Notwithstanding its implied national scope, this is actually a solid and readable insider's history of Catholic life, institutions and religious formation in the area which became the diocese of Middlesbrough in 1878–9, following the partition of the diocese of Beverley, which had previously covered the whole of Yorkshire. The diocese of Middlesbrough comprised the North and East Ridings, including Hull, Middlesbrough itself (a ‘new town’ of 1829), and York. Catholicism's development in the region is traced from modest beginnings, as a predominantly rural and gentrified Church in the late eighteenth century, to a largely urban and majority Irish community by the end of the nineteenth century. Irish inculturation in the diocese peaked in the 1950s, with St Patrick's Day a greater festival than Easter. Decline then ensued, particularly after the Second Vatican Council, whose local impact is portrayed as ‘a source of contention and disarray’. Although Middlesbrough is initially offered as a microcosm of English Catholicism, the story is told with the aid of few metrics, so its representativeness of other dioceses is never really demonstrated. The author's principal interest lies in the transformation of Catholic devotional and liturgical practice by manifestations of revivalism and renewal which she deems normally associated with Protestantism. Much is made at the outset of the ‘radical new insights’ which arise from ‘placing … Roman Catholicism within the Evangelical spectrum’, but they eluded this reviewer. Part of the problem is that the analytical framework inevitably becomes submerged within the book's chronological structure. The five chapters are divided according to significant Catholic dates, starting with the first Relief Act and ending with the retirement of Bishop Augustine Harris in 1992. The chief merit of this approach is that it brings out changes in policy and resourcing priorities following the appointment of each new bishop (or Vicar Apostolic before the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850). Lack of systematic treatment of the diocese during the First and Second World Wars is a disappointment. Befitting its origin as a 2012 Nottingham PhD thesis, a wide range of archival and printed sources has been utilised, albeit there is far less recourse to oral history than in Alana Harris's Faith in the family (2013), a comparable study of grassroots Catholic life in the diocese of Salford for 1945–82. Turnham has made a valuable contribution to Catholic historiography but perhaps does not sufficiently connect with wider scholarly debates about the place of religion in modern Britain, thereby restricting her readership.