COLLAPSE: Inside Ireland’s stunning rebuke of Catholicism. I’m sure this will go well for them. It has to be said, though, that the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland brought this on itself.

Plus, this harsh response in the comments: “Land of saints and scholars, who preserved the faith and learning through the Dark Ages. Who are you now, Post-Catholic Ireland? World’s best drunks? Is it all about the craic? The boorish likes of Conor McGregor, Mick Conlan, and Sinead O’Connor are your public faces these days. Well done. Your Jansenist Catholic Church, apparently a mile wide and only an inch deep as it turned out, was made up of Irish people. They weren’t an alien force dropped on you from outside. Your church was Irish in character.”

I take the point, though I never heard that Ireland was a hotbed of Jansenism. But I may be mistaken; I’m not a religious scholar, just the kid of one.

UPDATE: John McCormack writes:

Yes, Jansenists had a huge influence on the RC Church in Ireland, historically.

During those centuries when Catholics could not be educated formally in Ireland, they had to leave the British Isles to do so.

By historical accident, it was the Jansenists the Irish first encountered on the other side of the Channel and who left a deep imprint on the those expatriates.

Interesting.