The Irish Presbyterian Mind considers how one protestant community responded to the challenges posed to traditional understandings of Christian faith between 1830 and 1930. Andrew R. Holmes examines the attitudes of the leaders of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to biblical criticism, modern historical method, evolutionary science, and liberal forms of protestant theology. He explores how they reacted to developments in other Christian traditions, including the so-called 'Romeward' trend in the established Churches of England and Ireland and the 'Romanisation' of Catholicism. Was their response distinctively Presbyterian and Irish? How was it shaped by Presbyterian values, intellectual first principles, international denominational networks, identity politics, the expansion of higher education, and relations with other Christian denominations? The story begins in the 1830s when evangelicalism came to dominate mainstream Presbyterianism, the largest protestant denomination in present-day Northern Ireland. It ends in the 1920s with the exoneration of J. E. Davey, a professor in the Presbyterian College, Belfast, who was tried for heresy on accusations of being a 'modernist'. Within this timeframe, Holmes describes the formation and maintenance of a religiously-conservative intellectual community. At the heart of the interpretation is the interplay between the Reformed theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith and a commitment to common evangelical principles and religious experience that drew protestants together from various denominations. The definition of conservative within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland moved between these two poles and could take on different forms depending on time, geography, social class, and whether the individual was a minister or a member of the laity.

This is the first complete introduction to Irish thought ever available. This volume will be of great value to anyone interested in Irish culture and its intellectual history.

"This perceptive and highly readable book is primarily about the Republic and how it has changed profoundly over the past forty years, as a traditional rural-based society has adapted to a wider modern world. Once so enclosed, the Irish are now committed Europeans and have gained much from Europe. They have banished their old poverty, modernized their economy and lifestyles - but are they losing the old 'Irish' values? On this the nation is split, as a powerful Catholic Church sees its authority contested and social change leads to moral confusion." "Ardagh has talked with President Mary Robinson, Gay Byrne, the king of Irish TV, Eamonn Casey, the disgraced ex-Bishop of Galway, and countless others. His book ranges widely, from the Dublin slums to the fate of the small Mayo farms; it takes in the changing role of women, the young novelists, the music revival, the fight for the Irish language, the new-style emigrants, the creaking political system." "The long chapter on the North gives an upbeat picture of the patient grass-roots efforts at reconciliation, and of how a resilient people continue normal life in the shadow of the ongoing conflict. The logic of history may well lead to a united Ireland - but not by any means yet."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Breaking with a powerful tradition among scholars that insists that Beckett’s Irishness is no more than an accident of birth, Harrington provides compelling evidence to the ways in which many of Beckett’s best-known texts are deeply involved in Irish issues and situations. Providing new readings of such works as More Pricks Than Kicks, Murphy, Watt, Mercier and Camier, Waiting for Godot, and Endgame, Harrington provides an understanding of Beckett’s work in its representation of Ireland, of Irish history, and of Irish literary traditions.