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The Ulster Revival of 1859: Causes, Controversies and Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2012

ANDREW R. HOLMES
ANDREW R. HOLMES
Affiliation:
School of History and Anthropology, Queen's University, Belfast BT7 INN; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Protestant portion of the population of the north of Ireland experienced an extraordinary outburst of religious fervour in 1859. This article provides a critical overview of some of the interpretations of the revival offered by scholars and suggests a number of hitherto ignored themes under three headings: causes, controversies and consequences. The first section moves beyond questions of social and economic determinism to outline the sense of expectancy for revival that was created through the Evangelical reform movement amongst Presbyterians in the north of Ireland. The second considers the controversies of the revival, especially the various physical phenomena that accompanied some conversions, and the Evangelical critique of the revival offered by William McIlwaine and Isaac Nelson. The final section shows how the revival consolidated religious identities in Ulster and contributed to obscuring the dominance of conservative Evangelicalism within the Presbyterian Church.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 488 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 J. E. Orr, The second Evangelical Awakening in Britain, London 1949, and The fervent prayer: the worldwide impact of the Great Awakening of 1858, Chicago 1974.

2 John Stuart, ‘Ballycarry’, in William Reid (ed.), Authentic records of revival, now in progress in the United Kingdom, London 1860, 19.

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14 For two very different readings of these themes see John Kent, Holding the fort: studies in Victorian revivalism, London 1978, and Janice Holmes, Religious revivals in Britain and Ireland, 1859–1905, Dublin 2000.

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34 The standard overview of the rise of Evangelical religion in Ulster remains Hempton and Hill, Evangelical Protestantism.

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65 Ibid. 209.

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