Religion in Irish Literature and Culture Author: Willa Murphy and Chris Murray (editors) ISBN-13: 978-1009191623Publisher: Cambridge University Press Guideline Price: £90; 360ppThis wide-ranging collection covers multiple areas such as the presentation of religion in Irish poetry, Anglican gothic fiction, theatre and the novel, and Irish women of the diaspora. Inevitably James Joyce features, in this instance in relation to heresy, as do Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Catholic “feeling”, mythic landscapes in Patrick Pearse, eschatology in Ulster-Scots writing, and culture and religious material culture are also covered. Church domination and control, cultural connections between Ireland and Africa and Judaism form the basis of further exploration, while Japan and China’s interaction with Irish literature and culture bring the comprehensive collection to a close. The contributors produce original and thought-provoking essays. One small caveat is that the table of contents is not divided into sections based on themes or chronology, which would have given a more user-friendly structure to the book. Chris Murray’s introduction opens with a reference to an Irish Times article in March 2024 by Róisín Lanigan that he interpreted as saying that many Irish people in their 20s and 30s are returning to the church both for community and as a source of consolation. Such a claim might be open to question but it does appear an increasing number of the younger generation are attending religious services.[ Is it time to get religion out of the classroom?Opens in new window ]Sociologist Tom Inglis argues that the unbridled power of the Catholic Church led to symbolic violence being perpetrated on women and children. Kathleen Costello-Sullivan quotes Bill Furlong’s retort in Claire Keegan’s novella Small Things Like These to a friendly warning he’s given not to alienate the local nuns: “Surely they’ve only as much power as we give them?” Like Furlong, the majority of Irish people have rejected what Inglis refers to as the “moral monopoly” of religious institutions, and choose instead to withhold from them the symbolic power they once enjoyed.This book demonstrates how Irish writers, intellectuals and artists achieve the sort of accommodation that Cruise O’Brien ascribed to the French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, namely the ability to “not merely feel, but also express, a fundamental inarticulate thing” such as religious experience. That vital component alone makes this a timely and worthwhile publication.Eamon Maher’s latest book is The Prophetic Voice: Jean Sulivan’s Ongoing Relevance in France and Ireland (Peter Lang)