Irene Whelan is a native of Clifden, Co. Galway and a graduate of University College Galway and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her main research interest is in the influence of religion on cultural and political life in Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is the author of The Bible War in Ireland. The 'Second Reformation' and the Polarization of Protestant-Catholic Relations, 1800-1840 (2005).
An Emeritus Professor of Manhattanville University in Purchase, New York, she is currently retired and living in the West of Ireland.
