Religious conflict is one of the engines powering European history, and nowhere more so than in Ireland, where religion and identity, personal, cultural and ethnic, are closely intertwined. How were religion and identity renegotiated as the Irish diaspora spread throughout the world? This volume begins with a study of the first Catholics in Australia, and the convict priests who struggled in secret to remain true to their calling. A chapter on the Protestant understanding of emigration seeks to throw light onto a neglected area. Three "media studies" chapters explore theologically the arts of the word in America: songs and hymns, novels and stage drama. Three chapters explore the experiences of the Irish in Scotland, Wales and England, undermining monolithic views of Ireland's sister island. Lastly, chapters on a men's religious order and a women's religious order open up that hidden world to critical history.