The historical reputation of the Irish Christian Brothers has risen and fallen with that of the Church to which they contributed so much. Once hailed as architects of the independent Catholic nation, they are now more likely to be associated with brutal corporal punishment, the perpetuation of a destructive militaristic nationalism and a succession of sordid sexual scandals. Dáire Keogh's fine study is thus a welcome restoration of historical perspective. Established in 1802, the Brothers were the products, not of a ‘penal era’, but of the remarkable growth in Catholic wealth and self-confidence that took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Against this background, the purpose of their educational work was to equip their charges with the literacy, numeracy, self-discipline and social skills that they required to take their place in the new commercial order. The controversies in which Rice became embroiled convey a vivid sense of the poisonously factional nature of Catholic ecclesiastical life in the period before Emmet Larkin's ‘devotional revolution’. On a more positive note, the account of his religious conversion, strongly influenced by classics of continental spirituality, provides valuable insights into the largely hidden world of middle-class Catholic devotion in the same era.