Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Jonathan Cherry
2018
December
Journal of the Galway Archaelogical and Historical Society
‘Impressions made through the eye’: visual representations of the Irish Church Missions in mid-nineteenth century Galway
Published
()
Optional Fields
Protestant missions; Ireland; 19th century; Connemara; Ireland
70
17
34
The largest British Protestant missionary society working in Ireland during the nineteenth-century was the Society for Irish Church Missions to Roman Catholics, more commonly referred to as the Irish Church Missions (ICM). It had been established in 1849 by the English evangelical cleric, and one-time soldier Rev. Alexander Robert Charles Dallas (1791-1869) who sought the conversion of, ‘the souls of the poor benighted Roman Catholics’ to biblical Protestantism. The primary financial and ideological supporters and sponsors of the ICM enterprise were English Protestant who enthusiastically embraced the mission. However, from the mid-1850s onwards financial support for the ICM contracted, and in an attempt to re-ignite interest, the society published a guide book to their mission in Ireland and commissioned a set of six large drawings depicting their work. The purpose of this article is assess four of these drawings which depict the work of the ICM in parts of county Galway during the mid-nineteenth century, and the respective parts of the guide book that describe these scenes.
Galway
Grant Details