Representing Sikhism: Essays in Memory of the Irish scholar Max Arthur Macauliffe

This is an introduction, by the guest editors, to the special issue of
JISASR (Vol 4, 2017) entitled ‘Representing Sikhism: Essays in Memory of the Irish
Scholar Max Arthur Macauliffe’. The genesis of this special issue lies in pioneering
work on Macauliffe’s Irish identity and personal and scholarly life undertaken by
Professor Tadhg Foley (Galway). The active interest and support of members of
the Sikh community in Ireland led to a conference, hosted by the Study of Religions
Department at University College Cork, held to mark the centennial of
Macauliffe’s death on 15 March 1913. After some brief comments on past and
present trends in the study of Ireland-Asia connections in the field of religions, we
discuss Macauliffe’s significance for modern representations of Sikhism and offer
some contextual observations on each of the four papers. The article concludes
with a brief resumé of the 2013 conference at which the papers were originally
presented.