The Angloirish Experience 16801730 Religion Identity And Patriotism

the long version

"The wars and revolutions of seventeenth-century Ireland established in power a ruling class of Protestant landowners whose culture and connexions were traditionally English, but whose interests and political loyalties were increasingly Irish. At first unsure of their self-image and ambivalent in their loyalties, they gradually became more confident and developed a distinctive notion of 'Irishness'. The Anglo-Irish Experience explores the religious, intellectual and political culture of this new elite during a period of change and adjustment. D.W. Hayton traces both the shifting sense of national identity characteristic of the period and the changing stereotype of the Irish in English popular literature - which did much to push the 'Anglo-Irish' to embrace their Irish heritage. He also argues for the emergence of a pragmatic, constructive form of political 'patriotism', linked closely to the prevailing ideology of economic 'improvement' and underpinned by the influence of evangelical Protestantism. A key feature of the book is the use made of case studies of individuals and families: the decay of the Ormond Butlers, undermined by debt and eventually driven into political exile; the rise and fall of the Brodricks, gentlemen lawyers with a strong provincial power-base; the political journey of the politician and political writer Henry Maxwell, from 'commonwealth whig' ideologue to ministerial hack; and the relationship between Sir John Rawdon, a pious and intellectual squire, and his estate agent Thomas Prior, pamphleteer and apostle of 'improvement'. These and other narratives illustrate the variety and complexity of the 'Anglo-Irish' experience in a period that witnessed the foundation of what would in due course come to be known as the 'Protestant nation'. Early modern British and Irish historians will find this book invaluable."--Publisher's website.