Presbyterians and science in the north of Ireland before 1874

In his presidential address to the Belfast meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874, John Tyndall launched what David Livingstone has called a ‘frontal assault on teleology and Christian theism’. Using Tyndall's intervention as a starting point, this paper seeks to understand the attitudes of Presbyterians in the north of Ireland to science in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. The first section outlines some background, including the attitude of Presbyterians to science in the eighteenth century, the development of educational facilities in Ireland for the training of Presbyterian ministers, and the specific cultural and political circumstances in Ireland that influenced Presbyterian responses to science more generally. The next two sections examine two specific applications by Irish Presbyterians of the term ‘science’: first, the emergence of a distinctive Presbyterian theology of nature and the application of inductive scientific methodology to the study of theology, and second, the Presbyterian conviction that mind had ascendancy over matter which underpinned their commitment to the development of a science of the mind. The final two sections examine, in turn, the relationship between science and an eschatological reading of the signs of the times, and attitudes to Darwinian evolution in the fifteen years between the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 and Tyndall's speech in 1874.

Struell Wells: pagan past and Christian present

The complex of buildings at Struell Wells, near Downpatrick, Co. Down, is the most extensive at a holy well in Ireland. It comprises two wells, two bath-houses and the ruins of a church. Nearby is a natural rock feature known as St Patrick’s Chair. The earliest reference to the wells is likely to be in the 8th century Fíacc’s Hymn which records the site being visited by St Patrick. The earliest reference to their healing powers can be dated to the 11th/12th century and the site continued to be a focus of pilgrimage at midsummer until its suppression in the nineteenth century. The site seems to be unique in that bathing in the wells constituted an integral part of the rituals performed by pilgrims. A recent study of the holy well phenomenon in Ireland has suggested that the rituals associated with them have their origins in the Counter-Reformation (Carroll 1999). The evidence from Struell, however, strongly suggests that it was an important sacred site in pre-Christian times.

Christian Gottlob Neefe and the Bonn National Theatre, with New Light on the Beethoven Family

When the Bonn stage was closed after the death of Elector Max Friedrich in 1784, the director of its theatre company, Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann, decided to leave the city to further his career elsewhere in the Rhinelands. During the next few years, he was kept informed about developments in Bonn by two of his erstwhile colleagues, Christian Gottlob Neefe and Nikolaus Simrock, whose correspondence paints a vivid picture of musical life in the city during the later 1780s. The new Elector, Maximilian Franz, permitted a visiting troupe to perform during Carnival each year, but repeatedly delayed the decision to re-establish a resident troupe. In 1787 Christoph Brandt, a singer in the Bonn Hofkapelle, attempted a home-grown initiative, perhaps to test the market for a new permanent company. Although this failed almost immediately, a single, well-attended public rehearsal of Monsigny’s Le Déserteur was given, in which Johann van Beethoven made what was probably his last stage appearance. In a letter dated 14 May 1787, Simrock rated his performance ‘zimlich gut’. In the event, a new Bonn troupe was not recruited until 1789, when it featured the young singer Magdalena Willmann. Neefe and his musical colleagues were relieved finally to be able to resume their theatrical careers.