In 2022, Ireland will commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Irish Free State, Saorstát Éireann. Ireland’s historical journey towards this goal of political freedom, like that of many other states, was bound up with a complex history of religious competition, conflict and domination. Despite bringing Catholic emancipation this period also resulted in the institution of a harsh period of social control stemming from the alliance of the Catholic Church and the state.
Questions of freedom of religion across the globe intersect with political and social oppression, colonisation, destruction of indigenous cultures, race, gender and privilege. Rights are intertwined with freedoms; freedom of expression (both religious and secular or anti-religious), freedom of conscience, and individual freedoms such as to live openly one’s gender and sexual identities.
Conceptualised as the prerogative to pursue one’s chosen path, freedom can imply both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, and its associated concepts of secular/post-secular, atheism and non-belief.