The Case of Ireland: Commerce, Empire and the European Order, 1750–1848 (Ideas in Context, Series Number 138)

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have long been seen as a foundational period for modern Irish political traditions such as nationalism, republicanism and unionism. "The case of Ireland" offers a fresh account of Ireland's neglected role in European debates about commerce and empire in what was a global era of war and revolution. Drawing on a broad range of writings from merchants, agrarian improvers, philosophers, politicians and revolutionaries across Europe, this book shows how Ireland became a field of conflict and projection between rival visions of politics in commercial society, associated with the warring empires of Britain and France. It offers a new perspective on the crisis and transformation of the British Empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and restores Ireland to its rightful place at the centre of European intellectual history Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction An Age of Crisis The British Empire in Europe Conquest, Liberty and Aristocracy Visions of Commercial Society The Case of Ireland Chapter 1 The Enlightenment Critique of Empire in Ireland, c. 1750-1776 Conquest and Colonisation, 1542-1692 The Case of Ireland and the Woollen Controversy The Declaratory Act (1720) and the Penal Laws (1695-1728) 'Improvement' and the Catholic Question Montesquieu, Hume, Smith and Tucker on Ireland and 'Jealousy of Trade' Smith, Young and the Political Economy of Anglo-Irish Ascendancy Regenerating Empire Chapter 2 Commerce without Empire?: 'Free Trade' and 'Legislative Independence', 1776-1787 Molyneux's Case and the 'Friends of America' Commerce and the Balance of Power Free Ports and Protecting Duties From 'Foederal Union' to Commercial Propositions Sugar, Manufactures and the Revision of the Propositions The Irish Debate on the Revised Propositions Josiah Tucker on Ireland and the Slave Trade A Revolution in Retrospect Chapter 3 Property, Revolution and Peace, 1789-1803 'A Rank among the Primary Nations of the Earth' War, Empire and Slavery Arthur O'Connor and the 'Natural Progress of Opulence' Ireland and French Empire Rival Universalisms Chapter 4 Enlightenment against Revolution: Commerce, Aristocracy and the Case for Union, 1798-1801 An Empire Divided Faction, Religion and Aristocracy Poverty and Disaffection John Foster and Thomas Brooke Clarke on Commerce and 'Feudalism' William Drennan and the Radical Critique of Union Friedrich Gentz on Union and the Balance of Power The 'System of Burkism'? Chapter 5 The Granary of Great Britain: War, Population and Agriculture 1798-1815 Currency and Capital Grain and Emancipation Ireland and the Continental System Dependency and Empire Robert Malthus, Edward Wakefield and the Politics of the Potato The Making of an Orthodoxy Chapter 6 Democracy, Nationality and the Social Question, 1815-1848 The British Economists and the 'Cottage System' Property and the Social Question Gustave de Beaumont, Ireland and the Future of Democracy Young Ireland and the Political Economy of 'Nationality' James Fintan Lalor and John Stuart Mill on Famine and Revolution The Legacies of Revolution Conclusion: Ireland between Empires Bibliography Manuscript Sources Printed Sources Secondary Literature Index "In the closing decades of the eighteenth century, Ireland became the object of a vigorous debate concerning the promise and perils of commerce in an era of global war and revolution. This debate concerned not just the identity and future of the Irish polity itself, but of the British Empire of which it was a central part; and the relationship of that empire to its European allies and rivals. As such, it had many participants: not only Irish and British, but French, German, Swiss and Italian"-- Provided by publisher