The Laity and the Church of Ireland, 1000–2000

All sorts and conditions

Raymond Gillespie & W.G. Neely, editors

Religion has always been central to an understanding of the Irish past and the experience of the Church of Ireland, as the established church before 1870, has exercised a perennial fascination for historians. Yet what has been written about the Church of Ireland has always been couched in institutional terms. This book breaks new ground by asking not how the institution worked but what it was like to be a member of that church in the past. Twelve contributors, each experts in their own field, survey the diverse aspects of the religion of the Church of Ireland laity, including its medieval background. Together they chart how those beliefs were worked out in parish life, in the world of politics and in the sphere of private devotion.

Contributors: Toby Barnard (Hertford College, Oxford U), Patrick Comerford (ind.), Adrian Empey (ind.), Raymond Gillespie (MU), David Hayton (QUB), Paul Larmour (QUB), Colm Lennon (MU), Jacqueline Hill (MU), Stephen Mc Bride (ind.), Kenneth Milne (ind.), Martin Maguire (DKIT), W.G. Neely (ind.), John Patterson (ind.).

Raymond Gillespie teaches in the department of History, Maynooth University. He has written extensively on the social, economic and cultural history of early modern Ireland. W.G. Neely is rector of the parish of Keady, County Armagh, and prebendary of Swords in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He is also secretary of the Church of Ireland Historical Society.