The Carrigan Committee of 1930-31 and the ‘moral condition of the Saorstát’

Abstract

The character of modern Ireland after partition has long been the subject of debate, by columnists, poets, novelists and historians. John Whyte’s outstanding study of the process by which what he called the ‘Catholic moral code’ became enshrined in the ‘law of the state’ summarised the ‘remarkable consensus’ achieved in the years 1923-37, a time when there was ‘overwhelming agreement that traditional Catholic values should be maintained, if necessary by legislation’. Based on personal reminiscences and published documents, Whyte’s contribution is of enduring value to those seeking to understand the culture of modern Ireland. His account is even more impressive when read against the background of materials which have more recently become available in the National Archives. These enable some of the detail to be filled in, but they also provoke some new questions about the state of the country and the means by which a peaceable Ireland was to be constructed in the aftermath of a war of independence and a civil war.