Burma / Myanmar: U Dhammaloka (c. 1856 – c. 1914) was an Irish-Buddhist monk who...

U Dhammaloka (c. 1856 - c. 1914) was an Irish-born migrant worker who became a Buddhist monk, atheist critic of Christian missionaries, and temperance campaigner who took an active role in the Asian Buddhist revival around the turn of the twentieth century. Dhammaloka was ordained in Burma prior to 1900, making him one of the earliest attested western Buddhist monks. He was a celebrity preacher, vigorous polemicist and prolific editor in Burma and Singapore between 1900 and his conviction for sedition and appeal in 1910-1911. Drawing on western atheist writings, he publicly challenged the role of Christian missionaries and by implication the British empire.