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The Church of Ireland ( ) is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church. Like other Anglican churches it has retained elements of pre-Reformation practice and is episcopal in polity, while rejecting papal authority and incorporating many of the theological and liturgical reforms of the Reformation and the English Reformation in particular; in this regard the church formally identifies as both Catholic and Reformed, though people within the church may identify themselves more strongly as one or the other. Unlike most other churches of the Anglican Communion, however, for particular historical and cultural reasons the Church of Ireland is generally identified as being a Protestant church.
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