This book focuses, from a legal perspective, on a series of events which make up some of the principal episodes in the legal history of religion in Ireland: the anti-Catholic penal laws of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century; the shift towards the removal of disabilities from Catholics and dissenters; the dis-establishment of the Church of Ireland; and the place of religion, and the Catholic Church, under the Constitutions of 1922 and 1937.

Chapter 1: The Legal History of Religion in Ireland.- Chapter 2: The Penal Laws: Origins, Purpose, Enforcement and Impact.- Chapter 3: To “Elude the Design and Intention” of the Penal Laws: Collusion and Discovery in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: A Case Study.- Chapter 4: Repealing the Penal Laws, 1760-95.- Chapter 5: “Inoperative But Insulting:” Residues of the Penal Laws, 1829-1920.- Chapter 6: The Legal and Constitutional Organization of the Catholic Church in Nineteenth Century Ireland.- Chapter 7: Irish Presbyterians and the Quest for Toleration, c.1692–1733.- Chapter 8: “I Am Friends Wt You & Do Entertain No Malice”: Discord, Disputes and Defamation in Ulster Presbyterian Church Courts, c. 1700-1838.- Chapter 9: Church Briefs And Charitable Relief: Reparations For Two Early 18th Century Fire-Damaged Ulster Towns.- Chapter 10: The Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.- Chapter 11: Disendowment Under The Irish Church Act 1869.- Chapter 12: The Constitution of the Church of Ireland in Action: Ritualist Litigation in a Disestablished Church 1871-1937.- Chapter 13: Religion and the Constitution of the Irish Free State.- Chapter 14: Article 44.1 and the “Special Position” of the Catholic Church in the Irish Constitution, 1937 – 1972.