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How did one leave the Church in 1860 Ireland or NY?

Tipperary

Thanks in advance for considering this question: How difficult might it have been for a single, young Irish woman who left Co. Tipperary ca. 1840s-1850s to *also* leave the Catholic Church after arrival in NY?

Our G2 Grandmother from Co. Tipperary (Ellenora/Norah Kearney d/o John Kearney and Eliza Fitzgerald) married an English-born Protestant in the Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn in 1860 and as far as we're aware there was no further contact with Ireland or discussion of Catholicism in the family. We've assumed she was born Catholic and left the faith once in the US.

But in reality, what would this kind of change entailed? I can't imagine leaving the Catholic Church was easy at that time, nor would a conversion not have left a paper trail in the Dutch Reform records. In the 1860 marriage record, pastor Denis Wortman recorded that Norah was the "daughter of the late Jno. K[e]arney of Ireland". Clearly he was aware of her Irish background and would have known if she'd converted from Catholicism. Might she have been born a Protestant?

Your opinions on this are very welcome! Can't seem to crack the brick walls around our G2 Grandmother.

mypartnergheeb…

7 replies

I don't believe there was any formal way of leaving the Church. As with today, a person who didn't want to belong to it just stopped participating in it, just walked away.

glanvil3@aol.com

There were plenty of mixed marriages in Ireland in the 1800s, especially in Ulster where there were many Protestants. With a mixed marriage, sometimes one party changed to the other denomination. That sometimes caused family friction but there was no real “paperwork” required. As Patricia says, you just did it.

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Considering the info you have, it's possible she was born Protestant or maybe she made the switch after arriving in the US, but it's hard to say for sure without more concrete evidence.

webodoctor

In A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE BROOKLYN IRISH, Steven Jude Sullivan writes: “Emmet Larkin argues that during the third quarter of the nineteenth century Irish Catholicism experienced a “revival” that made “practicing Catholics of the Irish people.” Prior to the Great Famine, the church lacked the human and material resources to address the spiritual needs of its huge, but only nominally Catholic population.“

This indicates that Irish emigrants of a certain period would not have been as loyal to the church as later ones and may have explained Norah Kearney's actions.

glanvil3@aol.com

Thanks, everyone--I appreciate your thoughts!

mypartnergheeb…

This is an interesting question as there was a loophole that emerged a number of years ago in the Catholic Church which permitted members to ostensibly leave but that particular anomaly was quickly remedied and the church reiterated that once baptised into the church you are essentially forever a Catholic unless you are ex-communicated.  Even if you don't practise, or indeed don't believe, the Catholic Church will still consider you a Catholic, just not a very good one.

 

Patrick

ptkcollins

Back around the time of the famine, there was a practice where families had their children baptised by the Church of Ireland as opposed to the Catholic Church and they would receive an allowance to help with the raising of their family.

ana.sheehan@ou…

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