'Exogamous Brides' : representations of inter-faith relationships in Irish fiction

Abstract

This study offers a comprehensive assessment of how a broad range of Irish novelists depicted mixed marriages or inter-faith relationships from the 1860s to the 1960s, and argues that heterogeneous depictions of these relationships cannot be interpreted solely as national allegories or metaphors for conciliation or lack of conciliation between the Protestant and Catholic communities. To establish the complexity of the issue with which the writers were engaging, the study gives extensive treatment to the theological, historical and sociological contexts of inter-faith relationships and mixed marriages in Ireland.