Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Confessionalism and mobility in early modern Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 373, £90.00, ISBN: 9780198870913

Abstract

tion and the liminal moments and spaces that facilitate such transition. Alexandra Walsham’s opening chapter explores the flexibility of the spiritual lifecycle through ‘second birth’ or religious conversion later in life. Physical and religious age, Walsham argues, were fluid in response not only to the individual convert, but also to the lifecycle of the religious denomination itself. For David Fletcher, the stage offers a space in which religious doctrine could be questioned and challenged whilst also emphasising the ubiquity of the lifecycle as an organising element of early modern life. Rebecca Whitely beautifully illustrates the power of images to shape the mind and therefore to encourage deep spiritual reflection whilst also exploring the womb as both liminal space and proof of God’s power and creativity. Birth and death dominate this collection as they dominated early modern life. This is particularly evident in Rosemary Kemp’s detailed reading of John Souch’s painting Sir Thomas Ashton at the Deathbed of his Wife which also forms the front cover of the book. The bed chamber in which the portrait is set is also the backdrop for many of the lifecycle events discussed throughout the book, bringing us back to the overlapping stages of the life-spiral —a space where birth and death meet. Contributors to this book lay claim to a variety of disciplines, and the source material used is therefore rich and extensive. Diaries, letters, autobiographies, conduct books, hymns, drama, line drawings, paintings and conduct books all contribute to a wide-ranging consideration of religion and everyday life amongst the turbulence of seventeenth century England. This book will, of course, be of significant interest to scholars of religion in the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries. Yet, this collection’s approach of interweaving religion and domestic life —highlighting the flexibility of denominational and community boundaries, the precarious nature of both physical and spiritual lifecycles, and the overlapping of birth and death —means that it has a reach far beyond studies of religion. Scholars and students of everyday life, of birth, death and every lifecycle stage in between, and of identity and community will also find useful elements in this broad collection of scholarship.