Religion on the island of Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic
Piety in the Public Sphere
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6448447 |
|---|---|
| Authors | G Ganiel (0000-0001-9894-033X, Queen's University Belfast, corresponding author), Caoimhe Ní Dhónaill (0009-0008-5772-898X, Queen's University Belfast) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 4-24 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religion State & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0963-7494 • E-ISSN: 1465-3974 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09637494.2024.2369381 |
| OpenAlex | W4400539017 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 35 |
This article examines how religious institutions and religious media on the island of Ireland framed religion's place in the public sphere during Covid-19. Through qualitative analysis of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Humanist organisations' public documents and religious media, it finds religious institutions supported government restrictions and adopted secular reasoning to justify their actions. The major churches also avoided claiming special status or religious freedom protections. This reveals a constrained religious input to public debates, reflecting a realistic assessment by religious leaders that they lack policy influence due to long-term declines in church power. The pandemic provides evidence of a reformulation of the relationships between religion, state, and society on the island, albeit with religion retaining more influence in Northern Ireland. Religious media outlets largely reproduced institutional discourses, with the exception of a weekly newspaper, the Irish Catholic. The Irish Catholic argued that stringent restrictions in the Republic of Ireland violated religious freedom, and made a case for the value of piety in the public sphere. But while religious actors still seek to contribute to public debates, there is little consensus or vision about religions' distinctive contributions, even around existential questions posed by the pandemic
2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Geography · Pandemic · Piety · Political science · Politics · Public sphere · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Law · Media, Religion, Digital Communication · Medicine · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Virology
A survey of Judaeo-Christian books initially responding to the Covid-19 pandemic
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe
The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland
The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland
Irish Secularization and Religious Identities
The Last Bastion of Evangelicalism in Europe?’ Evangelicalism and Religiosity in Northern Ireland
Highly religious young Catholics in Northern Ireland
Catholic Identity in Contemporary Ireland
The Media and the Catholic Church in Ireland
Religious freedom
Muslim Dilemmas in the Republic of Ireland
Religious institutions and sexual scandals
When God Took Sides
Identity Change after Conflict
Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland
The Democratic Unionist Party
The Rise of Secularism and the Decline of Religiosity in Ireland
Governments’ Legal Responses and Judicial Reactions during a Global Pandemic
The death of conservative Ireland? The 2018 abortion referendum
Religious Freedom in the Time of the Pandemic
Online Opportunities in Secularizing Societies? Clergy and the Covid-19 Pandemic in Ireland
Debating Divorce
A Clash of Racializations
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |