from their initial response to the 1914–1918 war, churchmen, including Gregg, avoided jingoism and enthusiastic propagandism in 1939, portraying Nazism, rather than Germany, as the enemy.Footnote 38 Desiring to shape local attitudes to the conflict, Gregg warned against cultivating hatred of Germans.Footnote 39 In a sermon from September 1939, he balanced his ongoing dread of war with careful support for the war effort. He referred to the war as “the nightmare which has troubled the sleep of Europe for years” and speculated that the conflict could “turn out to be the greatest war of modern times.” Despite these worries, Gregg accepted the justice of the British cause, identifying Britain as an instrument used by God in the past to remove injustice. Hence, in 1939, Britain stood “once more in arms against the tyrant of Europe as she was against Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century and against the German Kaiser in 1914–18.”Footnote 40
German dominance of Western Europe in early 1940 convinced many church leaders in the United Kingdom that God was using Britain in a crusade to protect what they termed “Christian civilization” from Nazi totalitarianism. Their concept of crusade drew on the religious language employed in pre-war condemnation of Nazism.Footnote 41 Cyril Alington, Dean of Durham, produced a pamphlet in 1940 that described the war as a crusade in defense of Christian values.Footnote 42 Gregg adopted a similar interpretation of the war at this point. Believing that Christian civilization was at stake, he claimed “that days might come with Nazism and Bolshevism triumphant in Europe, with Concentration Camps and death against a blank wall, the penalty of standing out as a Christian in opposition” to a totalitarian regime.Footnote 43 In October 1940, Gregg warned his diocesan clergy that, if Nazi Germany were victorious, “the light which began to shine over Europe with the coming of Christianity, even though nothing can finally extinguish it, must suffer a lamentable eclipse.” For that reason, then, he deemed the war “a crusade against evil.”Footnote 44 This interpretation of the war lasted, by and large, for the duration of the conflict.Footnote 45
When the European situation appeared bleakest, Sunday, May 26, 1940, was designated a day of national prayer for the deliverance of British troops from the continent. Days of prayer, held several times annually during the war, were well attended, demonstrating that many people in the United Kingdom believed their prayers could influence the course of the war.Footnote 46 Gregg's engagement with that occasion demonstrates his endorsement of the British war effort and his pastoral concern for people fearing imminent German invasion. Such an invasion would, he claimed, render “our country, our civilization, our religion, our homes. . .liable to attack and destruction.” Hence, he sought to boost the morale of worshippers in Armagh, encouraging them to “fall back upon that which is greater than our poor powerless selves,” turning “by instinctive habit to Almighty God.” He commended prayer “that we may lose our weakness in God's strength, that we may steady our trembling fearfulness with the knowledge that behind everything, behind the very worst that could happen, God is King, and that God is our God.”Footnote 47
Gregg's regular references to divine providence indicate that his theology had developed alongside that of other Anglicans. For instance, in Britain, clerical interpretations of providence as exceptional, miraculous events, had been waning since the 1930s. Churchmen preferred to interpret providence as God “working within and through the course of human affairs” and emphasized that individuals, through adherence to Christian principles, could carry out the providential will of God.Footnote 48 Gregg's wartime rhetoric, then, blended these strands of theology: he did interpret certain events as direct divine intervention but also urged individuals to engage in repentance and prayer. For instance, at the end of the war, he referred to Churchill's appointment as Prime Minister as a sign of “the hand of God” at work.Footnote 49 Yet, speaking in 1940, he claimed that, if Britain had fought for victory “as being a Christian nation, and to uphold its Christian ideals of truth, justice and liberty, then we want to be sure that it really IS a Christian nation. And in the last resort, the nation is what its individual citizens make it.”Footnote 50
The course of war compelled churchmen to engage in pastoral care. Gregg's wartime rhetoric demonstrates his commitment to that purpose. In February 1941, two months before Belfast fell victim to German air raids, he told local clerics that, if they wanted to be useful, they must teach people “to set their affection on the things above, and that their life is hid with Christ in God.” He believed that that belief would guard “against fear and worry, carelessness and fatalism, hatred of our enemies and blindness to our own shortcomings as a people.”Footnote 51 In the aftermath of the air raids, Gregg used his address to the General Synod, printed in the press, to galvanize morale:
We can be strong if we will draw upon the inexhaustible resources which lie stored in Him from whom all souls and all things spiritual take their origin. And it is by leading men and women to throw themselves and their own native weakness on the Almightiness of God in prayer and recollection, that they can be trained to brace themselves up and keep themselves from feeling out of hand. When we bring God into the reckoning, the things which seemed so alarmingly big shrink into new and smaller proportions.Footnote 52
In contrast to their response to the 1914–1918 war, Anglican churchmen in the 1939–1945 conflict were careful to temper their belligerence with the confession that the British people had their own failings. Emphasizing distinctions between Nazi Germany and Britain, they urged churchgoers to live in a manner worthy of those fighting to defend Christian civilization.Footnote 53 Clerics sought to meet their self-designated agenda as moral guardians and evangelists by portraying adherence to moral standards as necessary for victory.Footnote 54 Leaders of the Church of England believed the Church to be a “partner in authority” with the state, a situation which gave them the right to pronounce censure on government policy or the tone of national life.Footnote 55 Although the Church of Ireland had been disestablished since 1869, Gregg felt duty-bound to carry out the same function. He endorsed prayer for God “to give victory to our arms and success to our cause” but accepted that God would use Britain despite its need of “disciplining and chastising.” The British people, with whom he implicitly included those in Northern Ireland, therefore, were to dedicate themselves to the purposes of God, avoiding “self-seeking and self-pleasing” and spending much time in prayer.Footnote 56 On the day of prayer marking the second anniversary of the outbreak of war, Gregg preached on Proverbs 14.34: “Righteousness exalteth a nation.” He drew simultaneously on ideas of providence and a need for restoration of moral values in the United Kingdom, asking, “What grounds then have we, as a nation, for thinking it is worth God's while to give us victory?” Gregg, therefore, hoped that the war would “make us see that this splendid national purpose must not collapse with victory” but that people would, having seen providence worked out before them, would “live according to the character of the God we pray to.”Footnote 57
As war continued, bringing greater awareness of Nazi atrocities, British churchmen persistently drew attention to the evils of Nazism. In so doing, they sought to bolster morale and heighten enthusiasm for the war effort.Footnote 58 The persecution of minorities justified interpretations of the war as a crusade. In the spring of 1943, church leaders in the United Kingdom urged Westminster to attempt to mitigate the impact of persecution in Europe. Their efforts, notably those of William Temple, resulted in an Anglo-American conference in Bermuda which agreed that 4,000–5,000 Jews could be relocated from Spain to North Africa. In comparison with the scale of the Holocaust, these efforts achieved little.Footnote 59 The Church of Ireland, alongside other local denominations, engaged with this cause. In April 1943, Gregg addressed a public meeting in Belfast, organized by church leaders to protest the persecution of minorities in occupied countries. Condemning Nazi plans for the “extermination” of Jews “by a series of successive mass-murderings in a form of procedure so barbarous as to defy description,” Gregg described the genocide as “the ripened fruit” of Nazi ideology. Having elevated the state to the place of the divine, the Nazis had refused “the Divine revelation, and set up other Gods for themselves.” Although he acknowledged that punishment for such atrocities was God's responsibility, Gregg advocated “judicial investigation of responsibility for willful murder” and “restitution” in a form to be determined in the future. The purpose of such an exercise would be “to protect those who come after us, and to deter the criminally minded from a repetition of these monstrous outrages.”Footnote 60
Allied victory vindicated many churchmen's interpretation of the war. Celebrating victory in London, Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury emphasized the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany in reminding churchgoers that the war had been a crusade against “the power of darkness itself.”Footnote 61 Gregg's continued references to providence and the justice of the British war effort stress his identification with Britain. He saw the Allied victory in Europe as “one of God's visible judgments.” The “God-defying pride” of Nazi Germany had drawn “down on itself the nemesis that, sooner or later, never fails to fall.” This interpretation of the war also permitted him to commend Christian morality. Gregg urged listeners to avoid provoking divine judgement against themselves, noting that, in peacetime, Britain owed an “incalculable moral debt” to God and to “our fellow-men.” That debt could be paid through “a new dedication of ourselves to the purposes of the Kingdom of God.”Footnote 62
Church leaders regularly considered the shape of future peacetime during the war years. The Church of England was heavily involved in political and religious discussions of a range of potential post-war challenges.Footnote 63 Post-war reconstruction offered a prime opportunity for churchmen to promote their evangelistic agenda. Hence, Anglican clerics asserted that peacetime Britain should reflect the values that they had been fighting to defend.Footnote 64 Gregg, although not a representative of an established church, engaged carefully with plans for peacetime. In 1941, he had previously criticized British society for being “unworthy, materialistic and socially unjust,” warning that, in peacetime, “with the war demand and the war danger cut out of the picture, everything goes flop.” The church needed to prepare for potential “moral collapse.”Footnote 65 Hence, in 1943, arguing that justice, truth, and freedom should prevail after the war, he claimed that the church must “mold and shape the conditions and circumstances of this world in which the citizens of heaven have to pass their lives in preparation for eternity.”Footnote 66
Given the short-lived peace that followed the so-called war to end wars in 1918, church leaders were united in their desire for lasting peace when the 1939 war ended.Footnote 67 They believed that the church had a vital role to play in preserving peace, though rhetoric to that end can be interpreted as an effort to preserve Christian moral standards. In May 1945, Gregg delivered a sermon in Armagh, warning that although Nazism had been defeated, neither “prudence” nor “fear of retribution” could guarantee peace. Only “fear of God” could do so. That fear would, he claimed, be manifest in “righteousness” in national life.Footnote 68 Another sermon on victory cautioned against forgetting “the disaster of 1919.” Peace, Gregg argued, should be founded on “good-will” and “Christian charity.” After all, “none can measure what it may mean for future generations if the Church should measure the true vision of what she can do for the world.”Footnote 69
Anglican churchmen were strong proponents of religious education, believing that it would safeguard peace, preserve the influence of the church, and possibly increase adherence to Christian principles. Stephen Parker argues that, since Church of England clerics defended the war effort, the British government promoted Christian religious education in all-state funded schools through the 1944 Education Act.Footnote 70 The legislation represented “an Anglican triumph” given that it sought to foster Christianity among the population.Footnote 71 Gregg, like his counterparts in England, regularly emphasized the importance of religious education. In 1940, speaking in Dublin, he had suggested that a so-called Christian state could learn from totalitarian states’ education policies by making education “definitely Christian.”Footnote 72 He praised the introduction of the 1944 Education Act in England and recommended that its provisions be adopted, with some revisions due to regional differences, in Northern Ireland.Footnote 73 At the General Synod in 1944, he argued that “the strongest bulwark of moral conduct is religion,” so “if Christian belief goes, Christian conduct will only survive it by one or two generations.” Hence, any state which neglected religious education would “condemn itself to certain ruin.”Footnote 74
III. Primate of All Ireland?
As well as being a strong leader, Gregg was clearly a British patriot and a pastorally minded clergyman. The war exacerbated the challenges facing the leader of a denomination that straddled Northern Ireland and Éire. Despite his favorable attitude to the war effort, Gregg sought to respect Irish neutrality while simultaneously promoting cross-border unity within his denomination. His commitment to this herculean task came to the fore annually at the General Synod, held in Dublin. On several of these occasions, Gregg referred to the fact that his presence in Éire precluded him from referring to the course of the war. For instance, opening the Synod in 1940, Gregg acknowledged that some attendees may have expected him to refer to the war, but he did “not propose to take advantage of the hospitality of the neutral country within whose borders we are assembled, to do so.”Footnote 75 In May 1942, Gregg used his address to the General Synod to draw attention to the unity of the church. He found no significant difficulty in composing a message relevant to Anglicans in both countries. Regardless of location, the Church existed to “stand for God in the world, and to be a kind of conscience to the world.” Indicative of his evangelistic impulse, Gregg urged the Church to ensure that congregations grew numerically and that “nominal members” became “practicing members.”Footnote 76
As the war continued, Gregg tested the limits of what he could say about the war in neutral Éire, often emphasizing matters around which the Church could unite. Without breaching neutrality by commenting on specific wartime events or by explicitly endorsing one side's cause, he addressed what he felt were the core issues over which the war was being fought—issues in which the denomination, and the church universal, could find unity. These, he said at the General Synod in 1943, were neither political nor territorial, but spiritual. Hence, with an emphasis on inter-church cooperation, churches should seek to “take their united stand on principles of [peace] settlement which embody Christian ideals.”Footnote 77 In 1945, again indicative of his concern for unity, Gregg claimed that “one of the saddest features of the Church is its divided state” throughout history. Given its “fixed principles,” he stressed his desire for unity within the Anglican Communion in particular. Nevertheless, thanks to his strong doctrinal commitments, he urged caution in pursuing hasty reunion with other denominations unless they adhered to an acceptable doctrinal position which upheld all fundamental doctrines and practices of the historic church.Footnote 78
Despite Irish neutrality, the Church of Ireland in Éire did not cut itself off from the Allied war effort altogether. There remained a sense of solidarity between Anglicans across the border and, indeed, between Irish and English Anglicans. After all, loyalty to Britain was a uniting force within the Church of Ireland until the mid-twentieth century.Footnote 79 Its Dublin-based weekly newspaper, the Church of Ireland Gazette, regularly evinced an anti-German bias and was, on at least two occasions, reprimanded by the Irish censor for printing articles deemed “offensive to Germany.”Footnote 80 Throughout the war years, Anglican churches in neutral Éire organized days of prayer to coincide with those in Britain. For instance, Arthur Barton, Archbishop of Dublin, called for a day of special prayer on May 26, 1940, coinciding with the United Kingdom's day of national prayer.Footnote 81 Barton also urged parishes in his diocese to hold “special intercessions” on September 8, in line with national prayer in the United Kingdom, claiming that “it is right that we should join with our brethren.”Footnote 82 This interest in the course of the war marked some Anglicans out from their fellow citizens who were disinterested in the course of the war.Footnote 83
That said, Irish Anglicans tended to support neutrality as the best policy for their country.Footnote 84 Attitudes to the war, neutrality, and politico-national identity were complex and multi-faceted but often determined by age, among other factors. Endorsing neutrality did not automatically entail indifference toward the British war effort. Some Protestants in Éire believed that loyalty to Britain was compatible with identifying as Irish.Footnote 85 Clair Wills has demonstrated that many of those who volunteered to fight for Britain saw no tension between the neutrality of their nation and their joining the military of a belligerent state.Footnote 86 Older Irish Anglicans tended to emphasize loyalty to Britain, while the younger generation was developing its own sense of Irish identity in alignment with the political status quo. A contemporary commentator noted these generational distinctives, pointing out that most prominent Anglicans were of the older generation and noting that the younger generation were becoming more loyal to Ireland than to Britain.Footnote 87 Hence, W.J. White, a journalist, referred to the older generation as those living in “decaying country houses and other crumbling enclaves,” who spoke of Britain's military as “our Navy and our Air Force.” Their offspring, White noted, believed they had a duty to join the British armed forces.Footnote 88 In contrast, Miriam Moffitt points out that, by the 1940s, younger Anglicans no longer believed that their protestantism necessarily entailed exclusive loyalty to the British crown. Instead, they tended to adopt “moderate nationalism”; their primary loyalty lay with Ireland, and then the Commonwealth of which they remained part.Footnote 89
Irish Anglican involvement in the British armed forces is a helpful barometer of how southern Anglicans conceived of their Irish Protestant identity. Research has demonstrated that Protestants from Éire were “over-represented among the southern Irish volunteers.” This, it should be noted, is not to claim that all Anglicans in Éire responded to the war by expressing commitment to the British war effort: others supported neutrality, integrated with national life, and engaged with local defense endeavors.Footnote 90 Irish Protestant involvement with the British forces can be, in part, attributed to the long-standing historical connections with the British military of some Anglo-Irish families.Footnote 91 Indeed, Gregg's son, John, served in the Royal Air Force and died in 1943. Under Irish censorship death notices of Irish nationals serving the crown were not published but an exception was granted to the Irish Times, given Gregg's prominence.Footnote 92 Irish volunteers’ experiences in the British forces demonstrated the existence of a “robust Irish identity that did not slavishly conform to the views of Churchill's government nor that of de Valera's.”Footnote 93
Despite the different engagements with the war on either side of the border and the spectrum of attitudes towards the conflict, Church of Ireland leaders stressed the internal unity of the denomination. The air raids on Belfast in April and May 1941 provided an opportunity for the Church to express that unity. Speaking at the General Synod when the air raids were fresh in attendees’ memories, Gregg noted that “the hearts of those living in the war-stricken area” were “touched by the spontaneous and practical sympathy manifested so generously and so promptly by their fellow-Irishmen living in other parts of the country.” He pointed out that “entire parochial entities have temporarily collapsed” and urged the Church to endorse any proposals brought forward to aid the Belfast churches.Footnote 94 The General Synod suggested that the denomination identify a day on which all parishes would hold a collection to raise funds for the damaged churches. A specific day was not identified, but Gregg, indicative of his desire for Anglican unity, urged the parishes in his diocese to collect funds on their own initiative.Footnote 95 Not only did Irish Anglicans contribute to those from their Church who were affected by war, they sought to aid people suffering in war-torn Europe. In 1945, Gregg had appealed to the General Synod to contribute to a fund, organized by the British Council of Churches for “Christian Reconstruction in Europe.” The Council tasked the Irish denominations with raising £20,000, half of which was to be raised by the Church of Ireland. According to Gregg, the task “caught the imagination of our people from one end of the country to the other” and the Church raised £27,000, exceeding their target by £17,000.Footnote 96
The desire for cross-border unity within the Church of Ireland offers something of a counterpoint to scholarly claims that the war contributed to increased separation between Northern Ireland and Éire. Robert Fisk argues that Irish neutrality consolidated the partition of Ireland, which, in turn, led to Ireland's full independence in the late 1940s.Footnote 97 In a sustained treatment of the separation between the two states on the island, Dennis Kennedy interprets Irish neutrality as the final stage in the slide toward complete distinction between Ireland and Britain. Northern Ireland's engagement with the war effort, though not as significant as unionist propagandists claimed, compelled Westminster to refer to Northern Ireland as a vital part of the United Kingdom. In so doing, this cemented the alienation between Éire and the United Kingdom.Footnote 98 By contrast, for the Church of Ireland under Gregg's leadership, war and neutrality were a catalyst for greater cross-border denominational unity. The desire for unity accepted the existence of the border and sought to find means of coexisting across it. This, in turn, contrasts with how Irish nationalists sought cross-border unity in attempting to pressurize Westminster to consider removing the border. This resulted in the establishment of the Anti-Partition League in 1945.Footnote 99
IV. Beyond the “Marble Arch”
In addition to his leadership, British patriotism, commitment to the Church's duties of pastoral care and evangelism, and emphasis on denominational unity, Gregg was a scholar, a modern theologian, and a distinctive figure within Northern Ireland society. Seaver's biography highlights Gregg's scholarship, an aspect of his career often neglected by subsequent historians.Footnote 100 He produced high-quality scholarly work during the early part of his career but failed in several applications for academic posts. While at Cambridge, he was awarded the Hulsean Prize for his work, The Decian Persecution. He continued to research patristic texts during his curacy in Ballymena, publishing a book on the Epistle of Clement of Rome in 1899. In 1904, he submitted an article assessing the influence of the Book of Wisdom on Pauline and Johannine Christology to the Journal of Theological Studies. This was initially accepted but was subsequently rejected. Around this time he unsuccessfully applied to a junior Fellowship at Christ's College and a post as warden of St. Columba's College. His application for a Cambridge chair in Biblical Greek in 1906 was also unsuccessful. Gregg contributed material on the Book of Wisdom to a commentary in 1909. His reputation for scholarship endured throughout his career. He spearheaded the publication of a History of the Church of Ireland from 1933–1934, stipulating that the work was to be “academically sound.”Footnote 101 After the Second World War, he was involved in the production of the New English Bible, contributing significantly to the translation of the Book of Wisdom.Footnote 102 Gregg's scholarly mind was evident in his sermons, which have been described as “lectures in the guise of homilies.”Footnote 103
Theologically, Gregg was distinct from many Protestant churchmen in Northern Ireland because he was not an evangelical. Largely through a revival in the early 1920s, evangelicalism had become a prominent subculture which existed alongside and within mainstream denominations in Northern Ireland.Footnote 104 If we take the fourfold characterization of evangelicalism, which defines it by conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism as a standard, Gregg cannot be deemed an evangelical.Footnote 105 He was certainly neither crucicentric nor conversionistic. His salvific hopes did not revolve around the death of Christ in the past, but in “fellowship with Him who lives for evermore.” He also downplayed the significance of individual conversion experiences as grounds for assurance of salvation. Rather, salvation involved a process of growth during life. Furthermore, Gregg tended toward universalism, retaining an open mind to the idea that God intended to restore all people in salvation.Footnote 106
Despite his sense of British identity, Gregg stood out in Northern Ireland's Protestant community where the Orange Order was a significant cultural locus for unionism. The Order provided opportunities for many evangelicals to work alongside like-minded individuals from various denominations and had a substantial membership, comprising two-thirds of adult Protestant males between the wars.Footnote 107 Although clerics could not become members of the Order, many Anglican churchmen were closely affiliated to it, serving as chaplains to various lodges.Footnote 108 Two of the leading evangelical Anglican churchmen in Northern Ireland held strong links with the Order. Frederick MacNeice used his involvement with the Order to foster links within the community in Belfast when he arrived in 1898. He did, however, break ties in 1915. Kerr, Dean of Belfast, also an evangelical, was a prominent Orangeman.Footnote 109 By contrast, Gregg refused to join both the Orange and Masonic Orders, arguing that membership would compromise his “independence of judgment.”Footnote 110
Gregg's response to plans for post-war social welfare marked him out from other Anglicans. When the Beveridge report was published in 1942, most Anglicans in Britain “found little to quarrel with” in the government's plans for post-war social welfare provision. Indeed, in Christianity and Social Order, Archbishop William Temple advocated the centrality of the state in improving social conditions.Footnote 111 Gregg, however, responded to the Beveridge report in similar terms to those employed by British and Irish conservatives and Catholics who feared an all-encompassing welfare state.Footnote 112 For instance, Daniel Mageean, Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, warned that, through the Beveridge report, the state “threatens to become an octopus which will extend its tentacles over every phase of human existence.” This stood in contrast against Christian teaching both on the role of the family as a social entity and the importance of individual conscience.Footnote 113 Gregg, addressing clergy in Armagh, warned that, if the principles of the Beveridge report were implemented in Northern Ireland, individuals could find “that an iron collar has been fastened on our necks which we cannot release ourselves from.” Gregg, committed to the importance of the church in national life, argued that the more the state intervened in citizens’ lives, the less the church would be needed. Rather, “the place of the Church in public life is of such vital importance” because “the true Christian,” motivated by devotion to God and others, would be “the best citizen.”Footnote 114
In conclusion, historiographical representations of Archbishop Gregg rightly emphasize his dominant, unmoving leadership that earned him the epithet of the “Marble Arch.” His authority was evident, for instance, in the influence he exerted over Irish Anglican efforts toward church reunion in the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, historians have neglected other aspects of his career that were particularly evident during the Second World War, a period that drew increased attention to the Irish border. Gregg's wartime rhetoric demonstrates that he was a British patriot and a pastor, deeply concerned for the welfare of members of his Church. His rhetoric, for the most part, resembled that of many English Anglicans. Irish Anglican experiences of the Second World War, although complex, contributed to a desire for increased post-war unity—a unity that seemed threatened by political efforts to emphasize distinctions between the two states on the island. A comparison of Gregg and other church leaders in Northern Ireland demonstrates that he was also a scholar and stood out from other Protestants in a strongly evangelical country. The “Marble Arch” was a more complicated figure than the one portrayed in much historiography. He sought to foster unity within one community across an island in a time of particular cross-border division.
Acknowledgments
This article developed from a paper given at the spring conference of the Church of Ireland Historical Society in 2018. I am especially grateful to the staff of the Robinson Library, Armagh, for access to the Gregg Papers. Thanks are also due to an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on the scope of the article.
