Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500–1782 (review)

Abstract

Here is a splendid union of family biography and social history. Ronald Hoffman has written the saga of an Irish family who, over the second half of the seventeenth century, lost nearly everything fighting the English occupation of Ireland and the English effort to suppress Irish Catholicism, but who regrouped in Maryland. There, Charles Carroll, the "Settler," and his relatives and descendants rebuilt their fortunes. And there, his grandson, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, became a leader in the struggle for American independence of England and for liberty of conscience within Maryland's Christian society.