Thursday 4 December at 6pm (27 University Square 01/003, Queen’s University Belfast, and online).

You are very welcome to the final USIHS seminar of 2025 when Dr Henry Jefferies will speak on Irish women and the Reformation. This is a free event open to all.

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century represented the greatest religious crisis in European history since the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity in the fourth century. Protestant reformers characterised the Catholic Church as an evil entity headed by the Antichrist, with doctrines and religious practices that were false. The Reformers looked to the ‘Word of God’, the Bible, to recreate the Church of Jesus de novo. They confronted women with a choice that was more important than simply a question of life and death – it concerned life after death! The Bible was clear as to how a woman was supposed to make her choice: 

“If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home”. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 ESV.

“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet”. 1 Timothy 2:11-14 ESV

This paper looks at the responses of Irish women to the Reformation. It reveals that despite the Bible’s injunctions, they exercised considerable agency, perhaps even decisive agency, in the religious struggles of the sixteenth century.

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