Together they held up much of twentieth-century Irish life, in (apparently) mutually-supporting ways. In contrast to this harmonious image, McCabe examines their often strikingly difficult relationship at the birth of the modern Irish state.

For God and Ireland is a study of how rhetoric gave way to pragmatism. Each side longed to achieve moral superiority over the other. Instead, both sides found that what they said and what they could do in the situation in which they found themselves were often drastically different. Unfortunately for many in Ireland, the heated words left deep wounds that never truly healed.