You and your church family are invited to our next Irish Baptist Historical Society address before Mission’s Night on Tuesday 13th May at 5:45pm (tea from 5:00pm) in Ballynahinch Baptist with Dr. Karina Bénazech Wendling on “Language, Power, and Baptist missionaries – Bringing the Reformation through Irish schools”. The addresses will be followed by some light refreshments for those intending to stay for Mission’s night.

Join us for a fascinating evening exploring how a language, once outlawed and feared, came to hold surprising value for 19th-century Baptist missionaries. This lecture dives into the long and complex history of Gaelic suppression in Ireland—from medieval laws designed to crush Irish culture, to the radical shift brought by Baptist missionary movements determined to bring the Bible to Irish-speaking Catholics in their native tongue. Drawing from rare archival material spanning Oxford, Dublin, and the Vatican, our speaker reveals how unlikely religious alliances and colonial strategies reshaped the relationship between faith, identity, and language in Ireland. Discover how the Irish language—once seen as rebellious—became a tool for conversion and cultural negotiation, and how Baptist innovations opened the way for a new appreciation of the Irish language by Protestants, at least in Ireland. 

Karina Bénazech Wendling is Associate Professor at the University of Lorraine and a member of IDEA research team, as well as Associate Researcher at LEM-CNRS. Since she got her PhD in contemporary history from PSL prepared at EPHE/GSRL-CNRS, she has been working on a postdoctoral project entitled ‘Emancipation and education in the transatlantic space: circulation of ideas and struggles for influence, 18th-19th century,’ prepared under the direction of Hubert Bost, Director of Studies at EPHE-PSL. She has published several articles in international journals and has two forthcoming books: Converting Ireland: religious education, language and nationalism, Manchester University Press, and De la Bible au soupérisme: éducation, missions protestantes et nationalisme en Irlande au premier XIXe siècle, Honoré Champion. She also manages the MIRCOM research project, which inverstigates the role of the Jewish and Protestant minorities in redefining national identities in France, Ireland and Italy (1789-1948).