Huge congrats do Professor Karina Benazech Wendling for the release of her new book : Converting Ireland, Religious education, language and colonialism (Manchester University Press, 2026)
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.
As Professor Geraldine Vaughan rightly states,
"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