Karina Bénazech Wendling offers a re-assessment of ‘souperism’—the long-debated claim that food was used to convert Irish Catholics to Protestantism during the Great Famine. Focusing on the Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through their Own Language, the first group labeled ‘soupers’ in 1841, she uncovers a more complex picture. Rather than a mere tool of British cultural imperialism, the Society had a deep engagement with the Irish language and Bible translation, while also encouraging religious conversions in the West. The book explores the Society’s role in Ireland’s religious and political landscape, the rise of Catholic counter-missions, and nationalist resistance. Offering fresh insights into Ireland’s religious history and global missionary movements, this book is essential for scholars of Irish studies, interdenominational relations, and education in Ireland.
Price: £85.00
Pages: 336
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Publication Date:
26 May 2026
ISBN: 9781526181206
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
HISTORY / Europe / Ireland, History of religion, HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century, RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic, RELIGION / Christianity / Protestant, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Missions, Religious mission and Religious Conversion, Colonialism and imperialism, Educational: Religious studies: Christianity
'This book presents a sectarian conflict in a revealingly innovative perspective, in which modern values coalesced with confessional politics. By examining new evidence, with contributions from the converts themselves, Wendling sheds new light on the cultural, psychological and social processes associated with conversion and re-conversion.'
— Professor Eugenio Biagini, University of Cambridge
'This book offers a clear and magisterial reappraisal of Irish identities in the pre-Famine and Famine eras. Not only does it revise current historiographical assumptions about the use of Irish during the ‘Second Reformation,’ it also offers ground-breaking insights on the entire socio-religious landscape of Ireland at the time.'
— Professor Geraldine Vaughan, University of Lille
Karina Bénazech Wendling is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lorraine
Introduction
1 From charity schools to Irish schools
2 Educating the Irish with a national Bible (1818–28)
3 From the politicisation of education to the Catholicisation of Irish nationalism
4 The Dingle colony of converts: An imperial conquest?
5 Souperism and the Great Irish Famine (1840–7)
6 The radicalisation of Irish mission: An inevitable outcome? (1847–53)
Index
