Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish (or of Irish descent).
Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be. Neither does the term mean that it is an Autonomous ("sui iuris") Particular Church/Rite, such as Greek Catholic or Chaldean Catholic.
Divisions between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants (both those who would eventually be called the Protestant Ascendancy and those Protestants of more humble societal position) have played a major role in the history of Ireland from the 16th century (especially the Reformation in Ireland movement) to the 20th century (especially The Troubles movement). While religion broadly marks the deliniation of these divisions, it would be incorrect to see the most contentious of the divisions as deriving mainly from doctrinal differences - the contentions were primarily related to access to power. For example, while the majority of Irish Catholics saw themselves as having an identity independent of Britain, and were therefore excluded from power, many of the instigators in rebellions against British rule were in fact protestant. During the Irish Rebellion of 1798, both Catholics and Protestants other than those of the established, or British state church, found common cause, as they both endured discrimination based on not being part of the established church.
Irish Catholics can be found in many countries around the world, the English speaking world especially. Emigration was often initiated by duress as was the case with the Great Irish Famine in the late 1840s, following which the population declined by over half in the following century (from approx. over 8 million to just over 4 million) in the short term due to death from starvation and disease, but in the long term due to the pattern of immigration begun then. The term has currency in the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Some of these nations had, or have, a majority of Protestants; thus, both aspects – being Catholic, and being Irish – at times separated them from the mainstream culture. In the United States, hostility to both these aspects was expressed through the Know-Nothing movement and Nativism in general.
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