Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland

This handsome contributor copy of The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland (published in January 2024) just arrived in the post.

Gladys Ganiel (Prof of Sociology, QUB) and Dr Andrew Holmes (History, QUB) have done an excellent job planning and editing what is an indispensible resource for anyone seriously interested in the history and contemporary role of religion in modern Ireland.

I’ve been enjoying reading several chapters with many to go.

The book is divided into three parts, made up of 32 chapters:

PART 1: RELIGION, POLITICS AND SOCIETY, 1800-1922

PART 2: RELIGION, POLITICS AND SOCIETY, 1922-1968

PART 3: RELIGION, POLITICS AND SOCIETY, 1968-2023

For a detailed breakdown of topics and authors see the OUP website from where this abstract is taken:

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland provides in-depth analysis of the relationships between religion, society, politics, and everyday life on the island of Ireland from 1800 to the twenty-first century. Taking a chronological and all-island approach, it explores the complex and changing role of religion both before and after partition of the island. It addresses long-standing historical and political debates about religion, identity, and politics, including religion’s contributions to division and violence on the island. It also offers perspectives on the relationship of religion with education, the media, law, gender and sexuality, science, literature, and memory; considers how everyday religious practices have intersected with the institutional structures of Catholicism and Protestantism; and analyses the island’s increasing religious diversity, including the rise of those with ‘no religion’. Written by leading scholars in the field and emerging researchers with new perspectives, the Handbook is authoritative and up to date, offering a wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis of the enduring significance of religion on the island.

In their Introduction, the editors list a number of questions concerning the future of religion in Ireland:

Will debates between believers and non-believers in both Irelands become increasingly polarized and bitter? Will religion enter its twilight and simply fade from people’s minds and experience? Will the island’s variety of religious groups persist as (albeit smaller) interest groups, contributing to dialogue in the public sphere? Will religious practice become increasingly privatized or de-institutionalized? These and other such questions will continue to animate the study of religions in Ireland.

p. xxxiii

What questions would you add? One I have is around secularization and orthodoxy. How will Christians holding to historic creedal orthodoxy fare in a culture increasingly ‘distant’ from, and likely intolerant of, such ‘archaic’ beliefs?

Cultural pressure for conformity with the status quo will probably increase in the years and decades ahead, across all sorts of ethical, social and cultural questions. How Christians navigate that pressure, both in terms of attitude and actions, will profoundly shape their witness, mission and theological identity.