This book traces the steady decline in Irish Catholicism from the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 up to the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in that diocese in 2011. The young people awaiting the Pope’s address in Galway were entertained by two of Ireland’s most charismatic clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were subsequently revealed to have been engaged in romantic liaisons at the time. The decades that followed the Pope’s visit were characterised by the increasing secularisation of Irish society. Boasting an impressive array of contributors from various backgrounds and expertise, the essays in the book attempt to trace the exact reasons for the progressive dismantling of the cultural legacy of Catholicism and the consequences this has had on Irish society.

This book traces the steady decline in Irish Catholicism from the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 up to the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in that diocese in 2011. The young people awaiting the Pope's address in Galway were entertained by two of Ireland's most charismatic clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were subsequently revealed to have been engaged in romantic liaisons at the time. The decades that followed the Pope's visit were characterised by the increasing secularisation of Irish society. Boasting an impressive array of contributors from various backgrounds and expertise, the essays in the book attempt to trace the exact reasons for the progressive dismantling of the cultural legacy of Catholicism and the consequences this has had on Irish society.

This book of essays will appeal to anyone interested in the dismantling of Ireland's cultural attachment to Catholicism over the past four decades.

Louise Fuller sets the Church's role in its historical perspective before considering the triumphant institution of the 1950s. It was a Church of piety and ritual: mass attendance, church building, processions, pilgrimages, the erection of crosses, statues and grottos, the widespread dissemination of devotional literature and the cult of indulgences were its distinguishing characteristics. The rising prosperity of the '60s, plus the effects of the Vatican Council, began the liberalisation of Irish society. The bishops reacted defensively. Their conservatism stimulated the emergence of a Catholic intelligentsia, propagating more liberal attitudes and championing the new theology. The '70s and '80s saw a Church more open to liberation theology, to ecumenism and to issues of justice and peace generally, albeit change was gradual and piecemeal. The real revolution did not come until the 1990s, when a succession of clerical sexual scandals fatally subverted the unique moral authority of the Church which had been its greatest strength.

What does it mean to be Irish? Are the predicates Catholic and Irish so inextricably linked that it is impossible to have one and not the other? Does the process of secularisation in modern times mean that Catholicism is no longer a touchstone of what it means to be Irish? Indeed was such a paradigm ever true? These are among the fundamental issues addressed in this work, which examines whether distinct identity formation can be traced over time. The book delineates the course of historical developments which complicated the process of identity formation in the Irish context, when by turns Irish Catholics saw themselves as battling against English hegemony or the Protestant Reformation. Without doubt the Reformation era cast a long shadow over how Irish Catholics would see themselves. But the process of identity formation was of much longer duration. Newly available in paperback, this work traces the elements which have shaped how the Catholic Irish identified themselves, and explores the political, religious and cultural dimensions of the complex picture which is Irish Catholic identity. The essays represent a systematic attempt to explore the fluidity of the components that make up Catholic identity in Ireland.

The fifth volume of The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism--covering the period from the Great War, through the Second World War and the Second Vatican Council--surveys the transformed ecclesial landscape between the papacies of Benedict XV and Pope Francis. It explores the efforts of bishops, priests and people in Ireland and Scotland, Wales and England to respond to modern challenges and reintegrate the experiences and expertise of the laity into the ministry of the Church. Alongside the twentieth century's designation as an era of technological innovation, war, peace, globalization, decolonization and liberation, this period has also been designated 'the People's Century'. Viewed through the lens of the Catholic church in Britain and Ireland, these same dynamics are explored within thematic, synoptic chapters by leading scholars. As a century characterized by the rise, or better renewal of the apostolate of the laity, this edited collection traces the struggles to reconcile tradition, re-evaluate hierarchical authority, adapt to social and educational mobility, as well as to adjudicate serious challenges from outside and within--including inflammatory biopolitics and clerical sexual abuse--to religious belief and the legitimacy of the Church as an institution.

In three short essays (first published as articles in The American Historical Review), Larkin analyzes the economic, social, and political context of nineteenth-century Ireland.