‘Darkness Must be Expell'd by Letting in the Light’: Bishop Francis Hutchinson and the Conversion of Irish Catholics by Means of the Irish Language, c. 1720-4

Abstract

This article examines one of the last programmes by the Church of Ireland to convert the Catholic population of Ireland to Protestantism using the Irish language. It suggests that Bishop Francis Hutchinson (1660-1739) designed a Catechism in a new phonetic form of Irish to convert the Catholic charity school children of Rathlin Island, Co Antrim. Hutchinson not only published the Catechism but founded a Church and a charity school there. The project was a failure as his Catechism proved controversial among Ireland's Anglican clergy and faced opposition on the Island itself.