Religion and memory in modern Ireland

It is often assumed that modern memory is secular, replacing traditional faith-based memorialization (evident, for example, in liturgy, sermons, iconography, church architecture, and church ritual) with inherently non-religious remembrance. This highly questionable assertion is clearly not the case in Ireland, where religious memorial practices have shown remarkable tenacity and plasticity in face of changing circumstances, undergoing repeated reinvention, and re-emerging in new forms. An examination of how the influence of religion shaped social and cultural remembrance from the early modern period through to the twenty-first century reveals the underlying role of religion as the matrix of Irish memory. The continuing predominance of the legacy of Catholicism (despite recent scandals and the decline in attendance of religious services), alongside the prominence of Anglicanism and Presbyterianism within the memorial cultural of Northern Ireland, has yet to take on board the plurality of faiths in contemporary Ireland.