Martyrs under the spotlight in Limerick

Ways in which the holy dead are recalled, invoked and reinterpreted for each generation was the subject of hot discussion at a major conference held in Limerick last weekend.

‘Moments of Becoming: Transitions and Transformations in Early Modern Europe’, the inaugural Limerick Early Modern Studies Forum, saw an international group of scholars gathering at Shannonside in a collaboration between Mary Immaculate College and the University of Limerick.

The largest session reflected on martyrs and their commemoration, with Limerick’s Clodaigh Tait exploring how the canonisation cause of St Oliver Plunkett was pursued during the different political climates of the Home Rule campaign, the early days of the Irish Free State and the Troubles and Galway’s Bronagh-Ann McShane describing the role of Blessed Margaret Ball, one of Ireland’s only two recognised female martyrs, in promoting Catholicism in late 16th-Century Dublin.

“There a good bit of activity in the Catholic history space these days and it’s growing too,” Prof.  John McCafferty, director of UCD’s Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute, told The Irish Catholic. ‘Moments of becoming’ was a great theme for those interested in the history of religion since Christianity itself has been so concerned with transformation of the self and of society,” he said.