Ireland and the United Kingdom

This chapter examines the role of religion in Ireland and the United Kingdom in four stages, focusing on how divisions between Protestantism and Catholicism have contributed to division and, at times, violence: 1) from the colonization of Ireland by Britain until the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923, when religion was used both to justify colonialism and to oppose it; 2) state-building in the early 20th century, when religion impacted politics and society in ways that diverged from the wider European Christian Democratic movement; 3) a period of secularization in the late 20th century; and 4) a period of religious change and persistence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It concludes by examining the impact of religion on the 2016 Brexit referendum vote, arguing that Brexit has destabilized political and religious relationships between the islands, with particular reference to Northern Ireland and Scotland.