THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2021 'A great achievement . . . brilliant, engaging and essential' Colm Tóibín 'At once intimate and epic, this is a landmark book' Fintan O'Toole When Dubliner Derek Scally goes to Christmas Eve Mass on a visit home from Berlin, he finds more memories than congregants in the church where he was once an altar boy. Not for the first time, the collapse of the Catholic Church in Ireland brings to mind the fall of another powerful ideology - East German communism. While Germans are engaging earnestly with their past, Scally sees nothing comparable going on in his native land. So he embarks on a quest to unravel the tight hold the Church had on the Irish. He travels the length and breadth of Ireland and across Europe, going to Masses, novenas, shrines and seminaries, talking to those who have abandoned the Church and those who have held on, to survivors and campaigners, to writers, historians, psychologists and many more. And he has probing and revealing encounters with Vatican officials, priests and religious along the way. The Best Catholics in the World is the remarkable result of his three-year journey. With wit, wisdom and compassion Scally gives voice and definition to the murky and difficult questions that face a society coming to terms with its troubling past. It is both a lively personal odyssey and a resonant and gripping work of reporting that is a major contribution to the story of Ireland. 'Reflective, textured, insightful and original ... rich with history, interrogation and emotional intelligence' Diarmaid Ferriter, Irish Times 'An unblinking look at the collapse of the Church and Catholic deference in Ireland. Excellent and timely' John Banville, The Sunday Times 'Engaging and incisive' Caelainn Hogan, author of Republic of Shame 'Remarkable . . . Essential reading for anyone concerned about history and forgetting' Michael Harding 'Fair-minded . . . thoughtful' Melanie McDonagh, The Times 'Very pacey and entertaining . . . and it changed how I regard Ireland and our history for good. Fantastic' Oliver Callan 'Original, thought-provoking and very engaging' Marie Collins 'A provocative insight into a time that many would rather forget' John Boyne 'Challenging' Mary McAleese 'Explores this subject in a way that I've never seen before' Hugh Linehan, Irish Times

From a Church that once enjoyed devotional loyalty, political influence, and institutional power unrivaled in Europe, the Catholic Church in Ireland now faces collapse. Devastated by a series of reports on clerical sexual abuse, challenged publicly during several political battles, and painfully aware of plunging Mass attendance, the Irish Church today is confronted with the loss of its institutional legitimacy. This study is the first international and interdisciplinary attempt to consider the scope of the problem, analyze issues that are crucial to the Irish context, and identify signs of both resilience and renewal. In addition to an overview of the current status and future directions of Irish Catholicism, The Catholic Church in Ireland Today examines specific issues such as growing secularism, the changing image of Irish bishops, generational divides, Catholic migrants to Ireland, the abuse crisis and responses in Ireland and the United States, Irish missionaries, the political role of Irish priests, the 2012 Dublin Eucharistic Congress, and contemplative strands in Irish identity. This book identifies the key issues that students of Irish society and others interested in Catholic culture must examine in order to understand the changing roles of religion in the contemporary world.

En personlig skildring af 1900-tallets Irland med vægten på den katolske kirkes betydning for den historiske og samfundsmæssige udvikling

How did the Irish stay Irish? Why are Irish and Catholic still so often synonymous in the English-speaking world? Ireland's Empire is the first book to examine the complex relationship between Irish migrants and Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century on a truly global basis. Drawing on more than 100 archives on five continents, Colin Barr traces the spread of Irish Roman Catholicism across the English-speaking world and explains how the Catholic Church became the vehicle for Irish diasporic identity in the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and India between 1829 and 1914. The world these Irish Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, and laity created endured long into the twentieth century, and its legacy is still present today.

Until surprisingly recently the history of the Irish Catholic Church during the Northern Irish Troubles was written by Irish priests and bishops and was commemorative, rather than analytical. This study uses the Troubles as a case study to evaluate the role of the Catholic Church in mediating conflict. During the Troubles, these priests and bishops often worked behind the scenes, acting as go-betweens for the British government and republican paramilitaries, to bring about a peaceful solution. However, this study also looks more broadly at the actions of the American, Irish and English Catholic Churches, as well as that of the Vatican, to uncover the full impact of the Church on the conflict. This critical analysis of previously neglected state, Irish, and English Catholic Church archival material changes our perspective on the role of a religious institution in a modern conflict.

The Irish-Catholic Sisters accomplished tremendously successful work in founding charitable organizations in New York City from the Irish famine through the early twentieth century. Maureen Fitzgerald argues that their championing of the rights of the poor—especially poor women—resulted in an explosion of state-supported services and programs. Parting from Protestant belief in meager and means-tested aid, Irish Catholic nuns argued for an approach based on compassion for the poor. Fitzgerald positions the nuns' activism as resistance to Protestantism's cultural hegemony. As she shows, Roman Catholic nuns offered strong and unequivocal moral leadership in condemning those who punished the poor for their poverty and unmarried women for sexual transgression. Fitzgerald also delves into the nuns' own communities, from the class-based hierarchies within the convents to the political power they wielded within the city. That power, amplified by an alliance with the local Irish Catholic political machine, allowed the women to expand public charities in the city on an unprecedented scale.

From wedding disasters and family dance recitals to fatherly lessons on homosexuality and timeshare scams, this book is a collection from the author's low-budget childhood.

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize • Winner of the 2021 Kate O'Brien Award • Winner of the 2021 Dalkey Emerging Writer Award Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret. No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie. But she can't go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the ward, Margaret Rose is running her chaotic family from her rose-gold Nokia. In the neighbouring bed, Jane, rarely but piercingly lucid, is searching for a decent bra and for someone to listen. And Sinéad needs them both. As You Were is about intimate histories, institutional failures, the kindness of strangers, and the darkly present past of modern Ireland; about women's stories and women's struggles; about seizing the moment to be free. Wildly funny, desperately tragic, inventive and irrepressible, As You Were introduces a brilliant voice in Irish fiction with a book that is absolutely of our times.

Liverpool in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the mirror of Ellis Island: it acted as the great cultural melting pot and processing point of migration from Europe to the United States. Here, for the first time, acclaimed historian John Belchem offers an extensive and groundbreaking social history of the elements of the Irish diaspora that stayed in Liverpool—enriching the city’s cultural mix rather than continuing on their journey. Covering the tumultuous period from the Act of Union to the supposed “final settlement” between Britain and Ireland, this richly illustrated volume will be required reading for anyone interested in the Irish diaspora.