Some of the essays marshalled by Oliver Rafferty approach the conundrum of Irish Catholic identities boldly. The material and mental cultures of early Christian Ireland, its reputation (disputed) as an island of saints and scholars, the nature of and reactions to the penal laws, the role of women in the nineteenth century, the changing and contrasted characteristics of Irish Catholic emigrants in North America are some of the themes tackled. To Louise Fuller falls the task of tracing and explaining the estrangement of lay Catholics from their clergy – and indeed the official Church – in the later twentieth century. The editor himself pioneers the use of state and bishops’ papers to show the tensions within the Catholic hierarchy as violence surged through Northern Ireland during the 1970s. Quirky but thought-provoking, and drawing on a dazzling range of evidence, is Owen Dudley Edwards's investigation of the prevalence of and justifications for the habit of perjury among nineteenth-century Irish Catholics. Others confine themselves to particular episodes or individuals: Archbishop Dowdall of Armagh; the early seventeenth-century Jesuit, Henry FitzSimon; the founding editor of The Tablet (Frederick Lucas); and Cardinal Manning, increasingly radical, especially towards Irish issues. Independence of outlook characterises those confident in lineage and property, such as the Esmondes of County Wexford, two of whom won the Victoria Cross, and a successful barrister from County Londonderry (Denis Stanislaus Henry) who became the sole Catholic to sit in parliament as an Ulster Unionist. The complexities of identity are explored further – and with subtlety – through the writings of John McGahern and poetry by those brought up variously in Catholic and Protestant traditions: Yeats, Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Michael Longley and Medbh McGuckian. Given the variety in the twenty-two essays, it is inevitable, and perhaps intentional, that no predominating features are found to define Irish Catholic identities in any particular period. Some contributors sketch the possibility of how wider conclusions might be derived from their examples: the implications generally subvert current orthodoxies. Factors – regionalism, gender, socio-economic standing, secularisation, education, lay or clerical status – are addressed from time to time. Notable in this respect is Ciaran O'Neill's examination of the well-to-do Catholics who sent their offspring to English and continental schools. Yet, apparently no distinctive political or cultural attitudes bound together those who had undergone the experiences. How far the more usual course of schooling within Ireland, even at the most prestigious establishments, left a distinctive residue has yet to be studied in detail. The final chapter, by Niall Coll, contends that a long-standing lack of indigenous theological sinew weakened Irish seminaries and explains the clerical failure to cope successfully with crises. The collection succeeds in shifting the focus away from the clergy, especially in the more recent centuries. In doing so, it reminds of the enormity of undertaking any comprehensive account of the Irish Catholic laity. This volume, if diffuse, is a helpful and stimulating start.