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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: Joy Dean on Sunday 10 May 09 22:36 BST (UK)
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That would be during the time of one of the famines? when food was in dire need, so Catholics, desperate for food, took the soup at the Protestant kitchen and converted, in order to have food?
Is that, more or less, the gist of it?
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I've read about this occurring - I think this happened one of the people covered in an episode of the UK version of WDYTYA . I cant remember you it was at the moment - but the family was Catholic and the out of the blue a child appeared in a protestant school, and later moved over to England. (poss. somewhere in Wexford ...)
I think this instance may have been after the great famine - but it seems this type of conversion also took place for reasons of better education and employment opportunities
Shane
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This gives an interesting insight (by googling taken the soup catholic conversion) -
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zf6SnYyTZboC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=taken+the+soup+catholic+conversion&source=bl&ots=Uqvb-K5RYp&sig=hzyr99D7shWXFdlnwpj897sagSo&hl=en&ei=Ix4ISu_xEtqZjAeX7pFb&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
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I often heard this expression when grown up in Cork.
The expression was often used by those families who converted to protestant and also agreed with the landlords and the british occupation of Ireland.
Often those who dropped the O in O'Connor, O'Connell and O'Callaghan for example were referred to as they must have taken the soap.
One of the signs people converted to protestant was by dropping the O.
Often by taken the soap as they called it they would receive occupation of land and possibly to own such land alot easier than if they had stayed Catholic.
These families usually converted back to Catholic eventually again but i know myself even around my own area of Cork it is well remembered that certain familes in the area took the soap.
I guess this is not to be confused with people who simply took soap at the soap kitchens when starving.
I think where the expression came from is when people visted the soap kitchen there would be people there trying to convince them to convert to protestant and British ways.
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My family in Galway" took the soup" or were "jumpers," another term used. I found this out when on a marriage certificate, Martin Sullivan/O'Sullivan was a scripture reader, often this was a job a "souper" would undertake.
As far as dropping the O' was concerned the family tended to use it more often than not, so I am not sure if "jumping" had anything to do with it.. The decision to jump would not have been a popular one and sometimes families were split over the decision.
I have thought long and hard about this and read many books and I have often asked myself , what would I have done during the famlne and my family were starving? Later on quite a few of my family did convert back to Catholicism, but it tended to be for marriage reasons.
Its a very interesting subject with lots of different opinions.
Jacqui
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I've noticed it going on long after the famine.
Dublin's tenements were easy pickings at the turn of the century and especially during the 1913 Lockout.
It seems both churches would see what a great opportunity there was when people were starving.
I think Sean O'Casey use to fake an interest in Catholicism with St. Vincent De Paul just to get a feed.
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It happened in Scotland long after the famine where many Irish immigrants lived, particularly in Glasgow and Lanarkshire. The plight of the Irish in Glasgow led to the founding of Celtic Football Club
http://www.irishinbritain.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1151
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There were many difficulties when starting these soup kitchens, but after they were fully operational it was evident it was a success. They had issued “three million daily rations by July [1847], to over 90 % of the population of some western unions” (Gray, “British Relief Measures” 83). This number shows that the British government had succeeded in curbing the mortality, if even just for a little while. However, there quickly came rumors of souperism. Souperism was a term that referred to “that people were only allowed the soup if they gave up the Catholic faith and turned Protestant” (Litton 65). It was common in many places, but mostly only in the privately-owned soup kitchens in the regions of Connemara and West Kerry. Such soup kitchens could refuse soup to the Irish unless they recited the Scripture or came to Protestant Bible class. According to Christine Kinealy, “famine missionaries, such as the evangelicals Reyd Hyacinth Talbot D’Arcy and Revd Edward Nangle, tried to win converts this way” (“The Widow’s Mite”). When this happened, the Irish would be ostracized or even beaten for abandoning their Catholic faith. Therefore, there was a fear among the Irish to go to these soup kitchens, as they did not know what was more important: their faith or food in their bellies.
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/star-of-the-sea-a-postcolonialpostmodern-voyage-into-the-irish-famine/soup-kitchens
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I've read about this occurring - I think this happened one of the people covered in an episode of the UK version of WDYTYA . I cant remember you it was at the moment - but the family was Catholic and the out of the blue a child appeared in a protestant school, and later moved over to England. (poss. somewhere in Wexford ...)
I think this instance may have been after the great famine - but it seems this type of conversion also took place for reasons of better education and employment opportunities
Shane
The WDYTYA programme was on a Redman actress. One of her ancestors was a St Leger also known as Salinger. St Legers lived in Doneraile Co Cork and then one moved to Wexford.
The Wexford part of family were Catholic and then Turned Protestant.
Jfch
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It is perhaps implicit in some of the previous responses, but I just want to point out that there is both a specific and a general meaning to this expression.
The original specific meaning is literally that for someone who converted at one of the evangelical soup kitchens, which were not confined to the time of the Great Famine.
By extension, however, it was applied to **anyone** who converted, whether they had anything to do with a soup kitchen, or not, and was used for many generations after the actual original events.