Introduction

This introductory chapter begins by taking stock of significant strands in the post-emancipation nineteenth-century Catholic history of Britain and Ireland, using the Crimean or Eastern War (1854‒6) to illustrate the interplay between questions of religious and national identity, separation, and integration for the peoples of Britain and Ireland. It then outlines the themes and structures of the volume. Lastly, it addresses the developing historiography of nineteenth-century Catholicism, highlighting national trajectories and shifting preoccupations; referencing major historians and their contributions; and pinpointing the unevenness of research across these two islands and four nations. It identifies the gaps in the scholarship and concludes by positing the need for engagement with new methodological approaches