Church, state and social science in Ireland
Subtitle: knowledge institutions and the rebalancing of power, 1937-73
By: Peter Murray and Maria Feeney
Contributors: Feeney, Maria, author
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9781526100788
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Social conditions; Church and state; History
Description: The immense power the Catholic Church once wielded in Ireland has considerably diminished over the last fifty years. During the same period the Irish state has pursued new economic and social development goals by wooing foreign investors and throwing the state's lot in with an ever-widening European integration project. How a less powerful church and a more assertive state related to one another during the key third quarter of the twentieth century is the subject of this book. Drawing on newly available material, it looks at how social science, which had been a church monopoly, was taken over and bent to new purposes by politicians and civil servants. This case study casts new light on wider processes of change, and the story features a strong and somewhat surprising cast of characters ranging from Sean Lemass and T.K. Whitaker to Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and Father Denis Fahey. --
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-254) and index.