Say Nope to the Pope: performance and resistance in the creative interventions during the 2018 papal visit to Ireland

ABSTRACT

In September 1979, the newly elected head of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, made a historic pastoral visit to Ireland where he celebrated an open-air mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park to an estimated 1,250,000 people, a third of the country’s population. In August 2018, Pope Francis returned to Ireland, though the second papal visit was met with a series of protests and a lower-than-expected turn-out at the public mass in Phoenix Park. In the intervening years Ireland underwent broad social changes and the credibility of the Catholic Church, once the bedrock of morality in Ireland, was eroded by scandals revealing the depths of clerical sex abuse and abuse in Catholic-run institutions. This article considers the creative protests and interventionist actions that marked the 2018 Papal visit, using Judith Butler’s Notes Toward A Performative Theory of Assembly (2015) to think through these public actions. Focusing specifically on Say Nope to the Pope and the associated events of Stand 4 Truth, it explores these public performances of protest grounded in solidarity and resistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative activism
• performance
• Catholic Church
• Ireland
• protests

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. McGarry et al., “Aesthetics of Global Protest,” 16.

2. Tilley, “Undefining Creative Activism,” 24.

3. Butler, Performative Theory of Assembly, 11.

4. Ibid., 18.

5. Goldman, “From Spectating to Witnessing.”

6. Howard, “The Apparitions of Emotion.”

7. Richardson and Schankweiler, “Affective Witnessing,” 3.

8. Ibid., 1.

9. Ó Corráin, “Why did Pope John Paul II,” 473.

10. Census Figures 1981, 2016, 2022.

11. Stolz and Tanner, “Theory of Religious-Secular Competition,” 315; and Conway, “Catholic Sociology in Ireland.”

12. Hirschle, “From Religious to Consumption-Related Routine Activities,” 686.

13. Keogh, “Catholic Church in Ireland”; and Conway, “Irish Catholicism,” 143.

14. Inglis, Moral Monopoly, 64.

15. Girvin, “An Irish Solution,” 2.

16. Ó Corráin, “Why did Pope John Paul II,” 483.

17. Simpson and O’Connor, “People Need a Shock.”

18. Butler Cullingford, “Seamus and Sinead,” 61.

19. O’Connor, Rememberings, 177.

20. O’Rourke et al., CLANN: Ireland’s Unmarried Mothers, 13.

21. Ibid.

22. O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, “Coercive Confinement,” 2.

23. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries, 88.

24. Power and Scanlon, Dark Secrets of Childhood, 91.

25. Breen, “Suing the Pope,” 88.

26. Ganiel, “Pope Francis versus Mary McAleese,” 457.

27. Donnelly and Inglis, “The Media and the Catholic Church,” 4.

28. Keenan, Child Sex Abuse, 11.

29. Ibid., 16.

30. Ibid., 51.

31. Inglis, “Church and Culture,” 23.

32. McDonagh, “Abortion and Gay Rights in Ireland,” 5.

33. McDonald et al., “Campainging for Choice,” 133–136.

34. “Cross Slogan Horrific,” Irish Press, September 6, 1980.

35. Kenny, “Cowardly,” 15.

36. Kelly, Contraception and Modern Ireland, 295.

37. O’Toole, “The Diceman’s Queer Performance,” 176.

38. Enright and Cloatre, “Transforming Illegality,” 262.

39. Conlon, “Irish Student Movement.”

40. Fitzpatrick, “Turning the Tide.”

41. Walsh, “Performances of Autonomy,” 38.

42. McGarry, “Say Nope to the Pope.”

43. Sherwood, “Say Nope to Pope.”

44. The Project, “Say Nope to the Pope.”

45. @rtepolitics 4.35 pm June 27, 2018. https://x.com/rtepolitics/status/1011996408814145536?s=20.

46. 7.31 pm Twitter @RTEPolitics June 27, 2018.

47. Ibid.

48. Gately, “WMoF not Fazed.”

49. Ibid.

50. O’Farrell, “Religious Education,” 3.

51. Ibid., 5.

52. Lonergan, “Say Nope to The Pope.”

53. O’Brien, “Pope Ireland Visit 2018.”

54. See note 43 above.

55. O’Neill, “Protestors Grab Pope Tickets.”

56. Ganiel, “Pope Francis versus Mary McAleese,” 455.

57. Turpin, Unholy Catholic Ireland, 93.

58. Hayward, “Use of Visibility in Contentious Events,” 63.

59. Ibid.

60. Little, “Pope Asks for Forgiveness,” 2018.

61. Butler, Performative Theory of Assembly, 9–10.

62. Ibid., 26.

63. The images were of Mary Raftery, Marie Collins, Christine Buckley, Colm O’Gorman, and Andrew Madden. While it is unknown if permission was sought for these projections, it is unlikely that the Archdiocese of Dublin would grant permission for an action.

64. Holland, “Protest Over Cleric Abuse.”

65. McGettrick et al., Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries, 191.

66. Tweet @StephaniesBRegan 08.53 August 27, 2018.

67. Butler, Performative Theory of Assembly, 15.

68. See note 5 above.

69. O’Toole, “THEATREclub’s Ireland Trilogy,” 364.

70. Lilja, “Dangerous Bodies,” 346.

71. Ibid.

72. Evers, “Christine Buckley.”

73. Howard, “The Apparitions of Emotion,” 112.

74. Ibid., 118.

75. Lyne, “Pope Visit Ireland 2018.”

76. McGettrick et al., Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries, 113.

77. Ibid., 114.

78. Ibid., 191.

79. Fischer, “Feminists Redrawing Public and Private,” 1004.

80. McDonald et al., “Campaigning for Choice,” 139.

81. Lilja, “Dangerous Bodies,” 350.

82. See note 2 above.

83. Ryan, “Stand for Truth.”