“A Community of Communities”– Catholic Communitarianism and Societal Crises in Ireland, 1890s–1950s1

Abstract  This article argues that discourse on community as a socio-political problem needs to be located within historical, institutional, and socio-structural contexts if it is to be properly understood. In particular, it suggests that the role of religion in promoting forms of communitarian discourse and practice needs to be given greater attention than it has hitherto received within the social sciences. The article pursues this argument through examination of the religious discourse on community cultivated and promoted by the Catholic Church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By providing an analysis of its role in Catholic responses to three major socio-political crises in Ireland between the 1890s and 1960s, the paper suggests that not only does socio-religious discourse on community constitute a powerful alternative to secular social-scientific discourses, but that such discourse is particularly effective in helping to constitute specific groups as communities, given favourable sociological conditions.