Catholicism was the dominant cultural influence on the majority of the Irish people throughout most of the twentieth century, so a study of popular Catholicism during that period is very welcome. The contents of this book – a study of Limerick city between the 1920s and the 1960s – are narrower than the title suggests, and it focuses almost entirely on the city’s working classes. The secondary title: Locality, identity and culture, gives an accurate flavour of the book.

The author approaches the topic from the perspective of folklore/ethnography. Many of the themes in the book reflect the influence of classic texts in that field, notably Máire Mac Neill’s The festival of Lughnasa and Kevin Danaher’s The year in Ireland. The most-cited sources throughout the text are interviews that the author carried out with seven women and five men, born between 1912 and the early 1940s. This is supplemented by local newspapers and other printed sources, including the extensive number of books and articles on Limerick city. I was impressed by the range of local history material that has appeared in recent years.

Limerick city is arguably a very specific case study of popular Catholicism. In no other Irish city or town did confraternities constitute such a central role as in Limerick. The city, in common with other Irish cities and larger towns, offered its citizens a variety of churches run by religious orders in addition to the parish church. The range of Catholic agencies, devotions and choice of preachers/confessors was much wider than the majority of Irish Catholics, living in rural areas or small towns, would have experienced. Daily mass-going, sodalities, and confraternities were not a common part of life for the average farmer, rural labourer or rural woman, and contact with priests from religious orders, as opposed to diocesan clergy, was limited to the parish mission or a priest visiting during the summer holidays. But rural and Limerick city households would have shared common rituals described in this book, such as the family rosary, Lenten fasts and pilgrimages to Knock, and, if money permitted, to Lourdes.

De Cléir focuses closely the geography of Limerick city churches, the sense of place, the routes followed by processions or funeral corteges. The close links between religious rituals and the life of the city constitute the richest aspects of this book. But she fails to provide a definition of what she means by ‘popular Catholicism’, and this omission is most evident in her extensive discussion of the rituals associated with May Eve. The lighting of bonfires, the transfer of customs associated with May Eve from the countryside into the city, and later into Limerick’s newer suburbs, is interesting – and merits publication in its own right – but do these rituals constitute ‘popular Catholicism’? She is presumably suggesting that her Limerick interviewees did not regard these rituals as incompatible with their Catholic faith. But what attitude, if any, did the Limerick clergy adopt towards these practices? It would be interesting to know. The expressions of disapproval of May Eve bonfires that she cites come from residents and the local newspaper, not from the clergy. During the 1950s Marian shrines were erected in many Limerick communities, with the support of the local authority. Was this an attempt to provide an alternative, theologically-approved May ritual?

It is regrettable that de Cléir’s study ends in the early 1960s. There is no reference anywhere in the text to the Second Vatican Council, and the major changes that it introduced: the introduction of Mass in the vernacular, the remodelling of church architecture, including the adoption of less elaborate altars, and the down-grading of many traditional religious rituals, such as benediction or devotions. We know almost nothing of the impact of these liturgical changes on ‘popular Catholicism’ in Ireland. For generations, many Sunday mass-goers had paid little direct attention to the specific elements of the Latin mass – other than the high points such as the consecration. As the priest recited the Latin mass (generally in a low voice), they recited the rosary, or worked their way through a popular prayer book. Greater interaction between the priest and the congregation, such as reciting responses to the celebrant, marked a major change from traditional practices. One other intriguing omission is the absence of any references to religious vocations in the families or the neighbours of her interviewees. The years covered by this book marked the peak in the numbers of Irish women and men entering seminaries, convents and monasteries. Did any of her respondents consider becoming a priest, nun or lay brother, or had they any relatives in religious life?

De Cléir’s book highlights a major gap in historiography. There is a real need to move analysis of Catholicism in Ireland beyond the issues of church–state relations, and it is to be hoped that her book will encourage others to extend this analysis – geographically, chronologically and thematically. We need studies of religious practice in other rural and urban locations; more about class. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul does not feature in the index to this book – yet in Dublin and in many other towns and cities was a significant social network for middle-class and professional men. De Cléir has approached the topic primarily from the perspectives of folklore and oral history. Religious periodicals, local newspapers and diocesan archives and the archives of religious orders offer considerable scope for future research. In the 1920s and 1930s the Franciscan friary in Limerick had a sophisticated fund-raising network in many of the city’s streets, where most residents made a modest weekly contribution – most of the collectors were local women. The columns of religious publications such as the Messenger of the Sacred Heart were filled with messages petitioning divine intercession or expressing thanks for a benign outcome for a multitude of personal issues. There is scope for examining how foreign saints, such as Martin de Porres, Gerard Majella, Maria Goretti, and Thérèse of Lisieux became the subject of popular veneration throughout Ireland. Most especially, we need to establish some chronological understanding of the changes in religious practice and belief from the 1960s onwards, if we are to understand the dramatic social and cultural changes that have taken place in Irish Catholicism over the past fifty years.