The Church of Ireland (Anglican) in Donegal

Last updated on: August 2, 2017 at 1:03 am by Ben Witherington

The Church of Ireland (Anglican) in Donegal 2017-07-07T11:36:58-04:00 Ben Witherington

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It is not a pleasant tale to tell of the history of Irish repression by the English going back to Cromwell. Cromwell is not loved in Ireland, considering how many Irish people he killed. And this is not ancient history for the Irish, because they didn’t get their independence really until the 1920s. The scars are still visible. And just to be clear, I’m not even talking about northern Ireland, I mean the Republic in the south. Nevertheless, and in some ways in spite of all this, there is still an Anglican Church, known as the Church of Ireland in Ireland. It is the largest of the Protestant denominations in terms of membership. It has about 375,000 members, officially. Remember, Ireland is however overwhelmingly Catholic. One place you can see Anglican influence is in the very interesting church in Donegal and it is not far from the Catholic Church which is depicted immediately below. Notice the interesting tall bell tower.

Anglicanism lives in the constant shadow of the Catholic Church throughout this land.
Here is the inside of the Catholic Church…

The Anglican Church is much smaller, and darker, but still quite interesting and attractive. For obvious reasons they prefer to call themselves Church of Ireland, because Anglican, comes from Anglo-Saxon which means English folk.

Here is the Anglican Church in Donegal–
Notice how vrrtical the church is. It is narrow on the inside. Notice the colorful tile floor. This seems to be characteristic of churches all over Ireland, as we saw it everywhere, even in northern Ireland.
Here’s the baptismal font, and note it is not very old, 1938. Actually, my favorite feature of this church is its side entrance, which involves a Norman arch, like you find on the genuinely Norman cathedral in Durham, England.

The signs of Christianity are in various places in this town, for instance, at the classic market cross, the sort of place Wesley preached when he was in England and Ireland.

The Irish have a good sense of humor, and they are proud of their connections to America. For example…z Obviously O’bama must be an Irish name!
One more place to visit in Donegal, the traditional butcher. I wish we still had these in America. Anyone hungry???

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