"The question of religion was a matter for each individual's conscience, and in a great many cases was the outcome of birth or residence in a certain geographical area"
About this Quote
Larkin takes a swing at the most stubborn kind of authority: the kind that pretends it comes from heaven but is really delivered by the postcode. In one clean sentence, he reframes religion as conscience first and social accident second, draining it of the mystique that makes it politically useful. The move is strategic. If belief is largely an “outcome of birth or residence,” then sectarian identity stops being destiny and starts looking like a system that can be rearranged.
The intent isn’t to sneer at faith so much as to unglue it from hierarchy. Larkin, a labor organizer in an Ireland where class conflict was routinely laundered through Catholic-Protestant division, is pointing to the machinery behind “religious difference”: inherited affiliation, neighborhood boundaries, school systems, hiring networks. He’s telling workers: the lines you’re being asked to die on were drawn by circumstance and maintained by institutions that benefit when you don’t notice your shared interests.
Subtext: conscience is personal, but your “conscience” has a ZIP code. That tension lets him sound tolerant while smuggling in a hard critique of how identity is manufactured. It’s also a rhetorical peace offering. By admitting that many people’s religion is contingent rather than chosen, he gives listeners a face-saving exit from tribal loyalty: you don’t have to betray your parents or your community to question the political uses of your label.
In Larkin’s hands, geography becomes an argument for solidarity. If faith is partly fate, then sectarian superiority collapses, and the moral spotlight swings back to material conditions and collective power.
The intent isn’t to sneer at faith so much as to unglue it from hierarchy. Larkin, a labor organizer in an Ireland where class conflict was routinely laundered through Catholic-Protestant division, is pointing to the machinery behind “religious difference”: inherited affiliation, neighborhood boundaries, school systems, hiring networks. He’s telling workers: the lines you’re being asked to die on were drawn by circumstance and maintained by institutions that benefit when you don’t notice your shared interests.
Subtext: conscience is personal, but your “conscience” has a ZIP code. That tension lets him sound tolerant while smuggling in a hard critique of how identity is manufactured. It’s also a rhetorical peace offering. By admitting that many people’s religion is contingent rather than chosen, he gives listeners a face-saving exit from tribal loyalty: you don’t have to betray your parents or your community to question the political uses of your label.
In Larkin’s hands, geography becomes an argument for solidarity. If faith is partly fate, then sectarian superiority collapses, and the moral spotlight swings back to material conditions and collective power.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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