About Us

The Centre for Law, Religion and Society (CLRS) is based in the School of Law at the University of Galway. It provides a space for research, teaching, and engagement on the many ways in which law, religion, and society intersect in people’s lives.

Our Mission:

• To be a multidisciplinary hub for research, teaching, and engagement at the intersections of law, religion, and society.
• To advance understanding of how norms, ethics, and belief systems shape law and justice across diverse contexts.
• To produce research that deepens knowledge, informs practice, and contributes to equality, gender justice, and social change.

Our work focuses on how moral frameworks, ethical reasoning, and belief systems influence law and social norms, and on how legal structures, in turn, shape lived experience. The Centre supports scholarship that contributes to equality, gender justice, and social change — both in Ireland and internationally.

CLRS builds on the foundations of the ERC-funded BILQIS Project and continues to grow through new collaborations, interdisciplinary research, and public engagement.

Through seminars, lectures, and partnerships with community organisations and policy actors, the Centre connects academic research with the wider public. Its goal is to deepen understanding of how questions of justice, rights, and inclusion are lived and negotiated across diverse social and cultural settings.