Religious tensions

The religious divisions in Ireland are too well-known to require detailed treatment here. Although a substantial majority of the population was Roman Catholic (over three-quarters in the period examined here), the official religion of the state was Protestant, established in the Church of Ireland (the adherents of which made up only 12 per cent of the population in 1861).Footnote ² A parliamentary return shows that overall, in 1861, 87 per cent of workhouse inmates were Catholic, a percentage that would have been higher in many parts of southern Ireland.Footnote ³ In Connaught, for example, there were only 182 members of the established Church and one Presbyterian out of 4,893 workhouse inmates, the remainder being exclusively Catholic. There had been a long history of religious tension. More recently this had been exacerbated by the Tithe war in the 1830s and what Irene Whelan describes as the Bible war in the period before the famine.Footnote ⁴ Religious tensions continued during the famine, during which, according to Christine Kinealy, ‘widespread hunger was used as a lever for persuading the poor to convert to Protestantism’.Footnote ⁵ She argues that such proselytism in Ireland was primarily associated with the two main Protestant Churches. These activities left a long folk memory. Tensions increased in the 1850s as a result of Lord John Russell's attack on Catholicism and the subsequent Ecclesiastical Titles Act arising from the pope's decision to establish an English Roman Catholic hierarchy with territorial titles.Footnote ⁶ This led to a strong adverse response among Catholics in Ireland and was an important factor behind the establishment of an independent Irish party and the fall of the Russell government. Tensions were further exacerbated by the decision of Lord Derby's government to enforce the law banning the practise of Catholicism in public (and the subsequent Stockport riots).Footnote ⁷

The introduction of the poor law in Ireland

Ireland, unlike England and Wales, had no national poor law before 1838. Indeed, it seems unlikely that an Irish parliament (of whatever complexion) would have introduced a national system of poor law similar to that introduced by the UK government in 1838.Footnote ⁸ The 1838 poor law very much followed the English model (introduced in 1834), although in many ways a ‘purer’ form. As no system of outdoor relief existed in Ireland, relief under the poor law was confined solely to indoor relief in workhouses. While the onset of the great famine in the late 1840s led to the temporary introduction of outdoor relief, by the 1850s it had been effectively abolished once more.

The 1838 Poor Law Act attempted to take a neutral position between the different religions in Ireland. Because of religious tensions (and unlike the situation in England and Wales), no clergyman of any denomination was allowed to sit as a member of a local board of guardians. Since, during the period examined here, the Irish poor law was mainly based on relief in workhouses, the question of the provision of religious services was of particular importance. Section 48 of the Poor Law Act provided that the poor law commissioners were to take order for the performance of religious services in the workhouses and to appoint persons to be chaplains for that purpose, one for the Church of Ireland, another for Protestant dissenters and another for the Roman Catholic Church. Section 49 of the act set out provisions for the registration in the workhouse registers of the religion of persons admitted to the workhouse. It also provided that no inmate of a workhouse was to be compelled to attend any religious service contrary to the religious principles of that person or to which his or her parents or guardians objected. In effect this meant that children were to be registered in the religion desired by the parent or guardian. And once a child was registered in one religion, that religion could not be altered (other than at the request of the parents or guardians) until the child reached the age of fifteen.Footnote ⁹

Despite the attempt at religious neutrality, the poor law was not exempt from allegations of proselytism. In 1851 a poor law inspector investigated charges made by the local Roman Catholic chaplain in relation to the Dingle workhouse.Footnote ¹⁰ He found that the Protestant chaplain had developed a habit of paying a small amount of money (generally between 1d. and 3d. but sometimes as much as 6d.) to those attending Protestant services on Sundays. This was said to be for charitable reasons rather than as a bribe but, unsurprisingly, a small number of Catholic inmates had converted to Protestantism and gave evidence to the inspector that the money was, in part, the reason for their conversion. The inspector also found that the workhouse master left Protestant children in the main workhouse where they were under the care of the Protestant chaplain while some Catholic children were sent to an ‘isolated’ auxiliary workhouse. The inspector found that the actions of the Protestant chaplain were entirely wrong and at variance with the poor law and the poor law commissioners sought and received an undertaking from him that he would desist from this practice. This small example shows the sensitivity of the issue in Irish workhouses.Footnote ¹¹

The situation was exacerbated when a lacuna in the legislation was identified: it did not specifically deal with the situation where the religion of the person entering the workhouse was not known. It soon became apparent that in a significant number of cases young abandoned children were admitted to the workhouse in circumstances where little or nothing was known about their parenthood or religion.Footnote ¹² As early as January 1842 the poor law commissioners referred a case to the then Irish attorney-general, Francis Blackburne, for his opinion as to the appropriate response.Footnote ¹³ Blackburne replied, in a very short opinion, that ‘the guardians ought … to cause the child to be educated in the religious creed of Protestantism, the religion of the state’. The issue continued to come before boards of guardians who were clearly reluctant to obey the bald advice of the attorney-general. Edward Gulson, assistant poor law commissioner, accepted in his evidence to a House of Lords select committee on the poor laws in 1846 that some children continued to be baptised as Catholics despite the ruling.Footnote ¹⁴ In some cases children were brought before the board of guardians and asked to bless themselves as evidence of religion and boards of guardians sometimes voted as to the appropriate religion in which to register the child.Footnote ¹⁵

Accordingly, in August 1854, the poor law commission referred the point to the current attorney-general, Abraham Brewster,Footnote ¹⁶ seeking advice as to what should happen when, although nothing was known about the religion of the parents, the child had been baptised as a Roman Catholic or had been taught to bless itself and recite certain prayers, thus showing that it had been taught certain Roman Catholic practices. Brewster replied that a certificate of baptism was not in itself decisive, for instance in the case of a stolen or deserted child. Only where the baptism was on the initiative of the parents would it be decisive. In other cases evidence of baptism was more or less powerful evidence according to the facts of the case. He went on to say that the question of a child who demonstrated knowledge of certain religious practices raised a difficult question. It would be ‘most injurious to unsettle, and perhaps destroy, all belief by making a compulsory change’ but, on the other hand, a child might be instructed so as to fulfil this condition. He concluded that it would be contrary to the spirit of the law to endeavour to make converts, and where the religion of the parents was certain the child should be registered in that religion. However, this begged the question which the poor law commissioners had raised. Brewster's opinion, which stated that he agreed with Blackburne's approach insofar as it was applicable, was of little benefit to the commissioners who wished to establish whether it was applicable where there was some evidence of the religion in which the child had been brought up.

Later that year the commissioners again referred the case to Brewster, this time in conjunction with the solicitor-general, William Keogh, requesting their joint opinion.Footnote ¹⁷ However, the two law officers were unable to agree and provided two separate opinions. The attorney-general repeated his opinion that evidence of baptism was not binding and that the value of such evidence depended on the circumstances of each case. The basic question was whether or not evidence of baptism was evidence of the religion of the parents. In the absence of other evidence, Brewster opined that evidence of baptism was no evidence either way. However, he did clarify his position in relation to religious instruction, stating that if the guardians established that the child had been instructed in a certain religion, they ought not to disturb it. Keogh, in contrast, argued that baptism raised a strong presumption that the child had been baptised at the desire of the parents and in the same religious denomination. In the absence of other evidence, a baptismal certificate, he believed, rendered it a duty on the board of guardians to register the child in that religion. He agreed with Brewster that where a child showed evidence of religious instruction, the child should be registered in that religion. He somewhat pointedly remarked that he was not asked about Blackburne's original opinion and stated that he was much influenced by the munificent intention of the legislature to discountenance all interference with the religion of workhouse inmates. However, despite Keogh's more favourable opinion, the Poor Law Commission appears to have believed that they remained bound by Blackburne's original opinion and Brewster's subsequent opinion in relation to baptism.Footnote ¹⁸

Perhaps surprisingly there is little indication that the Roman Catholic hierarchy, as a body, gave much attention to this point in the 1850s, despite its concerns about proselytism generally. Indeed, the hierarchy does not appear to have seen the poor law as a priority.Footnote ¹⁹ In the late 1850s it seems to have begun to pay more attention. A meeting of the four Irish archbishops in March 1858 drew up a series of resolutions which were forwarded to Rome.Footnote ²⁰ These included the following:

1. 8. We consider the relations of the Catholic Church and of our Catholic Chaplains in Work-Houses highly unsatisfactory. The administration of the Poor-Law in this Catholic Country being intrusted almost exclusively to Protestants wholly unacquainted with, or not having to respect for the doctrine or discipline of our Church.

1. 9. To diminish this evil we consider it our duty to call upon Government to appoint one or more Catholic Poor-Law Commissioners and a fair proportion of Catholic Inspectors, to set apart in each Work-House an appropriate place to be used exclusively for Catholic worship, to provide a Catholic Education for Catholic Children, and to treat as Catholics all children of Catholic parents or baptized by a Catholic priest.

It is not clear whether any specific action was taken as a result of these resolutions. A pastoral letter was issued reiterating the grievances in August 1859.Footnote ²¹ Writing to the Liberal MP William Monsell shortly after the 1859 general election, which saw a Liberal government return to power, Archbishop Cullen of Dublin, de facto leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, set out what he believed a Liberal government should do to satisfy Catholic grievances, and he did mention that provision should be made for the religion of Catholics in workhouses and jails, but went on to say that this demand referred ‘more to England than to Ireland’.Footnote ²² However, it appears that local Roman Catholic clergy were taking action in their own way.

A case study

In December 1853 in Urlingford, Co. Kilkenny, a three-month-old child was found at the workhouse gates.Footnote ²³ As his identity was unknown, he was given the name John Fortunate and his religion was entered in the workhouse register as Catholic. Nine months later, on 3 September 1854, a second unidentified child, this time one month old, was admitted to the workhouse. Richard Fortunate (as he was named) was also treated as a Roman Catholic.Footnote ²⁴ However, the Protestant chaplain of the workhouse, the Revd Nisbett Lodge, wrote to the board of guardians raising the issue of the boys' religious registration. On 13 September, by an eight to two majority, the board refused to receive the letter unless Lodge placed the complaint in his chaplain's book. The Poor Law Commission, which received copies of the minutes of all meetings of all boards of guardians, requested a copy of Lodge's letter. Subsequently, on 26 September, William Stanley, secretary of the Poor Law Commission, wrote to the board of guardians pointing out that where the religion of deserted children could not be ascertained, the Poor Law Commission had obtained the attorney-general's opinion that the board of guardians should ensure that the child was brought up in the religion of the state, that is Protestantism. The commission, he said, had recently received the same opinion from the then attorney-general (Brewster). However the board of guardians adopted a motion, with the chairman dissenting, refusing to change the registration and saying that they were advised that they were fully justified in doing so under section 49 of the Poor Law Act.

The commission requested Mr Lynch, the regional poor law inspector, to inquire into the circumstances of the case and as to whether the children had been baptised before entering the workhouse. Following initial investigations, Lynch reported that it was not clear if the children had been baptised but that the Roman Catholic chaplain took it for granted that all children of that religion, legitimate or otherwise, were baptised within one to two days of birth. The commission wrote separately to the master and clerk of Urlingford workhouse requesting that Richard (whose religion had not been entered on the register) be registered as Protestant, and asked the board to correct the ‘erroneous’ entry for John.Footnote ²⁵ On 18 October Patrick Henry Cardew, the master, replied to the commission stating that he had entered Richard's religion as Protestant and explaining that, in John's case, Roman Catholic had been entered through ‘inadvertence’ as all the other entries in the register were Roman Catholic. However, the board again refused to change its position and directed the master to have all such deserted children baptised by the Roman Catholic chaplain in the Roman Catholic faith, ‘which faith is the faith of an overwhelming majority of the ratepayers and population of this union’. The board stated that it did not ‘coincide in the view of the Protestant chaplain that all the immorality of the union is confined to the members of the established Church’. Given that the ratio of Protestants to Catholics in the union was 1:20 it was the presumption of the board that the parents were Roman Catholics and they could not in conscience consent to have the children brought up in any other faith. The board directed that Richard Fortunate be registered as Roman Catholic.

The Poor Law Commission requested its legal advisers to begin proceedings to compel the board of guardians to alter the registration. In January 1855 legal proceedings were initiated and the board of guardians decided to defend them. In doing so the board submitted affidavits from a Mr McEvoy, a guardian, and Anne Ryan, an inmate of the workhouse, that Richard Fortunate was, in fact, John McDonnell who had been admitted as a Roman Catholic on 1 September (only two days before the admission of the ‘foundling’ Richard). In view of this evidence the commission decided not to go ahead with the proceedings in that case. The board of guardians resolved to baptise both children as Roman Catholic; a counter motion to ask the Poor Law Commission for instructions was defeated by four votes to three. Proceedings were continued by the Poor Law Commission in relation to John, but these were overtaken by events when, on 28 March 1855, the child was discharged to Mary Dunphy the woman who had found him at the workhouse gates, ‘funds having been sent him for his future support’. In view of this, the commission decided not to proceed further.

There do not appear to be any details of the overall number of cases in which such disputes arose but the problem – or related issues – arises not infrequently.Footnote ²⁶ Similar cases can be found in parliamentary papers, newspapers and board minute books in relation to a number of different unions including Carlow,Footnote ²⁷ Longford,Footnote ²⁸ North Dublin,Footnote ²⁹ Galway,Footnote ³⁰ Glenamaddy,Footnote ³¹ New Ross,Footnote ³² NewtownardsFootnote ³³ and Waterford.Footnote ³⁴ The case outlined above is not untypical of those encountered. Most demonstrated certain common features:

1. 1. Many boards of guardians assumed that children admitted of unknown religion were in fact Catholic and were reluctant to record them otherwise than in that religion.

2. 2. In many cases workhouse officers may well have had strong suspicions as to the identity of children but were reluctant to publicise them, perhaps so as not to stigmatise the parents.

3. 3. The Poor Law Commission experienced considerable difficulties in obliging stubborn or recalcitrant boards to register children in the religion of the state.

The 1861 select committee and the 1862 act

Disputes over the religious registration of foundling children must be seen in the religious context of the times. The late 1850s appears to have been a period of heightened religious tensions in Ireland, perhaps related to the successful ‘making’ of the Roman Catholic Church,Footnote ³⁵ which was manifested in serious sectarian rioting in Belfast in 1857,Footnote ³⁶ the Ulster religious ‘revival’ of 1859Footnote ³⁷ and renewed Protestant proselytism in Dublin and Mayo between 1858 and 1861.Footnote ³⁸ Thus the religious concerns affecting the poor law, of which registration was only one, formed part of a broader struggle between different religions in Ireland, and indeed more broadly in the United Kingdom.

Faced with continued resistance to the implementation of the existing law by a number of boards, who objected to bringing up a child as Protestant in the face of the strong probability that the parents were Roman Catholic, the Poor Law Commission decided that legislation was necessary.Footnote ³⁹ It urged the removal of what it described as ‘an irritating topic of discussion from the Boardroom of the Guardians’. A high-profile case in Galway in 1858–9 led to the eventual dismissal of Fr Peter Daly, the priest involved, from the post of chaplain (although this owed more to Daly's attitude to the Poor Law Commission then to the actual baptism).Footnote ⁴⁰ This may have led in March 1859 to two Liberal MPs, William Gregory (Co. Galway) and Lord John Brown (Mayo), introducing legislation which would have allowed boards of guardians to decide which religion was most probably that of the parents.Footnote ⁴¹ However, it is clear that the Poor Law Commission did not wish to see the matter becoming an issue of further dissension amongst the boards of guardians and, although it received a second reading, the bill was not proceeded with. Lord Naas (chief secretary 1858–9) stated that the approach proposed by Gregory was ‘not the right way’. In his own Poor Law Bill, published in 1859, Naas attempted to address concerns concerning infant mortality in workhouses by providing for the boarding out of foundling children, and doing so in a manner which sidestepped the question of religious registration.Footnote ⁴² However, as the critical Dublin Evening Post pointed out, this effectively handed the religious upbringing of the child to the persons with whom he or she was boarded, and the decision about boarding was to be made by a union relieving officer.Footnote ⁴³ This bill too was not proceeded with because the Derby government fell in 1859.

Instead, the Poor Law Commission proposed, first, that guardians or godparents should have the same rights as parents in relation to children and, second, that the term ‘guardian’ should include the person last lawfully having possession of the child before its admission to the workhouse.Footnote ⁴⁴ These provisions were included in a general Poor Law Amendment Bill published by Edward Cardwell, Liberal chief secretary (1859–61), in 1860. The proposed clause received a mixed welcome.Footnote ⁴⁵ However, for reasons largely unconnected to the specific clause, the bill was withdrawn and the question of poor law reform referred to a select committee of the House of Commons which reported in 1861.Footnote ⁴⁶ In his evidence to the select committee, the chief commissioner, Alfred Power, explained that the commission had great difficulty in enforcing the law and in fact had never succeeded in doing so.Footnote ⁴⁷ Power accepted that the result of the change was that the person bringing the child to the workhouse would, in practice, be entitled to decide the child's religion. However, he explained that the commission chose this solution as opposed to giving the power to decide to the guardians in order to ‘avoid dissensions on those points’ amongst the board of guardians.Footnote ⁴⁸ Power accepted that a proposal by Conservative MP Sir Edward Grogan (Dublin City) to change the law to specify that all deserted children should be brought up in the religion of the state was in theory an alternative, but he believed that the commission would still have difficulty in enforcing it even if it were set out in statutory legislation.Footnote ⁴⁹

The committee heard extensive evidence, although Dr Paul Cullen, archbishop of Dublin, was one of the few ‘star’ witnesses. Cullen's evidence to the committee was highly critical of the poor law.Footnote ⁵⁰ His criticism related both to specifically religious matters and, more generally, to the overall approach to poor relief. In relation to religious arrangements he was ‘altogether dissatisfied’.Footnote ⁵¹ He believed that mass was celebrated in a most unbecoming way and that separate chapels should be provided in all workhouses.Footnote ⁵² He also objected to a number of other aspects including the procedures for the nomination of Roman Catholic chaplains, their salaries, the religious instruction of pauper children and the standard of nursing (many nurses had no training and were of ‘a very low character’ including women who had had illegitimate children) and burial arrangements. On the moral aspects of poor relief, Cullen believed that the system injured morals very much. This arose because the family was broken up and inmates were separated from society but, Cullen believed, ‘the greatest evil … arises from want of classification’.Footnote ⁵³ Having an illegitimate child, Cullen lamented, was not considered sufficient reason to place a woman in a separate ward. Cullen favoured the exclusion of certain classes from the workhouse, including the deaf and dumb, blind and infants and children whom he believed should be boarded out. He thought that the ‘meritorious poor’ got very little and that the diet was not what it ought to be.Footnote ⁵⁴ Finally he believed that there were too few Irishmen and Roman Catholics on the Poor Law Commission and that ex officio guardians were too numerous. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Cullen did not mention religious registration. Nor did this issue feature strongly in the other evidence given although this may, perhaps, be due to the fact that a largely acceptable solution had already been put forward by the Poor Law Commission. After a proposal by Cardwell, the committee approved the religious registration provisions proposed by the Poor Law Commission.

Legislation, largely based on the recommendations of the committee, was quickly drafted, and was introduced by the new chief secretary, Sir Robert Peel (1861–5), in 1862.Footnote ⁵⁵ It included the provisions in relation to the religious registration of children which had been recommended by the Poor Law Commission and the select committee. These provided that (1) the guardian or godparent of a child of unknown religion was to have the same powers as a parent in relation to the child's religion; and (2) in the case of an unbaptised child the term ‘guardian’ was to include the person lawfully having care and possession of the child before admission to the workhouse. The Dublin Evening Packet – not known for its ecumenical tone – opposed the clause as likely to give rise to frequent ‘kidnapping of children by Romish fanatics’.Footnote ⁵⁶ These clauses were the subject of lengthy discussion in committee in the House of Commons. Sir Edward Grogan proposed that all children of unknown religion be brought up in the religion of the state, but this was defeated 97:69.Footnote ⁵⁷ John Vance (Conservative, Dublin City) condemned the move as ‘the first step towards separating the State from the Church in Ireland’, while ultra-Tory Charles Newdegate also spoke against the measure.Footnote ⁵⁸ The Daily Express regretted this surrender of ‘a principle of the Constitution’.Footnote ⁵⁹ The House of Lords adopted a much more rigorous opposition.Footnote ⁶⁰ Viscount Dungannon opposed the clause but, at the suggestion of the earl of Wicklow, agreed to confine his opposition to the provision concerning unbaptised children. The provision in relation to religious registration was amended 24:26 to exclude the provision giving parental rights to the person bringing a child of unknown religion to a workhouse, and the House of Commons did not insist on restoring this as, Sir Robert Peel claimed, an important principle had been gained in that baptism would now be conclusive proof of religious affiliation.Footnote ⁶¹ While their lordships had a point in relation to the actual wording of the clause which could only be justified on grounds of expediency rather than logic, it was clear that it was the Lords' commitment to the Protestant ascendancy which drove the opposition.Footnote ⁶² The Poor Law Commission suggested in their next report that the provision might lead to a delay in admission to workhouses as children being admitted would be baptised first.Footnote ⁶³

After the 1862 Act

The Poor Law Commission sought a further legal opinion from the attorney-general, Thomas O'Hagan, and the solicitor-general, James A. Lawson, as to the position after the 1862 Act, but this does not appear to have clarified the situation greatly.Footnote ⁶⁴ Although the act clearly did not change the existing law (except as regards baptised children) it appears that O'Hagan's opinion expressed a different view as to the interpretation of the existing law to that previously adopted by Blackburne and Brewster. He ruled that ‘Boards of Guardians were not bound to bring up foundlings in Episcopalian Protestantism, as the religion of the State.’Footnote ⁶⁵ However, perhaps incorrectly, the Poor Law Commission continued to adhere to the existing approach.Footnote ⁶⁶

It appears that the 1862 amendment largely allowed boards of guardians to register children in what they believed was the appropriate religion. However, disputes were still arising as late as January 1868.Footnote ⁶⁷ On Wednesday 15 January 1868 a baby was left at the outward gate of Tulla workhouse at about seven o'clock. The master reported that there was ‘no clue had as to the party deserting it’. The following month the Revd Robert Humphreys, the Protestant chaplain, wrote to the Poor Law Commission stating that he had heard accidentally of the foundling and learned that it was baptised two to three days later by Mr Roughan, the Roman Catholic curate. Humphreys asked if this was the usual or legal way of acting. The board of guardians, when queried, blandly replied that the child was about seven weeks old when found and was baptised during one of the chaplain's usual visits. Initially, the Poor Law Commission appeared to accept this and told Humphreys that the child ‘having been, whether properly or improperly, baptized by a Roman Catholic clergyman, and having, it is presumed, Roman Catholic sponsors, is rightly registered as of that religious denomination’. However Humphreys persisted and in March the commission wrote to the board of guardians pointing out that if the parents were unknown the master's duty was to have registered the child as of the established Church, when it would have then been proper to have it baptised by a Protestant clergyman. The commission accepted that the baptism having taken place otherwise, the registration could not now be altered, but warned that the matter was of ‘very serious importance’ and that on the next occasion of the master neglecting this duty the commissioners would deal with him as for an act of grave misconduct. The Roman Catholic chaplain, Mr Bowles, wrote to the board arguing that there was no law requiring a foundling to be brought up in the Protestant faith. He claimed that opinions contrary to that of Mr Blackburne had been given by many equally competent in the subject (presumably referring to O'Hagan) and argued that the master should not be called on to resign ‘because of the religious scruples he may be supposed to entertain on the subject’. The board decided that in future the master should report to the board of guardians before any action was taken. In response the commission wrote to the board of guardians pointing out that while it had been proposed to change the law as interpreted by the late Chief Justice Blackburne and the then Lord Chancellor Brewster, parliament had not adopted that course and the master had a plain duty to perform and could not excuse himself on the grounds suggested. Ultimately, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869Footnote ⁶⁸ removed the basis for Attorney-General Blackburne's original decision and disputes about such points rarely seem to have arisen after 1869.Footnote ⁶⁹

While the registration of the religion of children was a relatively minor issue in the overall scheme of things, it does usefully highlight a number of points about the broader political and religious context of mid-Victorian Ireland.

First, disputes only arose as a result of the British policy of attempting to impose the established religion on a population which was largely Roman Catholic. This led to the law officers' decisions in relation to the necessity of bringing up children in the Protestant faith. Colin Barr recently asked in this Journal whether or not a phenomenon similar to the German Kulturkampf was experienced in Britain and Ireland in the second half of the nineteenth century, concluding that ‘there was no Kulturkampf, with or without an Irish dimension, in the United Kingdom’.Footnote ⁷⁰ But the point discussed in this article surely is, in Barr's words, a ‘manifestation of legal control or repression of either the Roman Catholic Church or individual Roman Catholics’.Footnote ⁷¹

Second, however, it is clear that the British government did not present a united front on this issue. Although strongly committed to the importance of religious services for workhouse inmates, the poor law and its authors had aimed to take a neutral stance between the religions, particularly in an Irish context. The poor law commissioners, overwhelmingly English and Protestant themselves, while recognising the importance of religion in the workhouses, did not show much enthusiasm for the imposition of the state religion on foundling children.

Third, this case study highlights the weakness of the Poor Law Commission. Although the commission is sometimes presented as an all-powerful central body overseeing the implementation of the poor law, in this case, as Power's evidence makes clear, the commission was unable consistently to enforce its will on local boards of guardians. Rather than the exercise of power being one way, the governance of the poor law involved, in a Foucauldian sense, a continuous relationship of power between the Poor Law Commission and the local boards of guardians. This case also illustrates the flexibility of the Poor Law Commission in responding to local opposition: it initially tried somewhat unenthusiastically to enforce the attorney-general's opinion, but on realising the difficulties involved the commission proposed amendments to the law in response to the concerns of boards of guardians.Footnote ⁷²

Fourth, resistance by many boards of guardians to the policy must be set in the context of devotional revolution. The concept of a devotional revolution in post-Famine Ireland – initially developed by Emmet Larkin – focused on a change in Catholic religious practice, drawing on such factors as the rise in the number of clergy and religious in proportion to the population and a significant rise in attendance at religious services.Footnote ⁷³ While subsequent work has questioned some of the detail of Larkin's original thesis, overall it has held up well.Footnote ⁷⁴ Questions which have been raised include the timing of the devotional revolution (that is the extent to which it began before as opposed to after the famine) and the key factors behind it (whether, for example, it was driven largely from the top down by senior clergy such as Archbishop Cullen, or whether it was driven by a change in the social class basis of church membership). While too much weight should not be given to the limited evidence in this case, this study does indicate that concerns about religious registration predated the famine and were driven by middle-class Roman Catholic poor law guardians and by local Roman Catholic clergy, rather than by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Religious registration must be seen in the context of a variety of other religious issues which were subjects of debate and dispute within the operation of the poor law. While several of these, including the right to appoint and dismiss workhouse chaplains, and the salaries they were paid, were driven by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, others, including the disputes examined here, were driven largely by local clergy and lay persons.Footnote ⁷⁵

Finally, this study emphasises the complex matrix of bodies involved in the development and implementation of poor law policy including the local boards of guardians, the Poor Law Commission, the Irish government, the United Kingdom government, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. And, more broadly, it re-emphasises the continued importance of religion and religious issues in politics, not just in Ireland but in the United Kingdom as a whole during this period.