People, Politics and Power: Essays on Irish History 1660-1850 in Honour of James I. McGuire, ed. James Kelly, John McCafferty and Charles Ivar McGrath

Abstract

James McGuire enjoys unique respect among historians of Ireland. He has published a series of precise studies of high and ecclesiastical politics in the later seventeenth century that constitute pioneering approaches, which have been followed by others. As a supervisor, he has guided a phalanx of investigators into, and through, research appropriate to their talents. Most recently, as joint editor, he has seen the nine-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography to a triumphant publication (rev. ante, cxxv [2010], 1481–92). This celebratory volume of essays draws together the contributions of a number of his graduate students. Most, following their mentor, concentrate on biography and politics. John McCafferty considers the short and disappointing career of John Bramhall as archbishop of Armagh from 1660 to 1663. Bramhall was one of the group of sufferers whose appointments to Irish bishoprics after Charles II's restoration have been studied by McGuire. Similarly, Catholic lawyers were identified as an important element in the counter-revolution that came to a climax under lord deputy Tyrconnell in James II's reign. Just how prominent they were in Chancery practice and in the parliament of 1689 is elaborated by Hazel Maynard. Continuing with high politics and the emergence of regular parliaments in the 1690s, illuminated by a valuable article by McGuire in 1979, Charles Ivar McGrath examines the career of Alan Brodrick. In particular, Brodrick's appointment as Speaker of the Irish Commons in 1703, with the backing of the administration, is used to show that a pre-eminent parliamentarian, no matter how partisan, could expect to be called to the Chair. The independence from the executive of the Speaker in eighteenth-century Ireland is sharply contrasted with the greater deference shown by his British counterpart.