Ourselves Alone? Religion, Society and Politics in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Essays Presented to S.J. Connolly, ed. D.W. Hayton and Andrew R. Holmes

Abstract

Professor Sean Connolly has made a distinguished contribution to the history of Ireland. His first two monographs, Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845 (1982) and Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland, 1660–1760 (1992), were notable for their willingness to question established, even orthodox, interpretations. This was most apparent in his treatment of the penal laws in the latter volume, which demonstrated just how unexceptional in European terms the Irish version of the eighteenth-century ancien régime was. This concern in Connolly’s work, to challenge received wisdoms and to locate the Irish experience in a wider context, whether that was British, Atlantic or European, is given expression in the playful title—with its echo of an early twentieth-century insular Sinn Fein slogan—of this fine collection of essays published to mark Connolly’s retirement from Queen’s University Belfast. Thematically, this volume, edited by D.W. Hayton and Andrew R. Holmes, brings together a distinguished collection of former colleagues, academic peers and former students to explore the political, economic and social history of Ireland in the long eighteenth century. Somewhat neglected, therefore, is the influence of Connolly’s work on Ireland’s intellectual history. None of the contributors adopt an explicitly comparative approach, although Thomas Bartlett offers some suggestive thoughts about the Scottish dimension to the 1793 Catholic Relief Act, along the lines of Connolly’s significant contributions to the New British History. Such lacunae can however be excused when the sheer range of Connolly’s work is considered.