In this important study, reissued here in paperback along with a new historiographical essay, T.C. Barnard anatomizes the Irish problem of the mid-seventeenth century and connects it to the English politics and policies both before and after the interregnum. He looks closely at how and by whom Ireland was ruled and how its government was financed, and he explores in detail the primary Cromwellian goals in Ireland: propagating the Protestant gospel, providing English and Protestant education, advancing learning, and reforming the law.

What was life like for Irish Protestants between the mid-seventeenth and the late-eighteenth centuries? In an account filled with entertaining episodes and memorable characters, Toby Barnard scrutinizes social attitudes and structures in every segment of Protestant society during this period and also reassesses Ireland's place in the British state and empire.
"Toby Barnard, unparalleled excavator of Irish social history in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, has published the first volume of his magnum opus investigating the origins of this vanishing world, demonstrating...

A valuable insight into the political and material world of Ireland's leading aristocratic family. HISTORY For much of their lives the two dukes of Ormonde dominated public events in Ireland, where they served the English sovereign as viceroy five times; they were also powerful presences in the Stuart court in England, and commanded armies both in Ireland and Europe. Later, they spent long periods on the continent as travellers and exiles. Yet despite their importance in the public life of the age, neither duke has been the subject of a full modern biography, a gap which this collection of...