A Shared but Divided History: Religion in Twentieth Century Ireland.

Delivered by: Professor Mary E Daly (UCD)

 Religion mattered in twentieth-century Ireland, and it receives due attention in many histories. However, there is a tendency to view religion in a simplistic binary manner – Catholic versus Protestants – and often simply as a badge of political/cultural identity. That binary approach fails to explore the many similarities that existed between Catholics and Protestants of all denominations: the importance of their church, both as a place of worship and a community; the high rates of religious attendance, and the extent to which they shared broadly similar values on many moral issues. This paper will attempt to tease out this tension between polarisation and shared values, and what it might tell us about religion in twentieth century Ireland.

Mary E. Daly is Professor Emerita in Modern Irish History, University College Dublin. Professor Daly’s ground-breaking research on modern Irish history has ranged widely from women’s history, the history of marriage and family, and migration, to economic development, state formation, and citizenship. She is the author of ten books and co-author of eight edited volumes, including Sixties Ireland: Reshaping the Economy, State and Society, 1957–1973 (Cambridge, 2016), The Cambridge Social History of Modern Ireland (with Eugenio F. Biagini, 2017), and The Battle to Control Female Fertility in Modern Ireland (Cambridge 2023). Professor Daly has also been an influential leader in Higher Education in Ireland and in Irish society more generally. She was the first woman to serve as President of the Royal Irish Academy (2014–17) and in 2020 was awarded a Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities.

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About the McCosh Lecture at Queen’s University Belfast

This Lecture, originally the Annual Religious Studies Lecture, is named in honour of James McCosh (1811-1894) who was appointed to the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics at Queen’s University in 1850 shortly after the establishment of the University. In 1868 he left Ireland to become President of Princeton University. His sphere of influence was extensive, not only as a leading moral philosopher and educationalist, but as a pioneer of modern psychology and as a prominent advocate for the reconciliation of evolution and religion.

Reflecting McCosh’s wide interests, the Lecture, delivered annually at QUB since 2011, is in the field of Religious Studies broadly conceived. Previous lecturers have included climate scientist Mike Hulme (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, University of East Anglia), Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies (University of Edinburgh), the American novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson, and former British Academy Vice President Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch and former British Academy President Baroness Onora O’Neill.

Image credit: James McCosh, ca. 1870s. Box AD013, Historical Photograph Collection, Individuals Series, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University; published by Princeton University Archives.