Consumption, Gender, and the Politics of "Free Trade" in Eighteenth-Century Ireland

Abstract

In 1779, a campaign emerged in Ireland to protest English restrictions imposed on Irish trade. This article outlines the emergence of this market for patriotic goods and the increased commercialization of politics in Ireland in the 1770s. Through the examination of advertisements, prints, and other ephemera, this essay examines the way in which this campaign for a "free trade" facilitated the growth of an increasingly commercialized extra-parliamentary political culture. It argues that the quotidian world of consumption was as important to Irish patriot politics as the more exalted realms of parliamentary debate or the expressions of Protestant patriotism articulated in pamphlet literature. It also examines the gendered nature of this campaign. As acts of consumption became politicized, women gained a prominent place in the discourse and the practice this movement, while a sphere patriotic of consumption specific to men was also identified, based around forms of sociability and voluntary association.