Visual Images of Mission as Propaganda: The Irish Church Missions in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Abstract

The Society for Irish Church Missions to Roman Catholics (ICM) in Ireland during the nineteenth century has been relatively neglected in discussions regarding the promotion of missionary organizations. Through an examination of six drawings commissioned by the ICM in the late 1850s and an accompanying guidebook, the imaginative geographies of mission in Ireland are explored. This investigation uncovers the missionaries’ attempts to convert Roman Catholics to Protestantism, the challenges faced, and accounts of their achievements. Through constructing particular imaginative geographies among the mission’s English supporters, the most significant British missionary society in nineteenth-century Ireland sustained itself through turbulent years.