Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland

This book deals with religious cultures in all parts of the British Isles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is an exercise in comparative history, and also shows that religion was linked with other frameworks within which people found meaning and identity, including politics, national aspiration and cultural expression. Hempton's main purpose is to show that religion, in its various denominational forms, helped to unite Britain and operated as a convenient vehicle for the expression of national and regional distinctiveness.