This set of essays marks the centenary in 2009 of George Tyrrell's death. Born in Dublin, a convert to Roman Catholicism, a controversial member of the English Jesuits, expelled from the Society and excommunicated from the Church, he remains ‘an enigmatic and ambiguous figure’ (p. 177). Some knowledge of Tyrrell's work is presupposed which leaves contributors free to examine questions about his context, influences on him, and his influence particularly on Vatican II. Oliver Rafferty opens the book with a survey of Tyrrell's life and theology, and closes it with an engaging insight into English and international Jesuit politics. Tyrrell was, without doubt, a difficult personality to contain and succeeded in exasperating provincials, cardinals and Jesuit generals, as well as his friends and confrères. Anthony J. Carroll reflects on the philosophical foundations of Catholic Modernism – ‘vital immanence’ and, ultimately, ‘agnosticism’. Whether the ‘Modernists’ themselves subscribed to these doctrines, or they were projected into their work by opponents, remains central for the history of Modernism. We are told more than once that Tyrrell supported Leo xii's call to ‘return to Thomas’, to take ‘Aquinas as his own interpreter’. While this clearly caused Tyrrell significant difficulties with the Suarezian Jesuits lecturing in the English study houses, we are never told how Tyrrell himself wanted to use Thomas's theology: was he simply a model for Tyrrell of someone who ventured into new territory and got his knuckles rapped? Whether Newman was a target of anti-Modernist condemnations is an old question and its rehearsal here leaves one feeling a bit sorry for Tyrrell, as if Newman is the real interest. According to Andrew Pierce (following Nicholas Sagovsky) Tyrrell's lasting debt to Newman is for his Grammar of assent. In the distinction of notional and real assent Tyrrell found a language for what he wanted to say about the priority of religious experience. Three chapters consider his ecclesiology, Anthony Maher examining how Tyrrell's mysticism fares in realpolitik, Michael Hurley wondering in what sense he might be considered ecumenical, and Michael Kirwan offering a judicious reflection on Tyrrell and the theology of Vatican II. The remaining chapter, by Clara Ginther, is on one of the central themes in Tyrrell's writing, the relation of theology to devotion. Tyrrell continues to attract interest because of the events in which he was caught up and the personality that contributed to such tragic outcomes. Whether his writings make a contribution that can be detached from the polarity Newman–Vatican II remains to be seen.