REPRESENTATIONS OF CATHOLICISM IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH FICTION

In spite of the increasing grip of secularism on Irish society in recent times, Catholicism remains an abiding preoccupation for many of our novelists. This may well have to do with the residual influence of the religious symbols and rituals to which writers from a young age were exposed at home and in schools. Living in a ‘post-Catholic’ country does not necessarily mean that Catholicism is not still a force: it merely indicates that the majority religion in Ireland no longer enjoys the same unbridled power and influence that it once did. The following chapter considers six contemporary writers (three female and three male) and examines the way in which Catholicism remains a tangible presence in their fictional output. A tentative thesis is put forward whereby the diminished state of Catholicism within Ireland may well provide the type of environment that could allow for a different approach to the treatment of the majority religion and the many ways in which its presence persists in an increasingly secular society.