During the Christmas season, people often achieve enough distance from their daily stress to allow room for some kind of spirituality, whether it be a nostalgic trip to Mass on Christmas Eve or something more eclectic.
Manchán Magan, much-loved writer, broadcaster and Gaeilgeoir, died earlier this year. In an interview with Róisín Ingle, his wife, Aisling Rogerson, said “everyone is looking for something at the moment... religion has failed us.” This echoes the opening paragraph of Hugh Turpin’s book, Unholy Catholic Ireland, one of the first systematic studies of non-religious people in Ireland. In 2011, he found the message, “You have 100 per cent failed humanity,” spray-painted in bright yellow on a Catholic church doorway.
The failures of the Catholic Church are extensive and well-documented. It is not just scandals involving the abuse of children by clergy, or the Magdalene laundries. Turpin documents the visceral disgust some feel toward the Catholic Church. They see it as their mission to dismantle the Church’s influence, including persuading cultural Catholics to drop rituals including Baptism and First Holy Communion.
Sociologist Tom Inglis documented how the model of the good Irish person was once an observant Catholic. Turpin posits that the cultural ideal of the good Irish person is now a secular crusader, and notes that some sectors of Irish society aspire for the country to be a “paragon of purity again, but this time a progressive secular one: Wholly Woke Ireland, a cosmopolitan and caring prefect of modernity.”
Thousands celebrate ‘magical’ winter solstice sunrise at Newgrange ancient tomb
Vanity Fair article on the Trump White House was brutal, merciless and invaluable
Inside a hospice at Christmas: ‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this. It’s beautiful here’
Man found dead in Phoenix Park was unidentified for a year, despite ID in pocket
Turpin’s quantitative research dates from 2017, and “wholly woke Ireland” is a phrase much more likely to be used ironically today. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that the numbers identifying with no religion have grown with every Census.
In 2022, over 14 per cent of the population, or 736,210 people, reported having no religion. A further 3,823 reported that they were agnostic or atheist. There were also 3,254 self-described lapsed Catholics, down from 8,094 in 2016. That statistic alone could probably provide someone with material for a PhD. Why would someone primarily identify as a lapsed Catholic?
The 736,210 claiming no religion are not claiming no belief at all. In fact, a survey carried out by Amárach Research last May for the Iona Institute (of which I am a patron) shows highly eclectic variants of belief.
Atheist Ireland helpfully rounded the Amárach results to the nearest whole number, stating that of every 10 Irish people, only one now says they are religious only, three say spiritual only, and another two say they are both. Another three say they are neither, and one doesn’t know. Therefore, about six in 10 identify as religious, spiritual, or both.
The three in 10 who are neither spiritual nor religious are more likely to be male. The figure rises to 42 per cent among both genders aged 25 to 34, who are the most disenchanted age group. The next youngest cohort, 18- to 24-year-olds, where 31 per cent are neither spiritual nor religious, is not too different from the average for all age groups (30 per cent).
I had thought that the spiritual but not religious figure would be higher, especially given the huge cultural change in wedding celebrations in Ireland. In 2024, nearly a quarter opted for Spiritualist, pagan or Celtic ceremonies.
The Spiritualist Union of Ireland is the largest single provider of opposite-sex weddings after the Catholic Church, amounting to 1,446 or 7 per cent of all marriages in 2024. (The Catholic Church carried out 6425, roughly 32 per cent of weddings.)
The Spiritualist Union aims to promote spiritualism as a religion and facilitate growth in mediumship.
Until recently, mediumship (two-way communication with the dead) was regarded as eccentric at best. However, “spiritual but not religious” is a very broad category. It embraces those who came out in the pouring rain for Magan’s month’s mind, which featured a druid and spiritual dancing. It can also encompass individuals who reject various aspects of Catholicism, but who are deeply influenced by the person and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Those who describe themselves as religious are often sniffy about the spiritual but not religious, suspecting that this kind of individualised, subjective belief is so eclectic as to be incoherent. Religious believers also resent the implication that they are not spiritual themselves, just because they express their belief through membership in a community with clear parameters.
However, there is another, more challenging perspective for orthodox believers. Many religious individuals struggle to express the depth of their spirituality in a way that is understandable or attractive to others. The first Christians attracted converts in droves because of their radical concern not just for each other, but also for the poor, the rejected, and outcasts.
Churches will be fuller at this time of year. Perhaps religious communities need to reflect on why these extra visitors do not find the meaning they seek. It is too easy to assume that it is just because a faith in “whatever you are having yourself” will always triumph over a demanding religious tradition.
