The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Philosophically Pragmatic Account of Church-State Constitutional Arrangements
David Kenny is Professor in Law and Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. This post is based on a presentation given at “The Role of Religion in Constitutional Identity,” a workshop cosponsored by the ICLRS, Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Law, and the Journal of Law, Religion and State at Christ Church, University of Oxford, 15–16 July 2026.
This post explores the question of whether, and in what conditions, a state might establish an official religion while still guaranteeing freedom for minority religions. I address this question by advancing a (very brief) case for an approach to church-state arrangements and religious freedom based on philosophical pragmatism that offers a clear—if not necessarily immediately helpful—answer. The please excuse the fact that the arguments presented below are necessarily succinct, due to the constraints of the blog format.
It is well known that Roman Catholicism played a central role in Ireland’s colonial and independence eras. Various formal legal disabilities on and discriminations against Roman Catholics under the Penal Laws were seen as a major source of British colonial oppression in Ireland. These laws were in force for a long time, and their longevity and impact distinguish the experience of Irish Catholics from many of their European co-religionists [1]. The divisions between Catholic Ireland and Protestant Great Britain were entrenched by reference to religious belief and status, and religious liberation was therefore a major part of movements opposing British rule in Ireland. Catholicism became the “central characteristic of Irish nationalism” [2] and the primary way by which to distinguish the colonizer from the colonized. The population of the Irish state was, at the time of its independence in 1922, more than 90% Roman Catholic, while Catholics were a small minority of the population of the United Kingdom.