How poor Irish Catholics had to choose between converting to Protestantism or starving during the Great Irish Famine, and how the phrase "taking the soup" became etched into the Irish psyche.
As we begin another significant year of commemorations surrounding the Irish Civil War, it is important to remember that 2024 also marks the 179th anniversary of the beginning of the Irish Famine (1845-1852).
For many, the phrase "taking the soup" is synonymous with the history of the famine.
Protestant Bible societies created schools where starving children were fed, on the condition that they simultaneously receive Protestant religious instruction.
As the food crisis worsened, some poor Catholic families had to choose between Protestantism and starvation. Those who converted to obtain food were called "soupers" or "jumpers".
In reality, souperism was a rare phenomenon, but it had a lasting effect on the popular memory of the famine. It also tarnished the memory of the relief efforts undertaken by many Protestants who provided aid without proselytizing (attempting conversion).
For example, one of these evangelical Protestants accused of engaging in this controversial practice was Reverend Edward Nangle.
A native of County Meath, he established a Protestant mission on Achill Island, County Mayo, in 1834 and worked there for 18 years to bring Christianity to the island's inhabitants.
When Edward Nangle arrived on Achill Island with his young family, it was one of the most destitute places in Ireland, jutting out into the Atlantic off the coast of Mayo.
Nangle's project was bold. He wanted to transform the island and lift its inhabitants out of misery, which he attributed to the papacy and the Catholic Church. He would bring the Bible to the islanders in their native language.
He would create schools, reclaim land, provide medical services, and encourage good living. He wanted to civilize the island, and scriptural education was his primary tool.
At that time, Achill Island was populated by about 6,000 Irish Catholics, mostly poor.
Nangle himself was perceived as a difficult and intolerant man, harboring a deep hatred for Catholicism. By the early 1840s, the Achill Mission Colony settlement included two-story slate houses, a printing press, an orphanage, a hospital, a post office, a dispensary, a corn mill, and farm buildings, surrounded by fields reclaimed from the damp mountain slopes.
In 1842, the settlement housed 56 families, totaling 365 people. Only 11 of these families were of Protestant origin, the other 45 being of Catholic origin. As the mission grew, it attracted increasing public attention. Samuel and Anna Hall visited the Achill Mission as part of a trip to Ireland the couple had undertaken with the aim of producing a tourist guide to Ireland.
Upon arriving at the settlement, they conducted a brief overview of the mission, considering the financial resources committed and the concrete results. However, they were not "enchanted" by Nangle's strict approach towards the pupils of the school, the mission, and the orphanage.
The Halls described the mission as a "complete failure" and attacked Nangle, whom they described as a man lacking a true sense of gentleness, love of peace, and Christian zeal.
A similar visit by Asenath Nicholson, an American author, drew unwelcome attention to the expenses and revenues of the Achill Mission Colony and raised questions about the organization's benefits.
Nangle's physical and mental health had been precarious since his youth. With the arrival of the Great Famine, his health collapsed. Despite this, he managed to gather enormous resources by raising funds, mainly in England, for the Achill Mission.
In the spring of 1847, at the height of the famine, Nangle and the colony employed 2,192 workers and fed 600 children daily. By July 1847, it was suggested that 5,000 of Achill's 6,000 inhabitants were receiving tangible aid from the mission, which had planted 21 tons of foreign potatoes free from blight.
What seemed a humane gesture quickly found itself at the heart of controversy. He was accused of "souperism," that is, of obtaining conversions through material benefits such as food. "Edward Nangle, in turn, stated that no child was admitted to the colony's schools unless they were prepared to receive Protestant religious instruction, but that his schools had saved many from starvation.
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The Achill Mission very certainly saved many people from starvation—a place of refuge in those difficult times. When conditions improved, many of those who had left the Catholic faith quickly returned to the fold.
In 1852, Nangle left Achill after 18 years of work on the island and settled in County Sligo, where he became rector of Skreen.
Today, the remains of Edward Nangle rest in Deansgrange Cemetery, County Dublin.
Finally, the souperist practices reported at the time notably included serving meat soups on Fridays—which Catholics were not permitted to consume according to their faith.
Soupers were frequently ostracized by their own community and strongly denounced from the pulpit by the Catholic priesthood. Sometimes, soupers had to be protected by British soldiers from other Catholics.
This article was originally published by Irish Central and then translated by LeCatho | Original link.