Ireland. A history. Part II. Иностранный язык. Фомина И.В. - 8 стр.

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localities which were not to have one until the twentieth century. At the beginning of
the eighteenth century however Irish Catholics had to celebrate Mass on primitive
altar tales in ruined churches and other desperate places simply because there was
nowhere else where they could do so.
    In a religious age, the great majority of the Irish population had to follow their
religion where they could – in primitive structures on the outskirts of towns if they
were lucky enough to find one available, more often in the open air.
    But shortage of religious accommodation was by no means their only handicap. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century, after the triumph of William III, a series of
harsh laws had penalized the majority of the Irish population just because they were
Roman Catholics.
    The penal laws did not prohibit worship of the Catholic religion as such. But even
in religious matters the letter of the law as least was harsh, placing severe limitations
on the activity of the Catholic priesthood. Parish priests were allowed to officiate in
Ireland provided they registered with the authorities – but only parish priests. Not
allowed by law, banned on pain of transportation and even death, and forced into
precarious secrecy, if they did remain, were friars of the regular orders of clergy
(Augustinians, Dominicans etc.), and all bishops and archbishops. Theoretically this
meant that all new ordinations of priests would be impossible and that the Catholic
Church in Ireland would thus eventually die out.
    But the Catholic Church in Ireland did not die out. This was because the religious
sections of the penal laws were in fact applied much less severely in practice than in
theory. There were occasional official drives against what everyone knew was
actually happening, but alongside the official harshness went an unofficial tolerance.
    The chief reason for this was a simple one: enforcement of the religious sections
of the penal laws was impossible. The Catholic Church had the support of the vast
majority of the people of Ireland, and to suppress the Church you would have had to
suppress the people.
    If the penal laws had been or could have been enforced, the Catholic Church in
Ireland would have been wiped out as was the original intention. The fact that the
Church was able to surmount them strengthened not only the Church itself but also
its bond with the vast majority of the population of Ireland who, deprived of all
political and many other rights, saw the Church as the one representative organization
they had. The Church subsumed those popular energies which in other circumstances
might have gone into politics.

   2. Retell the text.

                                        Unit V.

1.Read and translate the text.
   In the absence of all political rights the only other organization which came to
represent the majority of the Irish people was that network of agrarian secret societies
which by the second half of the eighteenth century, under the name of ‘Whiteboys’,
had come to exercise a powerful and often ruthless sway locally in the countryside.