The spiritual conquest of the environment: a transnational history of Muintir na Tíre

Founded in rural Ireland in 1931 by Catholic priest, Fr. John Hayes as a response to the economic crisis of the times, the organisation took as its instruction the Catholic Social Teaching of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891).

As the organisation evolved it brought in other papal teaching, most notably Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno (1931) as well as the examples of a variety of CST-inspired organisations from mainland Europe of the late nineteenth century. This thesis examines how the organisation applied those teachings and how in using them as their guidance became an important part of a transnational network of rural Catholic activism through much of the twentieth century.