Popery, Politics and Prayer: British and Irish Catholicism

Conference Organisers

Conference Director: James Kelly (Durham University) 

Conference Secretary: Liam Temple (Durham University) 

Conference Organising Committee: James Kelly (Durham University), John McCafferty (University College Dublin), Susannah Monta (University of Notre Dame)  

Confirmed Speakers

Confirmed speakers include: 

• Marie-Louise Coolahan (National University of Ireland, Galway) 
• John McCafferty (University College Dublin) 
• Susannah Monta (University of Notre Dame) 
• Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (University College Dublin) 
• Michael Questier (Vanderbilt University) 

The Conference

The fourth biennial Early Modern British and Irish Catholicism conference, jointly organised by Durham University and the University of Notre Dame, will concentrate on the relationship between politics and British and Irish Catholicism. 2020 marked the 450th anniversary of the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, through which Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I. From that point on, the questions surrounding British and Irish Catholicism became unescapably political, the line between the temporal and the spiritual even more blurred than previously. This conference will consider the relationships between politics and Catholicism in the widest possible framework, including through political debates and differences between English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Catholics, as well as the global Church; the politics of religious exile; spirituality and theology as polemic; State consideration of British and Irish Catholics in the political sphere; and Catholics as political players in the non-Catholic imagination. It will consider issues both local, such as the official exclusion of Catholics from aspects of national life, and the international, in particular the experience of British and Irish Catholics on the peripheries of the Catholic Reformation. The timeframe being considered is broad, from c.1530 to 1800. 

Draft programme

Registration

Registration is now open for this conference.  

Please follow the link to register: Event Registration

If you have any questions about the conference please contact the CCS Senior Administrator, Theresa Phillips – theresa.phillips@durham.ac.uk or call 0191 334 3952.