Reading list

Official reports, journalism, scholarship and datasets on Church and State land in Ireland, plus research on similar projects abroad.

The background reading behind Open Talamh. If you know of something that belongs here, tell us.

Research notes

  • Similar projects around the world: fifteen investigations into Church and land ownership abroad (Who Owns England, Spain’s inmatriculaciones, the Australian and Canadian church-wealth investigations and more), with the lessons for Ireland.

Official reports and State records

Source Year Why it matters
C&AG Special Report 96: Cost of Child Abuse Inquiry and Redress 2017 Redress cost about €1.5bn to end-2015. Congregations offered further cash and property worth €353m after 2009. Lists property transfers.
Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report) 2009 Names every institution, its congregation and its location.
Report of the Panel to Assess the Statements of Resources submitted by Religious Congregations (PDF) 2009 Asset values for the 18 redress congregations. The best published valuation benchmark.
McAleese Report on State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries 2013 Lists Magdalene institutions and State involvement.
Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes 2021 Institutions, operators and sites.
Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector: Advisory Group report 2012 School patronage figures and the divestment debate.
Oireachtas PQ on school ownership, 10 March 2009 2009 The Department confirms school site records sit on individual files, not a central database.
C&AG Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2019, Ch. 8: Management of the schools estate (PDF; The Journal’s summary) 2020 An estimated 87% of the school estate is on land not owned by the Minister or ETBs, as reported by The Journal.
C&AG Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2023, Ch. 7: Protecting the State’s investment in the schools estate (PDF) 2024 85% of schools are built on land owned by patrons or trustees.

Journalism

Source Year Why it matters
RTÉ Investigates: Christian Brothers – The Assets, The Abusers (press pack) 2025 Traced a portfolio of over 800 properties through trustees named on deeds.
Noteworthy and The Journal, HOLY LAND: religious orders involved in redress sold properties totalling €90 million since 2016 2022 Property sales by seven redress-linked orders, checked against 2009 asset data.
Conor Ryan, Irish Examiner, Church’s asset portfolio included 10,700 properties 2011 Examined over 1.5 million property parcels outside Dublin and found 10,700+ owned or occupied by the Church, about 1 in 100 rateable properties.
Abuse orders cashed in €667million on property deals (The Journal, summarising the Irish Examiner) 2011 395 properties sold by 17 orders for €667m between 1999 and 2009.
Emma Gilleece, Village Magazine, Church betrays its public-interest legacy by school-land sales 2017 Puts Church land and property in the State at €3.743bn.
Mary Raftery, States of Fear, RTÉ (MoLI exhibition page) 1999 The documentary that led to the State apology and the Commission.

Books and scholarship

Source Why it matters
Fintan O’Toole, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 (Head of Zeus, 2021) A history of modern Ireland, including the Church’s hold on its institutions.
Sarah Roddy, Money and Irish Catholicism (Cambridge University Press) How the Church acquired its property.
Sarah Roddy and Patrick Doyle, “The Catholic Church and investor capitalism in late-nineteenth century Ireland”, Irish Studies Review 32(1), 2024 How the Church invested its money.
Kevin Cahill, Who Owns Ireland: The Hidden Truth of Land Ownership in Ireland (History Press Ireland, 2017) The only national land-ownership survey.
James M. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame, 2007) Frames institutional sites as a system, not isolated buildings.
Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell (eds), Coercive Confinement in Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2012) Counts and categorises institutions across the 20th century.
Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan, Suffer the Little Children (New Island, 1999) The industrial school system, its finances and State funding.
Claire McGettrick, Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke, James M. Smith and Mari Steed, Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (2021) Survivor-led research and a critique of the McAleese Report.
Tom Inglis, Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland (UCD Press, 1998) The sociology of Church power.
Matt Cooper, Who Really Owns Ireland (Gill, 2024) Who owns and controls Irish land and property today, including foreign investment.

Datasets

Links checked October 2026.