Converting Ireland, Religious education, language and colonialism

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

Link to the publisher

Evangelical missionary & accusations of souperism in Ireland

Good news ! Under the title of "Education, Famine, and Conversion: Evangelical missionary strategies and accusations of souperism in Ireland, 1800-1853", Karina Wendling (PSL / EPHE, GSRL) completed her PhD.

It will be defended on the 13th of June, 2022.

Professors Peter Gray and Patrick Cabanel directed the thesis.

In the particular context of Protestant Ascendancy, Catholics perceived Protestant charity during the Great Irish Famine (1845-51) not as genuine relief but as Souperism - or the bribing of souls. This thesis comes within the framework of preceding research that has focused on the cultural and political implications of this fight for souls and examines overlooked aspects of the context in which these accusations appeared to better understand how missionary strategies disrupted the religious territoriality in a time of growing Irish nationalism.

Link