Republics: for and against religion

I went to an interesting seminar at UCD a few weeks ago, which looked at the nature of Republicanism in Ireland as compared with France, but with references to the United States. Margaret O’Callaghan argued that because the initial revolution in 1798 failed and went underground there is a paucity of reliable academic research on the subject. One potential track between the protestant revolutionaries of ’98 and current Unionist thought is in the writings of French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and his famous assay of society in the US Republic.

This piece on the value of religion to the citizen is particularly revealing:

“A sceptic himself, Tocqueville believed that religious dogma could offer to modern individuals those certainties of which they felt deprived. Once again he was confronted with a puzzling contrast between the American and French models: the American example showed that religious sentiment could become a support, rather than an obstacle, to liberty, according to Rousseau�s model of civic religion; in France, on the other hand, the modern State, founded on liberty and equality, had been constructed against religion, and indeed through its annihilation”.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty