The Case Of Ireland

Demonstrating Ireland's central role in European debates about empire and commerce in the global age of revolutions, this pathbreaking book offers a new perspective on the crisis and transformation of the British Empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and restores Ireland to its rightful place at the centre of European intellectual history.

Northern Ireland is frequently characterised in terms of a two traditions paradigm, representing the conflict as being between two discrete cultures. Demonstrating the reductionist nature of this argument, this book highlights the complexity of reality.

Regarded as the most celebrated Irish political pamphlet published before 1801, William Molyneux's Case of Ireland, stated (1698) was written to demonstrate that English statutes did not become of force in Ireland until they had been re-enacted by the Irish parliament. For all its fame, the Case's mass of legal precedents and seemingly contradictory arguments make it a work that requires elucidation for the modern reader. This new edition presents a critical text, based on the manuscripts of the Case in the Trinity College Dublin library, together with explanatory notes, and a re-examination of the historical background and the sources on which Molyneux drew.