Patrick J. Corish

Life
b. Wexford; ed. St. Peter’s College, Wexford, and Maynooth, 1938; wrote MA on Bishop Nicholas French; Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Maynooth, 1947-1975, and Modern History, 1975-88; History of Maynooth, 1795-1995 (Gill and Macmillan 1995); also The Irish Catholic Experience (Dublin 1985); see interview with Daire Keogh, History Ireland (Summer 1996), pp.17-18.

 

Works
The Catholic Community in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Dublin 1981) [cited in Alannah Hopkin, The Living Legend of St Patrick, NY: St. Martin’s Press 1989]; also The Irish Catholic Experience (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1985).

 

Quotations
Humanism: ‘The Irish have only slender traditions of philosophical humanism, much less of a secular humanism. What humanism they are capable of is rooted in religion. It is in some ways a daunting thought that the real elements of pluralism in Ireland may well be the confessional churches; but if it is so, ther is nothing to be gained by a refusal to face it.’ (The Irish Catholic Experience: A Historical Survey, Dublin 1985, p.258).

The Irish Catholic Experience (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1985): ‘[T]he wealthier purchasers, however, did establish themselves as resident landlords, like the Wexford banking family of Redmond, who acquired a large estate, previously Protestant, in 1799.’ Further, ‘most of the land in north Tipperary was still held by middlemen in 1812, most of them Catholics, like the Scullys, the Ryans and the Maras.’ Also, ‘In Wexford town, for example, Richard Devereux provided alomst all the physical fabric for religious and social life from his great personal fortunes.’ (All quoted in review, Books Ireland, Oct. 1985, pp.161-62.)

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