Catholics in a Protestant Country: The Papist Constituency in Eighteenth-Century Dublin (review)

Abstract

The road on which Maureen Wall set the study of eighteenth-century Ireland's Catholic community many years ago is one on which travelers are prone to the loss of a sense of historiographical direction. The amelioration of the condition of penal-era Catholics by late twentieth-century historians has been interesting. However, one is often left wondering what it explains. It would be good to have it more often related, for example, to general understandings of the relationship between religion and society in eighteenth-century Europe or, again, to the pre-eminence of religion in later Irish conflict. Still, while awaiting revelations of relevance, one welcomes the ongoing work.