Eucharistic Congress

The Eucharistic Congress is a mass meeting of Catholics organized on an international basis and aimed at celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist through lectures, seminars, discussions, and the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The thirty-first congress, which was held in Dublin in June 1932, demonstrated not only the links and bonds within Irish society, North and South, but also the inherent tensions and strains (particularly in the North: for instance, trains carrying Catholics back through Northern Ireland after the event were stoned, prompting complaints from the Catholic hierarchy to the Stormont government).

Interestingly, the Northern Irish government was invited to attend the celebrations but chose to ignore the invitation, though the Northern Irish press gave detailed and balanced coverage of the event. Conversely, Eamon de Valera's government chose to use the congress as an opportunity to snub the governor-general (the representative of the British crown in Ireland), James McNeill. The congress was a coup for de Valera, who gained in world profile and prestige from association with the congress and the visit of the cardinal legate, Lorenzo Lauri. This was ironic given that de Valera's predecessor, W. T. Cosgrave, and the previous Cumann na nGaedheal government had helped to organize the event before de Valera and Fianna Fáil won their first election in February 1932.

The congress organizers presented a distinctive and selective version of life in the Free State, portraying an image of civic and religious unity. The scars of the Civil War lived on in the Free State in the 1930s, and arguably for much longer. Indeed, up to 1927 de Valera and his party had rejected the legitimacy of the state. However, in the face of such a high-profile event, and with the Catholic world watching, the organizers were keen to represent the state as now unified. In form and style, although on a much greater scale, the 1932 Eucharistic Congress owed much to the 1929 centenary celebration of Catholic Emancipation. In its similarities it reminded the audience and participants of the previous drama of the centenary, and by association, it promoted a Catholic and nationalist interpretation of Ireland's past. Carefully organized and choreographed, both observances were preceded by a week of events, including high masses and a special children's mass, building to the climax of a mass held in Phoenix Park. In both the 1929 and 1932 celebrations, the high masses were followed by processions to the center of the capital, where benedictions were held on Watling Street Bridge in the first instance and on O'Connell Bridge in the second. Although both events were meticulously planned, neither the centenary or the Eucharistic Congress were prepared for or performed cynically: They were, above all, genuine expressions of a Catholic state that tentatively was coming into its own. With these two events the relationship between church and state in the Free State was formally acknowledged and affirmed in the modern age. In an almost literal way it was (or was presented as) an act of "national communion."

SEE ALSO Gaelic Catholic State, Making of; Politics: Independent Ireland since 1922; Protestant Community in Southern Ireland since 1922

Bibliography

Harris, Mary. The Catholic Church and the Foundation of the Northern Irish State. 1993.

McIntosh, Gillian. "Acts of National Communion"? The Centenary of Catholic Emancipation and the Eucharistic Congress." In Ireland in the 1930s, edited by Joost Augusteijn. 1999.

Gillian McIntosh