Episode 28: Laurence Cox - The Irish Buddhist

Laurence Cox is a long-time social movement activist and practicing Buddhist who has been involved in many different movement struggles in Ireland and internationally since the 1980s. He co-edits the activist/academic movement journal Interface, works with the Buddhist-based Ulex activist training centre in Catalonia and with low-impact child-friendly meditation retreats in SW England. He is an  Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and the author/editor of ten books and many other academic and activist pieces on social movements, revolutions, modern Buddhism and new religious movements, including Why Social Movements Matter; Buddhism and Ireland: from the Celts to the Counter-culture and Beyond; and Voices of 1968. With Alicia Turner and Brian Bocking he has just published The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020) about the extraordinary life of the hobo, anti-colonial activist and early western bhikkhu U Dhammaloka.