Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Ireland deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Ireland. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this convenient resource provides systematic information on how Ireland deals with the role religion plays or can play in society, the legal status of religious communities and institutions, and the legal interaction among religion, culture, education, and media. After a general introduction describing the social and historical background, the book goes on to explain the legal framework in which religion is approached. Coverage proceeds from the principle of religious freedom through the rights and contractual obligations of religious communities; international, transnational, and regional law effects; and the legal parameters affecting the influence of religion in politics and public life. Also covered are legal positions on religion in such specific fields as church financing, labour and employment, and matrimonial and family law. A clear and comprehensive overview of relevant legislation and legal doctrine make the book an invaluable reference source and very useful guide. Succinct and practical, this book will prove to be of great value to practitioners in the myriad instances where a law-related religious interest arises in Ireland. Academics and researchers will appreciate its value as a thorough but concise treatment of the legal aspects of diversity and multiculturalism in which religion plays such an important part.

This is a study of religion, politics, and society in a period of great significance in modern Irish history. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the consolidation of the power of the Protestant landed class, the enactment of penal laws against Catholics, and constitutional conflicts that forced Irish Protestants to redefine their ideas of national identity. S. J. Connolly's scholarly and wide-ranging study examines these developments and sets them in their historical context. The Ireland that emerges from his lucid and penetrating analysis was essentially a part of ancien r--eacute--;gime Europe: a pre-industrialized society, in which social order depended less on a ramshackle apparatus of coercion than on complex structures of deference and mutual accommodation, along with the absence of credible challengers to the dominance of a landed --eacute--;lite; in which the ties of patronage and clientship were often more important than horizontal bonds of shared economic or social position; and in which religion remained a central part of personal and political motivation. - ;Abbreviations; Introduction; I. A NEW IRELAND; 1. December 1659: `A Nation Born in a Day'; 2. Settlement and Explanation; 3. A Foreign Jurisdiction; 4. Papists and Fanatics; 5. Counter-Revolution Defeated; II. AN ELITE AND ITS WORLD; 6. Uneven Development; 7. Gentlement and Others; 8. Manners; III. THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS; 9. A Company of Madmen: The Politics of Party 1691-1714; 10. `Little Employments...Smiles, Good Dinners'; 11. Politics and the People; IV. RELATIONSHIPS; 12. Kingdoms; 13. Nations; 14. Communities; 15. Orders; V. THE INVENTIONS OF MEN IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD: RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES; 16. Numbers; 17. Catholics; 18. Dissenters; 19. Churchmen; 20. Christians; VI. LAW AND THE MAINTENANCE OF ORDER; 21. Resources; 22. The Limits of Order; 23. The Rule of Law; 24. Views from Below: Disaffection and the Threat of Rebellion; 25; Views from Above: Perceptions of the Catholic Threat; VII. `REASONABLE INCONVENIENCES: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PENAL LAWS'; 26. `Raw Head and Bloody Bones': Parliamentary Management and Penal Legislation; 27. Debate; 28. The Conversion of the Natives; 29. Protestant Ascendancy? The Consequences of the Penal Laws; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index. -

This book focuses, from a legal perspective, on a series of events which make up some of the principal episodes in the legal history of religion in Ireland: the anti-Catholic penal laws of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century; the shift towards the removal of disabilities from Catholics and dissenters; the dis-establishment of the Church of Ireland; and the place of religion, and the Catholic Church, under the Constitutions of 1922 and 1937.

Religion features prominently in Irish history and politics. Its peculiar legal status represents one of the distinctive features of the Irish constitutional tradition. The 1937 Constitution accords religion a central position as an anchoring point of Ireland's national identity, yet also includes ostensibly strong guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion, and of equality on religious grounds, that are typical of liberal-democratic constitutional systems. It synthesizes competing theories and models, tentatively affirming religion's public status, yet committing it to the private sphere for most purposes. For the most part, the historically close relationship between the State and the Catholic Church found no clear mandate in the constitutional text, which, contrary to prevailing perceptions, imposes a limited form of Church-State separation - although the exact boundaries it imposes remain unclear. More specifically, the legal principles and doctrines relating to religious practice are ambiguous and underdeveloped, particularly in issues surrounding religious freedom and denominational autonomy. The extent to which the Constitution protects religious activity from State interference has never been decisively resolved; additionally, constitutional considerations underlie resurgent contemporary controversies in the field of Church and State - particularly in the recent public debate on the role of religion in schools. Accordingly, Religion, Law and the Irish State examines the constitutional framework governing State and religion in the broader context of the history, politics, and theory of the Church-State relationship. From a lawyer's perspective, the book provides an account of the case law and doctrine in specific areas, including religious freedom, religious equality, denominational autonomy, and Church-State separation, while also giving these subjects a comparative and theoretical treatment. For those approaching Church and State from different perspectives - including historians, political scientists, sociologists, and theologians - it offers an accessible and contextual account of the constitutional dimensions of the State-religion relationship. It explores the constitutional provisions as an expression of, but also a potential fetter upon, the evolving social and political role of religion.

Minority Religions under Irish Law focuses the spotlight specifically on the legal protections afforded in Ireland to minority religions, generally, and to the Muslim community, in particular.