For many years the accepted view of Scottish historians has been that the Reformation saw the disappearance of Catholicism across Scotland and its replacement by the new dominant Protestant culture. Recent research shows that this was very far from being the case. From the immediate pre-Reformation church through the years of suppression, to the pioneer missionary efforts by the Jesuits and others in the seventeenth century, the story moves on to the gradual re-acceptance of Catholicism as a legitimate faith in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The story also touches on the Italian influence in Orkney in World War II and the famous Italian chapel. This is the fascinating story of survival and change in a religious community at the edge of Europe and serves to restore balance to the history of religion and belief in Scotland.
Alison Gray previously lived in Orkney and has spent a number of years reconstructing this definitive account of the story of Catholicism in the Islands. The book is sponsored by the Catholic Church.
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