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Select document: A discourse of Ireland, 1695

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

John Gibney
John Gibney*
Affiliation:
School of History, Trinity College Dublin
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Extract

Ireland’s political and constitutional relationship to England remains a key theme of late medieval and early modern Irish history. Although it was a relationship in which Ireland was undoubtedly the subordinate kingdom, contemporary justifications for this subordination, and assertions of its basis, are often overshadowed by arguments directed against its validity. The text reproduced below is an assertion of that validity. It offers a highly selective analysis of English policy in Ireland from the twelfth century to the end of the seventeenth, based upon the assumption of Ireland’s legal and constitutional subordination to England. More particularly, it seeks to outline attitudes among the Protestant colonial community towards Ireland’s status, and does so at a precise juncture when such attitudes were deemed to be of imminent and crucial importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 136 , November 2005 , pp. 449 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2005

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References

1 Lydon, James, ‘Ireland and the English crown, 1171–1541’ in I.H.S., xxix, no. 115 (May 1995), pp 281-94Google Scholar; Brady, Ciaran, ‘The decline of the Irish kingdom’ in Greengrass, Mark (ed.), Conquest and coalescence: the shaping of the state in early modern Europe (London, 1990), pp 95–115Google Scholar; Clarke, Aidan, ‘Colonial constitutional attitudes in Ireland, 1640–60’ in R.I.A. Proc, xc (1990), sect. C, pp 357-75Google Scholar.

2 B.L., Add. MS 27382, f. 2.

3 Ibid., f. 1.1 should like to thank Professor David Hayton for clarification on this point.

4 Troost, Wouter, ‘William III and the treaty of Limerick (1691-1697): a study of his Irish policy’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Leiden, 1983)Google Scholar. This argument is challenged in D. W Hayton, ‘Anglo-Irish politics, 1692–1704: the rise of party’ in idem, Ruling Ireland, 1685–1742: politics, politicians and parties (Woodbridge, 2004), pp 35–105.

5 McGrath, C. I., The making of the eighteenth-century Irish constitution: government, parliament and the revenue, 1692–1714 (Dublin, 2000), p. 86Google Scholar.

6 Kelly, Patrick, ‘Recasting a tradition: William Molyneux and the sources of The case of Ireland ... stated (1698)’ in Ohlmeyer, J. H. (ed.), Political thought in seventeenth-century Ireland: kingdom or colony (Cambridge, 2000), pp 83–106Google Scholar.

7 Clarke, ‘Colonial constitutional attitudes’, pp 360–61. The text itself is printed as ‘Serjeant Mayart’s answer to a book intitled, A declaration’ in Harris, Walter, Hibernica, part II. Or, Two treatises relating to Ireland (Dublin, 1790), pp 23–131Google Scholar. I should like to thank Professor Aidan Clarke for bringing this to my attention.

8 ‘Serjeant Mayart’s answer’, p. 24.

9 Ibid., p. 128.

10 Lydon, ‘Ireland & the English crown’, pp 284–5.

11 Edwards, R.D. and Moody, T.W., ‘Historical revision IV: The history of Poynings’ Law: Part 1, 1494–1615’ in I.H.S., ii, no. 8 (Sept. 1941), pp 415-24Google Scholar; Aidan Clarke, ‘Historical revision XIII: The history of Poynings’ Law, 1615–41’, ibid., xviii, no. 70 (Sept. 1972), pp 207–22.

12 Brady, ‘Decline of the Irish kingdom’.

13 Siochrű, Micheál Ó, Confederate Ireland, 1642–1649: a constitutional and political analysis (Dublin, 1999)Google Scholar.

14 Edwards & Moody, ‘History of Poynings’ Law’, pp 418–21.

15 Clarke, ‘Colonial constitutional attitudes’, p. 363.

16 McGrath, C.I., ‘English ministers, Irish politicians and the making of a parliamentary settlement in Ireland, 1692–5’ in E.H.R., cxix (2004), pp 585–613CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These negotiations are also discussed in Troost, ‘William III & the treaty of Limerick’, pp 77–106; Doyle, Thomas, ‘Parliament and politics in Williamite Ireland, 1690–1703’ (M.A. thesis, University College Dublin, 1992), pp 93–137Google Scholar; McGrath, Making of the eighteenth-century Irish constitution, pp 90–100.

17 See entry in Dictionary of Irish Biography (R.I.A., forthcoming). I would like to thank the Managing Editor, Mr J. I. McGuire, for permission to draw on this material.

18 Sir William Temple, ‘An essay on the present state and condition of Ireland’ in idem, Select letters to the prince of Orange ... (London, 1701), iii, 197–216; idem, ‘An essay upon the advancement of trade in Ireland’ in The works of Sir William Temple ... (2 vols, London, 1720), i, 109–21.

19 Temple, ‘Essay on the present state & condition of Ireland’, p. 213.

20 Sir William Temple to duke of Ormond, 10 May 1679 (H.M.C., Ormonde, n.s., v, 91–2).

21 See entry in Dictionary of Irish Biography.

22 The correspondence of Henry Hyde, earl of Clarendon ..., ed. Singer, S. W. (2 vols, London, 1828), ii, 239, 241Google Scholar.

23 Extensive collections of papers belonging to both Sir John and Sir William Temple are retained in the Palmerston collection at the University of Southampton. However, nothing resembling the present document is held in the collection.

24 I should like to thank Professor Aidan Clarke, Dr Patrick Kelly and Dr Ivar McGrath for their assistance in preparing this article.