Nigel Yates provides a major reassessment of the religious state of Ireland between 1770 and 1850. He argues that this was both a period of intense reform across all the major religious groups in Ireland and also one in which the seeds of religious tension, which were to dominate Irish politics and society for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were sown. He examines in detail, from a wide range of primary sources, the mechanics of this reform programme and the growing tensions between religious groups in this period, showing how political and religious issues became inextricably mixed and how various measures that might have been taken to improve the situation were not politically or religiously possible.

Bishop James Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin is often regarded both pastorally and politically as the outstanding Irish Catholic bishop of the 19th century. The central focus of this study is Doyle's Tridentine administration of his diocese.

The brilliant Bishop James Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin (J.K.L.) was the outstanding Catholic bishop of his time. This major source book is a companion volume to the author's two-volume study of Doyle which won the NUI Irish Historical Research Prize. It comprises the complete corpus of Doyle's pastoral and education letters. The pastoral letters detail the religious renewal and reform of the Irish Church which Doyle led in the era of Catholic Emancipation. The work contains the national pastoral letters written by Doyle in the name of the entire Irish hierarchy. Doyle's letters on education are essential for understanding the background to the founding of the national system of education in 1831. They deal with the education of the poor and include letters to the Catholic Association and Daniel O'Connell.