In Ireland primary RE is a fractured, contested, complex and changing territory devoid of a common language and characterised by a proliferation of syllabi and curricula generated for increasingly diverse school types. For centuries the dynamic decolonising process has led to a questioning of former orthodoxies and an attempted de-linking of the…

This paper examines the perceived influence of parents and family and the construction of national and religious identification amongst adolescents theoretically sampled from along the border between the Irish Republic and the Northern Ireland. Two hundred and sixty-one young people wrote essays on the meaning of their national identity and the…

This examination of nation-building in Ireland portrays a successful example of an enclave people who first developed a consciousness of nationhood and then acquired statehood. Both processes were problematic. Factors which influenced this transformation are the following: (1) the definition of Irishness; (2) language; (3) religion; (4) history;…