Christian Conversion and Popular Religion in Ireland between the 6th and 8th centuries
The aim of this project was to analyse the Irish conversion process to Christianity during the Early Middle Ages through a documentary corpus, the Irish Penitentials, which are little books listing sins and assigning penance, written for the use of confessors. Through these texts it is possible to identify what was persecuted, tolerated, accepted, obeyed and disobeyed by the Church and the Christians. Therefore the focus of this study was the product of this process of conversion which elaborated a particular Irish popular religion, resultant of the fusion of the incoming Christian precepts and the Irish pre-Christian ones, which became shared by all, clergy and lay.
Keywords: Taboo, penance, penitentials, Ireland, conversion, popular religion.
Timeline: 01/09/2009 until 30/11/2012
Research team:
Dr Elaine Pereira Farrell, (former doctoral candidate in this project – defense: March 2023; awarded September 2023)
Dr Elva Johnston, UCD School of History, (mentor)
Institutional affiliation: University College Dublin (UCD), School of History
Funding body: Funded by the former Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences Postgraduate Scholarship (then Irish Research Council now Research Ireland)
Medieval Penitential Literature 