This volume, in honour of the great historian Emmet Larkin, is organized around the two themes that have shaped his work on the Catholic Church in modern Ireland – the role of the church in the creation of the modern Irish state, and the role of the church in defining a distinctive Irish national identity through the devotional revolution . The various chapters explore different themes – political, social, ecclesiastical, and literary – but are united by their common engagement with aspects of Larkin’s work on Irish culture and consciousness between the late eighteenth century and the present.