Divided Kingdom: Ireland 1630-1800
by SJ Connolly
Oxford University Press, £35
CORMAC McCARTHY, Viscount Muskerry and Earl of Clancarty, was killed on board HMS Royal Charles in a sea battle off Lowestoft in 1665. Gaelic Irish, and Roman Catholic, he was fighting for England against the Dutch republic. The McCarthys of Muskerry, by co-operating with the Crown, retained their land in the early 17th century when other Gaelic dynasties lost theirs. The family made marriages both Catholic and Protestant, and some converted to Protestantism, yet their wealth was confiscated as they allied with the fortunes of James II. One, however, resurfaces in 1733 as the British governor of Newfoundland.
In this book SJ Connolly uses the McCarthys to illustrate how personal alliances and rivalries, as well as calculated responses to the ever-changing English political situation, suggests that Ireland was not as divided as is usually stated in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Nonetheless, his argument is not always consistent. Take Jonathan Swift. I always thought him as particularly liberal when he spoke on behalf of “the whole people of Ireland”. He wasn’t. By “whole people” he meant those who counted – Protestant gentlemen such as himself. The majority of the people of the island, the Roman Catholics, were simply “the Irish”.
This book begins in 1630 – a time of apparent contentment following earlier plantations. There were four distinct groups on the island of Ireland: the Gaelic Irish, the Old English (the Anglo-Normans who came to Ireland in the late 12th century), the New English (the Protestant planters) and the Scottish Presbyterians. By 1800 the Old English had been lumped together with the Gaelic Irish – as Catholics.
1630 was just before the arrival of Thomas Wentworth as Lord Deputy. In his pursuit of profit for the Crown, Wentworth (the future Earl of Strafford) antagonised all four groups. That to me was known. What I found more interesting was that in carrying out his duty he believed he was entitled to huge profits and farmland.
This “fat cat” attitude turns up again in 1800. The Irish parliament had already voted against union with Britain, so Pitt’s government decided to offer inducements to certain MP’s. Crude bribery? Yes and no. Apparently the recipients believed this was compensation they deserved for rights they were giving up.
Divided Kingdom is thus most useful as a compendium of many contentious moments in Irish history, including Oliver Cromwell’s campaign, the penal laws and the rebellion of 1798. There is detailed anecdote – as for example the furore over wood halfpence (a rumour that Ireland was being fobbed off with inferior coin) or the fact that the Irish Confederacy had to pay French and Spanish loans with men exported for their respective armies.
The author is scrupulously fair to all sides. He says, for instance, that the restrictions on Irish cattle exports hit the economy hard but stories of absentee landlords taking their rents abroad is largely a myth. He accepts that many Protestants were killed in sectarian violence during 1798 but refers the reader to an alternative explanation.
Where I feel the book is not so strong is when discussing the dispossessed Irish. There is less evidence – but what little there is could be analysed better. Take the claim that when the French landed in Connacht they were greeted by locals with rosaries. Two locals? Ten? What is implied is that most or even all the locals were superstitious and/or ignorant rather than possessing political awareness. But such a claim is surely highly suspect given how stereotypical it is.
Marxist historians have tended to emphasise division but there now seems a trend in recent academe to stress interconnectedness and Connolly concludes by noting unity well into the 19th century. But I would argue that true opinion – by which I mean opinion unrestrained by fear of retribution – was only possible with the coming of the Irish Free State. There then began a sharp reduction in the Protestant population.
Richard Woulfe
