ABSTRACT
The organ of Irish nationalist opinion, The Freeman's Journal, rallied support by denouncing Lord Hartington for resisting the logic of the argument that Irish education of Catholic children should be handed over to 'the priests and people of Ireland': English Protestants were insincere in favouring a denominational system for Scotland while treating Catholic education for the Irish as subversive of civil and religious liberty. Released from constraint by his loss of office later in the year, Gladstone wrote his attack on Vaticanism but continued to be discreet about Ireland. It was impossible to make out of the secession to Rome of Lord Ripon and others or of the inroads of Ritualism in the Established Church a kulturkampf of any significance. While recognising Gladstone's sense of injury at the hands of Irish bishops, he too is reticent about Catholic Ireland in its bearing on the issue of civil allegiance.
