A Miscellany. (NEW EDITION)

‘A poignant, yet often hilarious salute to what we, the Irish, do best.’ 

– Myles Dungan 

‘rich and complex’  

– The Irish Times 

AS A RACE, the Irish have the reputation of ‘doing death well’. Taking its cue from this somewhat dubious distinction, this volume explores the relationship of the Irish people with death from the earliest times to the present day. In over 70 articles, it gathers together the expertise of historians, archaeologists, folklorists, sociologists, geographers, Celtic Studies scholars, dramatists, anthropologists, musicologists, theologians, liturgists, undertakers and palliative care specialists in a wide-ranging and lavishly illustrated collection, which is, at times, as humorous as it is poignant. This collection, now in its second edition, will be an indispensable resource for anyone with an interest in the social, cultural and religious history of the Irish. 

SALVADOR RYAN is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth and Editor-in-Chief of Irish Theological Quarterly. He has published extensively on popular religion and ritual from the medieval to the modern periods, and on Irish social, cultural, and religious history. Among more recent publications, he has edited Childhood and the Irish (Wordwell, 2025), Christmas and the Irish (Wordwell, 2023), Birth and the Irish (Wordwell, 2021), Marriage and the Irish (Wordwell, 2019), and (co-edited with John-Paul Sheridan) We Remember Maynooth: A College Across Four Centuries (Messenger, 2020). His latest book (co-edited with Henning Laugerud and Samantha L. Smith) is Experiencing Material Christianity: Piety, Perception and Performance from the Middle Ages to the Present (Bloomsbury, 2027).