The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland

What does religion mean to modern Ireland and what is its recent social and political history? 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.

The handbook’s thirty-two chapters address long-standing historical and political debates about religion, identity, and politics, including religion’s contributions to division and violence. They also offer perspectives on how religion interacts with education, the media, law, gender and sexuality, science, literature, and memory. Whilst providing insight into how everyday religious practices have intersected with the institutional structures of Catholicism and Protestantism, the book also examines 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, this is an authoritative and up-to-date volume that offers a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of the enduring significance of religion on the island.

Gladys Ganiel, Professor in the Sociology of Religion, Queen’s University Belfast, Andrew R. Holmes, Reader in History, Queen’s University Belfast

Gladys Ganiel is Professor in the Sociology of Religion at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Her specialisms include religion on the island of Ireland, religion and conflict in Northern Ireland, evangelicalism, and the emerging church. Her books include Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland (Palgrave 2008), Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland: Religious Practice in Late Modernity (OUP 2016), and The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity (OUP 2014), co-authored with Gerardo Marti (winner of the 2015 Distinguished Book Award of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion).

Andrew R. Holmes is Reader in History and Chair of the Religious Studies Research Forum at Queen’s University Belfast. He has published extensively on the history of Protestantism and evangelicalism, including The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1770-1840 (OUP 2006) and The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative Theology, Evangelical Experience, and Modern Criticism, 1830-1930 (OUP 2018).