Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The Introduction provides a brief summary of the main events and themes considered in the volume. It also addresses the historiography of the subject and the challenges involved in compiling a history of British and Irish Catholicism during this pivotal period. The Introduction then offers an overview of the chapters. The Introduction points out that the volume does not attempt to tell the story of a straightforward ‘age of emancipation’. While the Catholic question is at the heart of the history presented here, the chapters seek to chart the manifold continuities, transformations—indeed ‘radical transformations’—and ruptures of a crucial period in the development of British and Irish Catholicism.