THE CHURCH OF IRELAND HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
The next meeting of the Society will be held in the Armagh Public Library (Robinson Library) on
Saturday 28 April 2012
The library is located at the northwest entrance gate to the Church of Ireland Cathedral.
PROGRAMME
10.30am: Coffee in the Deanery (accessed via the entrance to the library)
11am: Dr Robert Armstrong, ‘The Solemn League and Covenant (1643) and Protestant
Ireland’
12pm: Prof. David Fitzpatrick, ‘Non-Covenanters: why one-quarter of Protestant Ulster
dissented in 1912’
1pm: Lunch will be provided at a modest sum in the Cathedral Music Hall
2pm: Mr Robbie Roulston, ‘“We must fight and fight and fight again”: the Church of
Ireland and opposition to free Protestant second-level education in the Irish state: 1966-72’
3pm: Dr Michael O’Neill, ‘A view into Ossory parishes in the eighteenth century: the
evidence of Episcopal Visitation returns’
The Speakers:
 Dr Robert Armstrong is a senior lecturer in history at Trinity College, Dublin. He is one of the
Principal Investigators on the IRCHSS Insular Christianity Project and co-editor of Irish Historical
Studies. He has published widely on early modern Ireland and Britain, particularly the religious,
political and intellectual history of the seventeenth century.
 Prof. David Fitzpatrick is Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin. He has
published extensively on the Irish revolution and international migration. In 2011 he published
Solitary and wild: Frederick MacNeice and the salvation of Ireland. He is currently preparing a book
entitled The Orange: Protestant brotherhood in Ireland since 1795 (Cambridge, forthcoming 2013).
 Mr Robbie Roulston is an IRCHSS doctoral scholar at UCD. He held the Albert Lovett
Scholarship in 2009-10. His thesis is entitled The Church of Ireland and the Irish state: institution,
community and state relations, 1950-1972. It aims to provide an historical account of the Church of
Ireland in the context of church-state relations as an institution.
 Dr Michael O’Neill did his PhD in Architectural History at Trinity College, Dublin. He has
published a number of important articles, particularly in relation to Irish cathedrals. His current
project is cataloguing the extensive collections of 19th century architectural drawings of churches
at the RCB Library. This is funded by the Esme Mitchell Trust.
Registration:
There will be an opportunity for members to renew their annual subscriptions, if they have
not done so already. The annual subscription is £35 or €40. Non-members are most
welcome. They are asked to subscribe £7 or €10 to assist with conference expenses.
The Church of Ireland Historical Society meets twice a year: in the Robinson Library,
Armagh, in April, and in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in November. It exists to
promote scholarly interest in the history of the Church, and to facilitate publication.
Queries may be addressed to Adrian Empey, Hon. Sec. Telephone +353-1-4055056 or email: empeya@tcd.ie