Why did no one try to convert Ireland to Protestantism?

[Zanza]

Are there any examples of attempts by Protestants to convert Catholics, or vice versa?

Yes.

[Razgovory]

Are there any examples of attempts by Protestants to convert Catholics, or vice versa?

No they just magically ended up that way.

[Razgovory]

There were plenty of attempts of convert Ireland to Protestantism.  Less interested in converting the Irish.

[ulmont]

Are there any examples of attempts by Protestants to convert Catholics, or vice versa?

Elaborate.

Elaborate what?

On what you're looking for.  Otherwise the answer is an obvious "Yes."

[Admiral Yi]

On what you're looking for.  Otherwise the answer is an obvious "Yes."

Give examples.

[ulmont]

On what you're looking for.  Otherwise the answer is an obvious "Yes."

Give examples.

Martin Luther?  Calvin?  John Knox?  The Counter-Reformation?  The 30 Years War?

[Sheilbh]

Okay, I'm back from work so I can answer a bit more fully.  There was an attempt at a Reformation in Ireland, it's probably the least successful magisterial Reformation in Europe.  The primary cause of that failure was that it clashed directly with every other aspect of Tudor policy towards Ireland which, in turn, left Ireland open to probably the most successful Counter-Reformation in a non-Catholic state.

The Church under Henry was largely left to the existing Lord Deputy who was himself religiously loyal to Henry but rather conservative.  He was also very experienced and used to dealing with the Irish chiefs.  He managed, more or less, to get all the Bishops in Ireland to move to the Church of Ireland (with Henry as its head).  Far greater effort was made under Edward VI.  A Latin Book of Common Prayer and approved Bible were issued to use until Gaelic ones could be produced.  With the exception of Ulster the Book of Common Prayer and Protestant (Latin) Bible were in widespread use when Mary came to the throne.  But the Reformation is never as rigorously enforced in Ireland.  The Chantry-houses weren't banned until the 1620s and there are municipally funded Corpus Christi parades right up until the 1630s.

One of the ironies of Irish history is that a lot of the problems start with the Catholic Queen Mary.  It is under Mary, inspired in large part by her husband, that plantations of the 'new English' begin in Ireland.  They weren't initially a religious policy.  Rather it was an economic and foreign policy decision to bind Ireland to England through colonial exploitation.

Elizabeth's reign sums up the difficulties of the Reformation in Ireland.  She personally sponsored and funded the production of a Gaelic Book of Common Prayer and Bible (neither was finished until the 1680s, as it happened) and established Trinity College which was to provide a firm educational basis for the Protestant ascendancy.  But it was all rather slow, it's only after 1600 that there's any significant Protestant literature in Gaelic.

At the same time plantations were increased and became the dominant English policy towards Ireland, especially towards the end of her reign, and both the Irish and the Old English increasingly tie Catholicism with their position against the encroaching New English.  In addition they often allied with Spain which was the centre of the Counter-Reformation and by the end of Elizabeth's reign Ireland is being reclaimed by Jesuits and Franciscans, both of whom have a permanent presence by the 1590s  (and the Jesuits have a Church in Dublin a couple of decades later).  It's at this point that the link is made between a sort of enduring Catholicism and Celtic Christianity.  From the 1590s until the civil war there six separate training colleges are established in Spain just for Ireland.

After the Tudors you get the focus on the Ulster settlement.  Ulster was the most Catholic and most conservative and most recalcitrant province.  Militarily it was the heart of all Irish revolts and so it was to be broken, largely by the import of Scots from the borders.  This, in James's reign, and the increasing presence of Puritanism in the English settlers at the end of Elizabeth's is another source of conflict because they push the established Protestant Church of Ireland in a far more Calvinist direction - directly inspired by Scotland.  They think there's too much Popery, Latin and tolerance of damned ways by the Church - as established by Henry and Edward.

Diarmuid MacCulloch, who I've stolen lots of this from, makes an interesting comparison between Ireland and Wales.  Both were historically religiously very conservative.  But there's a Welsh Bible, Book of Common Prayer and Welsh Protestant literature by the 1570s.  There's a Welsh college established in Oxford.  Interestingly the new Protestant class in Wales makes a link between Celtic Christianity and Protestantism, against corrupt Romanism - like continental Protestants see themselves as succeeding the Church Fathers.  Above all, however, Wales remains a province the Tudors are sensitive to and a nation rather than a colony to be exploited.  The consequence is that Wales has one of the most thorough-going Reformations in the British Isles and is probably as devoutly, Low Church Protestant as, say, East Anglia.

In Ireland on the other hand none of the intellectual stuff happens quickly enough and the colonial policy means it's ineffective anyway.  The consequence there is a Jesuit Church complete with Counter-Reformation high altar, confession boxes and all the rest - and, a few hundred miles to the North, a Protestant Cathedral in Londonderry based on the design of the 'ideal' English village parish church of the time.

[Sheilbh]

Or was there an attempt, and it was just so unsuccessful that there's no trace of it today?

To be fair the Church of Ireland still exists.  It's probably 5% of the Irish population and there are many great Irish Protestant figures like Swift, Yeats and Wolfe Tone.

[Admiral Yi]

Weren't the Tudors themselves Welsh?  Surely that must have played a part.

[Sheilbh]

That's what I meant by them always being aware of and more sensitive to the Welsh. But they played up their Englishness and, really, by Elizabeth it's pretty irrelevant.

[garbon]

That's what I meant by them always being aware of and more sensitive to the Welsh. But they played up their Englishness and, really, by Elizabeth it's pretty irrelevant.

Yeah for sure.

[Faeelin]

Sheilbh, that is interesting. What book was it you got this from?

[Martinus]

Are there any examples of attempts by Protestants to convert Catholics, or vice versa?

Are you talking about Ireland or in general? 

[Martinus]

Weren't the Tudors themselves Welsh?  Surely that must have played a part.

Wha...? 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Henry V married Catherine de Valois. After his early death she had an affair with a Welshman called Owen Tudor, there were several children. Henry VII was her/his grandson, though his claim to the throne was as a great-great-grandson of John of Gaunt of course; via his mother Margaret of Beaufort who married Edmund Tudor (Catherine and Owen's eldest son).