They are one of our smallest minorities (about 1,600 people). They do not have a very high profile, and yet most Irish people would harbour a positive, even affectionate, view of Quakers, whose most famous members in Ireland include the Bewley and Jacob families. This is partly rooted in a recognition that they oppose all war "as inconsistent with the spirit and teaching of Christ", but also in their disposition to avoid conflict in daily life while working to relieve the suffering of others, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Contemporaries will think of Victor Bewley and his selfless work for Travellers in past decades. But speak to an older generation and they will tell stories passed down for over a century-and-a-half about the efforts of Quakers to help the starving during the Famine.
Working mainly in hardest-hit areas of the west and south-west, they gave out soup and food, they tried to educate people in farming grains and vegetables other than potatoes and, along the coast, they helped equip people with the means to fish. But, unlike other Christian denominations, they did so unconditionally. They did not demand that the starving convert before being "saved". Or insist, as did some landlords, that the hungry build the equivalent of lighthouses in bogs rather than receive relief money "for nothing".
Ireland's Quakers (about 900 in the North, 500 in Leinster, 200 in Munster, and "pockets" in the west) are this year celebrating the 350th anniversary of their first recorded meeting on this island - at Lurgan, Co Armagh, in 1654. William Edmondson was responsible. He had been a soldier in the parliamentary army in England, but moved to Ireland, later living at Mountmellick, Co Laois.
Tomorrow, the anniversary of that first meeting will be marked by an Open Day - from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. - in the Quaker Meeting House at Monkstown, Co Dublin (at the junction of Pakenham and Carrickbrennan roads), where visitors will be familiarised with Quaker history in Ireland as well as its current contribution to the country. Philip Jacob, of the Quakers' Monkstown congregation, says there will be similar open days on July 10th and 18th.
At Kelly's public house at Timahoe, Co Laois, next Friday, the Quakers will celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first Quaker meeting there. They do not have plans, however, to celebrate the 34th anniversary of the visit of US President Richard Nixon to Timahoe in 1970. His ancestors came from the area. "He is a Quaker we are not terribly proud of," says Jacob, who is a former Clerk of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Ireland. Jacob is a relative of the W & R Jacob Irish Quaker biscuit-making family.
Indeed, an overwhelming feature of Quaker history in Ireland this past 350 years has been their comparatively disproportionate success in business. Well-known names include jam manufacturers Lamb, Roberts's and Goodbody's cafés (as well as Bewley's), Goodbody in tobacco, Malcolmson in cotton (they built Portlaw, Co Waterford), and Penrose, Gatchell, White who began Waterford Glass.
Then there are all those bankers - Hoare, Pike, Newenham, and Pim. Names not as prevalent today, but very prominent in the 19th century and the early part of the last century in Ireland.
A major factor in their business success was the strict code of ethics applied by the Quakers to their work, but also a refusal by them to swear oaths, which for so long prevented them from attending university or entering the professions. They also had a reputation as good employers and retained the loyalty of their workforce.
Internationally, probably the best-known Irish Quaker is Denis Halliday, the former UN assistant secretary, who resigned over the sanctions against Iraq and was outspoken about their effects on that country.
Another distinguished Irish Quaker was the astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who helped in the discovery of pulsars. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, was descended from Irish Quakers. In 1726 an ancestor, Abraham Shackleton, founded the Quaker school at Ballitore, Co Kildare, which continued until 1847.
Irish Quakerism played a seminal role in the creation of the US "Quaker State" - Pennsylvania. In 1667, William Penn, then 22, was spending time on his father's estate in Cork when he first encountered Quakers, and he was deeply impressed. Years later, when he inherited vast tracts of land in the US, transferred to his father in return for a large loan to the King years before, he developed Pennsylvania which, from 1683 (until 1756), was developed along lines dictated by his Quaker beliefs. He also founded the city of Philadelphia (city of brotherly love) where, until recent years, his statue on top of a building marked the highest point in the city.
In 1652 the Religious Society of Friends, as Quakers are properly known, was founded by George Fox in England. He and other "Friends" preached a renewal of the Christian message. They preached that Friends were to be sober, simple, plain, honest, unostentatious, industrious, courageous; that the poor were to be cared for; that there was to be no tale-telling or detraction of another person's character and there was to be no swearing of oaths.
Quakers have no paid ministers, but every member of the Society undertakes responsibilities according to their abilities. Decisions at meetings on Church affairs are not arrived at by vote, but by discerning the sense or feeling of the meeting. Consensus is always striven for. They also lay no claim to being in sole possession of an only way to God, but simply say their way is the one that is right for them.
Approximately 1,900 children attend Quaker-run schools in Ireland: at Lisburn, Co Antrim; Newtown, Co Waterford; Drogheda Grammar School, Co Louth; and Rathgar junior school in Dublin. Quakers also run the Bloomfield care centre for the elderly in Donnybrook, and their central offices and library are located at nearby Swanbrook House.
Quakers number 338,206 worldwide: 19,055 in Europe and the Middle East (including 13 in Moscow); 10,078 in Asia and the West Pacific; 152,856 in the Americas; 156,162 in Africa; and 55 "international members".
And why are they called Quakers? It is said that George Fox used to proclaim "thou shalt quake at the word of the Lord". And Friends? They are the "Friends of Truth."
God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit
Baptism of the spirit. "Water baptism seems to us unnecessary."
They do not believe in a written creed, "as the constant seeking for a deeper relationship with God can be limited by an unchanging creedal statement".
That all are welcome to communion with God, at any time.
That the will of God is best discerned through collective worship and decision-making, "rather than through an individual who is head of the Church".
That there is "that of God" or "the light of God" in everyone.
Simplicity. Meeting houses are plain.
Honesty and integrity
Equality of men and women
That all war is inconsistent with the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ.
"In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity."