The Founders: Social Movements, Counter-Culture and the Crumbling of Catholic Hegemony

The period from the late 1960s to the early 1990s laid the foundations for contemporary Buddhism in Ireland. Irish religion being primarily a matter of ethnic identity, community membership and political orientation, Irish Buddhism was shaped by this: part of countercultural formations in the 1960s as in the 1890s, it was shaped by anti-colonial nationalisms, resistance to capitalist modernization and challenges to taken-for-granted gender relations. Individual participants risked the loss of secure career paths and stepped outside safe family structures.