Description

This book is a fascinating study of radical clergymen in Ireland from different traditions and varying times. In ten chapters we meet Presbyterian, Catholic, and Church of Ireland clergy who spoke for inclusion of all people in an Ireland free of sectarian hatreds and economic oppressions. Their honesty incurred trouble for themselves not only with civil authorities but also with vested interests in their churches. Their thought ranges from theology to social analysis. Many of them offered an Irish `political theology' every bit as radical as liberation theology today. The book accompanies the reader through dramatic periods of Irish history -- the United Irishmen, the relapse into sectarian difficulties of the early 18th century, the Famine, the re-emergence of Irish separatism from the late 1860s, and the foundations of a partitioned Ireland. Denis Carroll is an historian and theologian.