The Cambridge History of Ireland: Volume 3, 1730-1880

Description

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an era of continuity as well as change. Though properly portrayed as the era of 'Protestant Ascendancy' it embraces two phases - the eighteenth century when that ascendancy was at its peak; and the nineteenth century when the Protestant elite sustained a determined rear-guard defence in the face of the emergence of modern Catholic nationalism. Employing a chronology that is not bound by traditional datelines, this volume moves beyond the familiar political narrative to engage with the economy, society, population, emigration, religion, language, state formation, culture, art and architecture, and the Irish abroad. It provides new and original interpretations of a critical phase in the emergence of a modern Ireland that, while focused firmly on the island and its traditions, moves beyond the nationalist narrative of the twentieth century to provide a history of late early modern Ireland for the twenty-first century.

James Kelly is Professor of History at Dublin City University. He is a member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and President of the Irish Economic and Social History Society. His publications include That Damn'd Thing Called Honour: Duelling in Ireland, 1750-1860 (1995); Henry Flood: Patriots and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (1998); Poynings' Law and the Making of Law in Ireland, 1660-1800 (2007); and, as editor (with Martyn Powell), Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (2010); (with Mary Ann Lyons), The Proclamations of Ireland, 1660-1820 (5 vols, 2014), and (with Elizabeth FitzPatrick) of Food and Drink in Ireland (2016). His book Sport in Ireland, 1600-1840 (2014) won the special commendation prize offered by the National University of Ireland in 2016. Thomas Bartlett was born in Belfast, and is a graduate of Queen's University Belfast. He has held positions at the National University of Ireland, Galway, then as Professor of Modern Irish history at University College Dublin, and most recently as Professor of Irish history at the University of Aberdeen, until his retirement in 2014. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and his previous publications include Ireland: A History (Cambridge, 2010).