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This paper examines the emerging bioethical debate on assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Ireland, which is shaped by the long-standing contentious issue of abortion and the constitutional protection afforded to the ‘unborn’. The focus of the paper is on the way in which the terms of this debate are shaped and constrained by the historical relations of power between church, state and medicine. Since the representation of Ireland as a post-Catholic, plural republic is becoming increasingly mainstream to cultural and political discourse, we pay particular attention to how the Catholic Church embraces bioethics as a meta frame or code for refocusing questions of values, beliefs and meanings to sustain the ideal of Ireland as a ‘pro-life’ and essentially Catholic nation. The Catholic Church is not simply asserting its voice of dissent in the context of public debate as one voice amongst a plurality of other voices, but to shape the emerging debate as a powerful, institutional actor. The opportunity to do so is afforded by the lack of public debate on bioethical issues and the exceedingly slow pace at which bioethics is moving towards an institutionalised framework in Ireland. These events can be explained by the legacy of the social power of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the direct and indirect influence it has long exercised over public policy vis-à-vis the state and its institutions, including medicine. There are two interconnected threads to the contextual analysis presented in our case study: first, the legacy of the social power wielded by the Catholic Church, and its slow and incremental demise reflected in the pace of secularisation in Ireland and the privatisation of morality; second, the emergence of a bioethical regulatory debate on ART, which is mired in the abortion controversy. Our analysis focuses on a number of key contradictions and tensions in the way in which the key institutions of church, state and medicine navigate their own positions vis-à-vis a bioethics debate, and how this constrains public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas most of Western Europe experienced a separation between the political and religious spheres in the past decades, in Greece and the Republic of Ireland the process of secularisation has been inhibited due to close association between religion and national identity. This paper examines these countries in a comparative perspective and argues that the process of secularisation in Ireland has been explicitly linked to a shift in national identity, a development which has not taken place in Greece. The relationship between religion and national identity is contingent on two factors: internally, the degree in which a church obstructs the modernisation process and, externally, the level of threat perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of censorship within the Catholic church in Ireland. The author discusses the relationship between the Irish government and the Catholic church after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, explores the 1929 Censorship of Publications Act, and examines the opposition of the bill by the Irish newspaper the "Irish Statesman."

The article focuses on the occasional days of state-approved worship in Ireland between 1689 and 1702. The author discusses how the reign of English king William III impacted religion in Ireland, explores how fasts and thanksgivings were observed during the religious movement the Reformation in Ireland by both Protestants and Catholics, and examines the legacy of the War of the Grand Alliance.

This article examines the views of Irish and Irish-Muslim elites about the compatibility of Islamic and Western values and how these elites feel Islam should (or should not) be integrated into the existing church-state systems. Ireland is a theoretically revealing case to examine because Ireland lacks an officially endowed religion, and yet the Catholic Church remains a dominant force in Irish society. The results of 16 interviews with Irish and Muslim elites demonstrate that both sets of elites have significant support for the perspective that Islamic and Western values are compatible, even while among the Muslim community there is strong support for the opinion that compatibility of values is dependent on the situation and among the Irish elite there is a small, but nonetheless important, presence of support for the belief that Islamic and Western values are incompatible and that Islam should not be mainstreamed. The findings also show that Ireland lacks a clear integration strategy but there exists a desire to protect the rights of individuals to practice their own faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]