Since the 1980s, and with increasing rapidity, the public influence of the Irish churches has dramatically contracted. Drawing on examples of successful intentional religious communities in the United States, this seminar will explore some means by which traditionally minded believers might respond to this crisis in Christian culture, in order to survive and resist the encroachment of secular modernity, with a view to the reconstruction of a world that they have lost.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast, and the author most recently of The rise and fall of Christian Ireland (2021).