History Department Faculty
Oliver P. Rafferty, S.J.
Professor of History
Oliver P. Rafferty, S.J.
D.Phil
Contact
Stokes Hall Room S319
Telephone: 617-552-4912
Email: oliver.rafferty@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., University of London
- M.Phil., Trinity College Dublin
- M.Sc., Oxford University
- M.Th., University of London
- D.Phil, Oxford University
Research Interests
The history of Irish Christianity; 19th and 20th century British and Irish history especially the relationship between church and state; revolutionary violence and the development of militant Irish nationalism; and the history of Catholicism since the Thirty Years' War.
Department
Biography
Oliver, a Jesuit priest, has taught at several universities and colleges in Britain and Ireland. He has also been a visiting professor in the United States, Korea and Australia. He has been an examiner at the master’s and doctoral levels for Oxford University; the University of London; Trinity College Dublin; the National University of Ireland, Galway; University College, Dublin; the National Council for Academic Awards, Dublin; and the University of Western Australia. He has written or edited seven books.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
Books
Violence, Politics and Catholicism in Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016)
Articles, encyclopaedia entries and book chapters
Eleven entries in Andrew Louth (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
"Ireland’s Lost Cardinal" in Terence Dooley, Mary Ann Lyons, and Salvador Ryan (eds.), The Historian as Detective: Essays in Honour of Raymond Gillespie (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2022).
Review Article "Jesuit Superior General Luis Martín and his Memorias 'Showing Up,'" by David G. Schultenover, S.J., in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review III:441 (2022), pp. 74–82.
"The Legal and Constitutional Organization of the Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Ireland" in Kevin Costello and Niamh Howlin (eds.), Law and Religion in Ireland, 1700–1970 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 137–156.
"The Politics of Pope Francis II," in Doctrine and Life 71: I (2021) pp. 22–29.
"The Catholic Church in Irish Studies," in Mike Cronin, Renée Fox, and Brian Ó Conchubhar (eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies (London, 2020) pp. 260–70.
"The Politics of Pope Francis," in Doctrine and Life 70:10 (2020), pp. 2–11.
"David Moriarty’s Episcopal Leadership in the Diocese of Kerry, 1854–77," in Maurice Bric (ed.), Kerry: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 2020), pp. 391–406.
Book reviews
Review of Maureen O’Carroll, A Musical Memoir of an Australian Immigrant Childhood, in Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 42 (2021), pp. 157–59.
Review of Conor Morrissey, "Protestant Nationalists in Ireland, 1900–1923," in Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2021) 72:1, pp. 216–17.
Review of Margaret M. Scull, The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1968–1998, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 71:4 (2020), pp. 910–11.
Review of Thomas Paul Burgess (ed.), The Contested Identities of Ulster Catholics, in British Catholic History 35:2 (2020), pp. 241–43.
Review of Colin Barr, Ireland’s Empire: The Roman Catholic Church in the English Speaking World, 1829–1914, in History Ireland 28:4 (2020), p. 63.
Review of Kevin Whelan, Religion, Landscape, and Settlement in Ireland: from Patrick to Present, in English Historical Review 135:573 (2020), pp. 440–41.
Review of Laura McAtackney, An Archaeology of the Troubles: The dark heritage of Long Kesh/Maze Prison, in Britain and the World 13:1 (2020), pp. 97–99.
Review of Richard Lawrence Jordon, Paisleyism and Civil Rights. An Ambassador Unchained, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 71:1 (2020), p. 223.