Pious and promiscuous – Life, love and family in Presbyterian Ulster

Pious and promiscuous – Life, love and family in Presbyterian Ulster will be published on 15 October 2025. 

Join us for the book launch in Belfast at the end of October - details here

Leanne Calvert will join a Dublin Book Festival panel discussion in November - find out more

Step into the intimate worlds of Presbyterian women and men who lived, loved and laboured in long-eighteenth-century Ulster. Drawing on letters, diaries, newspapers and church court records, this book reveals the personal moments that shaped the rhythms and rituals of Presbyterian family life. From anxious parents and lovesick courting couples to rebellious youths, unfaithful spouses and grieving widows, these stories bring to life the full range of human experience. Pious and Promiscuous offers a vivid and previously unseen glimpse into how ordinary people navigated life’s most significant milestones as members of a closely knit religious community. Their stories may make you laugh, gasp or even shed a tear, as you encounter the colourful – and oftentimes messy – lives of Ulster’s Presbyterians.  

Unveiling Women’s Lives and the Family in Presbyterian Ulster - blog series by Róisín Ní Neachtain

Meet the runaway husbands and eloping wives of 18th century Ulster - RTÉ's Brainstorm, 7 October 2025.

The sex lives of Presbyterians in 18th- and 19th-century Ulster were surprisingly colourful - article on The Conversation, 2 October 2025.