Includes bibliographical references and index

Concluding reflections / David Hayton. Shaping history: James Ussher and the Church of Ireland / Alan Ford -- Creating a usable past: James and Robert Ware / Mark Empey -- Writing the history of the Church of Ireland in the eighteenth century / Toby Barnard -- High-church history: C.R. Elrington and his edition of James Ussher's works / Jamie Blake Knox -- Contested histories? Richard Mant's History of the Church of Ireland and religious politics in early Victorian Belfast / Sean Farrell -- J.H. Todd and the Life of St Patrick / Dáibhí Ó Cróinín -- Bishop William Reeves, Adomnán, and the beginning of historical theology in Ireland / Thomas O'Loughlin -- Irishness, foreignness and national identity: apostolic succession in disestablishment historiography / James Golden -- George T. Stokes and the oriental origins of Irish Christianity in the late nineteenth century / Ruairí Cullen -- W.A. Phillips, History of the Church of Ireland (1933-4): a missed opportunity / Miriam Moffitt -- Church of Ireland historians and the twelfth-century reform of the Irish church, 1850-1950 / Miriam Moffitt -- Journeying into a wider world? The development of the histories of the Church of Ireland since 1950 / Ian d'Alton -- The debate about the Irish Reformation: some reflections on twentieth-century historiography. Revisiting the past: reflections on "Why the Reformation failed in Ireland: une question mal posée" / Nicholas Canny -- Taking sides? Lingering problematics in Irish church history / Karl S. Bottigheimer -- The Irish Reformation debate in retrospect / Steven G. Ellis -- After Bradshaw: the debate on the Tudor Reformation in Ireland / James Murray -- One church, two histories: the Jacobean and the Caroline traditions in the Church of Ireland, 1600-2000 / Alan Ford -- Concluding reflections / David Hayton.

"This book brings together leading Irish historians who examine how the history of the Church of Ireland has been written in the 500 years since the Reformation. It traces the emergence of a distinctly Protestant narrative, shaped by the belief that the Church of Ireland was the true descendant of St Patrick, and shows how this endured down to the twentieth century, before being challenged by the development of a more secular and professional approach to the writing of history."--Back cover.