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Product Description
Brand new, originally published (in hardcover, in 2008) this is a brand new ( and updated) paperback edition, published by Eastwood/Wordwell Books, 2025.
The establishment of Protestant missions in Connemara during the Famine saved the lives of thousands. The poverty-stricken and starving flocked to their schools and religious services to obtain food, although the Irish Church Missions interpreted these vast attendances as proof of devout conversions. Within a few years, bible schools and Protestant churches staffed by hundreds of (mostly English) mission 'agents' sprang up throughout Connemara. The Catholic clergy, aghast at the threat to their flock, responded with an aggressive campaign against the mission, their most effective tactic being the total ostracism of converts. The population became polarised into those associated with the mission and those who stayed away. In reality, the rural population of Connemara were pawns in the struggle for supremacy between the Catholic and Protestant Churches.
This book details their experiences, and explains why most returned to the Church of Rome, with little lasting trace left now of any mission activity.
