Contrary to the widespread belief in Ireland's rapid secularisation, religion continues to play a significant role in twenty-first-century Irish culture, though not in the familiar forms of Catholicism and Protestantism. This volume seeks to redress the balance and demonstrate that religion intersects with and informs past and present Irish culture. While writers from Sean O'Casey to Edna O'Brien have challenged religious oppression, Joyce's heresy, Patrick Pearse's fusion of Christian and pagan sacrifice, and Yeats's pan-Asian eclecticism are among the manoeuvres by which the Irish have sought to push beyond the prescribed limits of spirituality. This book takes an interdisciplinary and global approach that encompasses the affinities of Celtic thought with Asian philosophy, the legacy of Irish missions in Africa, new ways to see the religiosity of canonical works, and Irish cultural engagement with traditions such as Buddhism, Daoism, Judaism, and Shinto.

'Original and thought-provoking essays. This book demonstrates how Irish writers, intellectuals and artists achieve the sort of accommodation that Cruise O'Brien ascribed to the French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, namely the ability to not merely feel, but also express, a fundamental inarticulate thing, such as religious experience. That vital component alone makes this a timely and worthwhile publication.'

Eamon Maher Source: Irish Times