Fighting like the devil for the sake of God : Protestants, Catholics and the origins of violence in Victorian Belfast

This fascinating book about Belfast in the middle of the nineteenth century looks at how and why Ireland’s most prosperous and industrialized town began to tear itself apart. This study provides a vivid example of how a society can come apart at the seams – and how it can stay that way for generations. Through a series of steadily escalating riots, working-class Protestants and Catholics forged a tradition of violence that profoundly shaped their own identities and that of the city itself, setting the stage for the bitter conflicts of the next century. Fighting like the Devil for the Sake of God describes that foundational moment, offering a new analysis of Belfast’s violence that is rooted in the social lives of those who constructed this bitter rivalry and those who were forced to endure it. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Irish and Modern History. -- . This fascinating book about Belfast in the middle of the nineteenth century looks at how and why Ireland's most prosperous and industrialized town began to tear itself apart. Through a series of steadily escalating riots, working-class Protestants and Catholics forged a tradition of violence that profoundly shaped their own identities and that of the city itself, setting the stage for the bitter conflicts of the next century. Fighting Like the Devil for the Sake of God describes that foundational moment. Eschewing traditional approaches that have searched for the ideological or structural causes of Belfast's violence, Mark Doyle looks instead at the social conditions that fueled communal polarization from year to year and generation to generation, asking not 'why did rioting happen?' But rather, 'why did rioting keep happening with such regularity?' The answers - which Doyle reveals through detailed reconstructions of specific riots and an innovative comparison with the relatively tranquil city of Glasgow - lie in the social networks that existed on both sides, in the profound alienation of both groups from the forces of the state, and in the circular power of violence to fuel future violence. By rooting Belfast's violence in the lives of its people, Doyle demonstrates that there was nothing natural or inevitable about this violence: though structured by the centuries-old conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, Belfast's tradition of violence was a constructed tradition, the product of deliberate human action. Its story provides a vivid example of how a society can come apart at the seams Sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland has often had an air of inevitability about it. For over three decades of turmoil and warfare in the twentieth century, innumerable observers spoke of the 'ancient' hatred between Protestants and Catholics, their 'primordial' quarrel, and their 'deep-rooted' hostilities. The author challenges the notion that violent conflict was ever natural or inevitable in this troubled region. Focusing on the city of Belfast, he demonstrates how, through a series of riots beginning in the 1850s, working-class Protestants and Catholics constructed a new tradition of violence that set the stage for the tumultuous twentieth century. He locates the city's tradition of violence in the everyday lives of its people. Showing how violence became a regular, routine fact of urban life - how, in effect, violence shaped people's attitudes toward one another and toward the city itself - he charts the emergence of two polarized, mutually hostile communities in Belfast. At the same time, he also examines Belfast within its broader imperial context, asking what role the British state played in fostering this violence and comparing Belfast's experience with that of the relatively tranquil city of Glasgow Defending the faith : evangelicalism and anti-Catholicism Belfast Catholics : "a mere incohesive heap" An unenviable notoriety : the 1857 riots Local government and Catholic alienation The idea of order : Dublin Castle and Belfast Protestants The city erupts : August 1864 Glasgow : sectarian détent Memories of violence, 1864-86.