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Professor Siobhán Garrigan

Loyola Professor of Catholic Theology (School of Religion)
      
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Professor Siobhán Garrigan

Loyola Professor of Catholic Theology (School of Religion)

 garrigs@tcd.ie

 


In 2021, Ireland's national broadcaster, RTÉ Radio One, asked Professor Siobhán Garrigan to present its flagship religious and spiritual affairs programme, The Leap of Faith, because of her public engagement and her theological research. Then in 2023, RTÉ commissioned her own programme, Witness with Siobhán Garrigan; it airs every Friday from October to April and on Christmas morning.

Prof. Garrigan works at the intersection of theology and social justice -- in her research, teaching, and wider public commitments. She studies and teaches about the ways that humans encounter the divine, and potentially become divine, through standing up to and against the forces of nationalism and capitalism/neo-liberalism that seek to define today's world, and she does so from a feminist and ecumenical standpoint. In particular, she writes about homelessness, sectarianism, racism, and queer life, asking how humans (and non-humans) can connect across the boundaries of difference, always with an eye to power dynamics, exposing how those boundaries and supposed categories of difference were devised in the first place.

In doing so, her methods give priority to people's lived experiences rather than to doctrinal texts, and she pays particular attention to ritual/worship/liturgy as a source of theological enactment, reflection and critique. At root, her work is sacramental theology -- a particular strand of theology in the Catholic tradition that seeks to interpret the material as spiritual, the embodied as the locus of divine revelation. Consequently, in her teaching she integrates art, music, poetry and performance with sacred and scholarly texts, encouraging students to think theologically through their encounters with these media. And in her public engagement, in addition to the radio programmes, she has served on the boards of several non-profit organisations in Ireland, the UK and the USA.

Prof. Garrigan is also a skilled and experienced leader and manager, the only person to have been elected for two terms as Head of what is now the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies (2016-2023), during which time she led the diverse departments/disciplines that comprise the School through a major review and reorganisation, and ultimately to agreement of a 5-year Strategic Plan for 2023-2028. Previously, as Dean of the Chapel at Yale University Divinity School she created and led a ground-breaking daily ecumenical worship programme (2002-2010), and as the founding Director of Emmaus Coventry (1993-1996), she started the second of what are now more than thirty intentional communities in the UK for people experiencing homelessness, based around recycling industries.

Her next book, due out with Cambridge University Press in 2025, is A Theology of Home in a Time of Homelessness. Her other monographs are Beyond Ritual (Ashgate 2004, reissued in 2010), and The Real Peace Process: Worship, Politics, and the End of Sectarianism (Equinox 2010, reissued in 2011, 2014 and 2017 by Routledge). Details of her journal articles and other publications can be found below.
  anti-capitalism   anti-racism   Critical theory and Theology   Ecumenical Worship   Feminist theology and philosophy   Homelesness   How race and racism are treated in Theology and Religion   Interfaith worship   LGBTQ Theologies   Liturgy, Worship and Ritual   neo-liberalism   Northern Ireland Conflict   Religion and the media   Religion in Ireland and Northern Ireland   Religion, Conflict and Peace   sectarianism   social justice   Theology   Theology and Public Life   Theology and Social Justice   Theology and the Arts
Project Title
 Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe - RICE 2
From
To
Summary
My role is Academic Advisor to the European Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups, who are running a second round of RICE. RICE is an index that measures the inclusivity of churches across Europe using 51 carefully designed indicators.
Funding Agency
Government of the Netherlands

Siobhán Garrigan, A Theology of Home in a Time of Homelessness, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2025, i - 70pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, ''Witness, with Siobhán Garrigan', Spring Series 2024', RTÉ Radio One, 10 Episodes, Dublin, 2024, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Response to Joerg Rieger: 'Jesus vs. Caesar', The Westar Institute, The Christ Seminar, Lexington KY/online, 13 June, edited by Convener: Wilson Dickinson , 2024, Oral Presentation, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Review of A Political Theology of Vulnerability, by Sturla J. Stålsett , Studies in Christian Ethics, 37, (4), 2024, p932-935 , Review, PUBLISHED
'Queer Worship' in, editor(s)in Bryan Cones, Sharon R. Fennema, W. Scott Haldeman and Stephen Burns (Eds.) , Queering Christian Worship: Reconstructing Liturgical Theology, New York, Seabury Books, 2023, pp39 - 54, [Siobhán Garrigan], Notes: [A reprint of my 2009 article of the same title, acknowledging how influential that article was in shaping the subsequent field of 'queering worship'.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, ''Witness, with Siobhán Garrigan', Autumn Series 2023', RTÉ Radio One, 10 Episodes, Dublin, 2023, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Keynote: 'Christian Imaginings of Home: Political Theology after Nationalism', Political Theologies after Christendom, Oxford University (Blavatnik Institute), 26-30 March 2023, edited by Marietta van ver Tol (Ed.) , 2023, pp1-20 , Notes: [proceedings to follow], Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, ''The Leap of Faith', Autumn Series 2022', RTÉ Radio One, 10 Episodes, Dublin, 2022, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, ''The Leap of Faith', Spring Series 2022', RTÉ Radio One, 4 Episodes, Dublin, 2022, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, ''The Leap of Faith', Winter Series 2022', RTÉ Radio One, 10 Episodes, Dublin, 2022, -, Broadcast, PUBLISHED
  

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Siobhán Garrigan, Geraldine Mitchell & Una Mannion, Or Would You Rather Be A Fish?, Linenhall, Castlebar, 26 September 2017, 2017, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Siobhán Garrigan, Worship in a Violent World: Deconstructing Ordinary Liturgies, Reflections, 91, (1), 2004, p45 - 49, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Eat, Drink, ALL? of you., The Furrow, 53, (11), 2002, p606 - 611, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Putting Life into Liturgy, The Furrow, 51, (2), 2000, p80 - 86, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Planning the Liturgy in, editor(s)Eamon Duffy and Enda Lyons , Celebrating the Triduum, Dublin, Columba Press, 1999, pp29 - 52, [Siobhán Garrigan], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Siobhán Garrigan, Food, Famine and the Irish Eucharistic Experience, Céide, 3, (2), 1999, p44 - 45, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Award for Excellence in Supervision of Research Students (School of RTPS) 2023
Fellowship, Trinity College Dublin 2016
University Merit Award (for inclusive pedagogy), Exeter University, UK 2012
Yale University Presidential Citation for Excellence - Extraordinary Service Award 2008
Ecumenical Fellowship, Union Theological Seminary (Columbia University) New York 1991