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 IRISH

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IRISH

by the footsteps of St. Columba, in the early part of this century doubled its population in twenty years, largely caused by immigration from Ireland, a Scot- tish writer says. In 1S29 there were 70,000 Catholics in Scotland, of whom 20,000 were in Glasgow. In ISol Glasgow had 80,000 Cathohcs, of whom 62,925 were Irish. In the same year 11-3-1 per cent of the population of Paisley were Irish. In 1854 an Irish Vincentian, Father J. Myers, had charge of St. Mary's, Lanark. Five years later the Irish province estab- lished a house at Lanark. They have still a house in Scotland. In 1800 the Irish Catholics of Glas- gow, with their priests, were much dissatisfied with the manner in which ecclesiastical patronage was distributed. Much antagonism between the Irish and Scots Catholics ensued. The vicar of the Western Dis- trict, Murdoch, carried the matter to Rome and, after an energetic struggle, won; shortly after this he died (1866), and his successor. Grey, received an Irish Vin- centian, Father J. Lynch, as coailjutor. Schism threatening, Grey resigned, antl Lj'nch was transferred to Limerick. Mgr. Eyre, promoted Apostolic dele- gate, succeeded to the Western Vicariate, and at last secured peace. It was during this turmoil that the Irish party first raised a cry for the restoration of the hierarchy, which had been suppressed in 1603. In 1864 Cardinal Wiseman advised Propaganda in sup- port of this restoration. Among other reasons he stated that the overwhelming majority of Catholics in the great commercial and manufacturing towns were poor Irish. In forty years, ending 1835, the number of Catholics in Edinburgh had risen from 700 to 8000, and in Glasgow from 50 to 24,000. Nothing came of it till 1877, when the question was examined. In the following March (1878) Leo XIII, by the Bull "Ex Supremo", restored the hierarchy in Scotland. In 1874 there were 360,000 Catholics in Scotland. To- day there are 518,969, of whom 380,000 are in Glas- gow. Mackintosh, a non-Catholic authority, says: "The Roman Catholics in recent years have relatively increased more than any other denomination."

Of the 398 Catholic churches, chapels, and stations in Scotland in 1909, 36 (or 9-75 per cent) are dedicated to Irish saints. Of these, 12 are under the name of St. Patrick. Of the 13 priests ordained in Scotland in 1909 there were three Irish-born and one of Irish de- .scent. One of Scotland's two archbishops is of Irish descent. The Irish political movements noted in Eng- land apply, mutatis mutandis, to Scotland; but the ^social and artistic impress of Irishmen is less marked there than in England. By a papal decree of 15 Dec, 1909, the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Scotland is now tolerated.

Assuming that the majority of Catholics in Scotland are Irish, the following tables are of interest. In 1901 the total Irish-born population of Scotland was 205,- 064, being 4-585 per cent of the population. Of the town population, 5-438 percent; of the country popu- lation, 2-980 per cent, and distributed as follows: — ■

Shetland 27

Orkney 38

Caithness 44

Sutherland 55

Ross and Cro-

marty 97

Inverness 384

Nairn 37

Elgin 1.34

Banff 104

Aberdeen 820

Kincardine 99

Forfar 5,S2

Perth 1,341

Fife 2,002

Kinross 40

Clackmaonaa. , ., 359

Stirling 4

Dumbarton 9

Argyle

Bute

Renfrew 25

Ayr lo!

Lanark 121

Linlithgow 4

Edinburgh 11

Haddington

Berwick

Peebles

Selkirk

Roxburgh

Dumfries

Kircudbright

Wigtown

,639 ,862 907 475 ,349 632 ,185 ,503 ,985 909 173 298 224 372 719 409 971

Bellesheim, Hist, of Cath. Ch. in Scotland, IV (Edinburgh^ 1S90); MacCaefbey, Hist, of Cath. Ch. in the Nineteenth Cen> tury, II (Dublin. 1909); O'Brien, Two Centuries of Irish His- tory, 1691-1870 (London, 1907) ; Green, The Making of Ireland and its Undoing (London, 1908); Denvir, The Irish in Britain (London, 1892); Boyle, St. Vincent de Paid and the Vincentians in Ireland, Scotland, and England (London, 1909); Census for England and Wales (London. 1901); Census for Scotland (Lon- don, 1901); Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland {Dublin, 1899-1908); Catholic Directory for England (London, 1910); Catholic Directory for Scotland (Glasgow, 1910); Statesman's Year-Book (London, 1910); The Catholic Who's Who (London, 1910.)

D. MoNCRiEFF O'Connor.

V. In South Africa. — The Catholics of South Africa are for the most part Irish or of Irish descent. They do not form a large proportion of the general popula- tion, for the tide of Irish emigration has set chiefly towards America and Australia. Leaving out of ac- count the mission stations founded for work among the native population, it may he said that the distri- bution of the Catholic churches throughout South Africa roughly indicates the cliief centres where Irish- men are to be found, and the growth of the Catholic organization in the South African colonies has run on parallel lines with the increase of the Irish Catholic population. When Bishop Ullathorne touched at Cape Town, in 1832, on his way to Australia, he found there " but one priest for the whole of South Af- rica". The statistics of 1909 show that there were in South Africa in that year 298 priests and 1929 religious, men and women. Repeated attempts to gain a footing for Cathohcism in South Africa had ended in a dismal failure. But in 1837 a new era began when the Holy See separated the South African colonies from the Vicariate Apostolic of the Mauritius and sent as vicar Apostolic to Cape Town an Irish Dominican, the Rt. Rev. Patrick R. Griffith. Bishop Griffith's successors at Cape Town to the present day have all been Irishmen (Thomas Grimley, consecrated 1861; John Leonard, 1872; and John Rooney, 1886), and most of the churches in Cape Colony have been founded by Irish priests. Irishmen form about 90 per cent of the Cat holic population of the Colony.

In 1847 Pius IX divided South Africa into the Western Vicariate (Cape Town and district) and the Eastern Vicariate (Eastern Cape Colony, Natal, etc.). Natal was erected into a separate vicariate three years later. After the rush to the diamond-fields had brought many Irish Catholics into the district, Ivim- berley was erected into a vicariate in 1886, and now includes the Orange River Colony. There were very few Catholics in the Transvaal until the opening out of the Rand goldfield brought a rush of Irish immi- grants to what is now Johannesburg. Until 1885 the handful of Catholics in the RepubUc were attached to the Natal Vicariate. The Transvaal was then made a prefecture Apostohc. It was erected into a separate \'icariate in 1904, when an Irish prelate, the Rt. Rev. W. Miller, O.M.I., was consecrated as its first bishop. Rhodesia is a prefecture Aiiostolie which has grown out of the Zambesi mission, founded liy the Jesuits before the coining of the pioneers of the South African Company brought with it an influx of white settlers. Basutoland is another ])refecture, but here there is a very limited white p(i[)uhiti(iii, the Hasutos having preserved a semi-independence under the supervision of a British "resident". The Vicariate Apostolic of the Orange River, erected in 1901, is another district which has a scattered white population hving in a thinly peopled country, where the mission stations have mainly to do the work for the natives. It in- cludes the north-west and part of the centre of Cape Colonv. its northern boundary- being the lower course of tlic'Orange River. It is interesting to note that the Church obtained its first foothold in this district in ls73, when the Cape Government handed over to Catliolio missionaries a mission station in Namaqua- lanil, which had been abandoned by the Protes-