Past Conferences
Crisis and Recovery: Church and Society in Twelfth Century Ireland
Conference at University College Cork and St Patrick’s College, Thurles
Crisis and recovery: Church and society in twelfth-century Ireland marks the nine-hundredth anniversary of the synod of Ráith Bressail, and follows Reform and renewal: Ireland and Europe in the twelfth century, a conference held in 2001 to commemorate the nine-hundredth anniversary of the first synod of Cashel.
The conference is held under the auspices of the School of History, University College Cork, and the County Tipperary Historical Society and will take place at University College Cork and St Patrick’s College, Thurles, Co Tipperary, on 11 – 13 November 2011. Details of the conference, including the programme, can be found here.
The twelfth century was a period of profound change in Ireland. New ideals of political and ecclesiastical power were explored as part of the attempt to transform the Irish Church and society. This conference presents the latest research into these developments, and into the changing modes of artistic expression and patronage, concentrating on the synod of Ráith Bressail of AD 1111. Scholars will discuss these changes with special reference to the synod which utterly changed the structure of the centrally important institution of the Irish Church, changes that lasted almost a thousand years and so had an enormous impact on Irish culture, society and even identity.