History and Identity in Restoration Ireland, 1660-91

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates how history mattered in the politics and society of seventeenth-century Ireland, how authors used the distant past in their arguments about the post-Restoration political and religious settlement of Ireland. The Restoration period in Ireland was one of tension and saw historical claims used in the attempt to settle issues of legitimacy. This thesis shows how these historical claims were repeated and contested by authors, reflecting contemporary intellectual culture and politics. This thesis assesses how legitimacy stemmed from claims to tradition, provenance, rights and precedence, and how these claims construct early modern identities. Firstly, this thesis identifies themes religion, legal constitution, monarchy, and ethnic origins as they occur in histories. Secondly, the transmission of these themes is traced in across selected histories, as authors grappled with the history of Ireland and engaged with earlier texts. This examination is based on deep histories detailing Irish history over a long period. Four key texts meet this requirement: John Lynch s Cambrensis Eversus (1662), Peter Walsh s Prospect of the State of Ireland (1682), Roderick O Flaherty s Ogygia (1685), and Richard Cox s Hibernia Anglicana (1689-90). Other histories whose focus is more short-term or specific further outline these themes. In examining these texts, this thesis contextualises their intellectual languages, why the authors engaged with these themes, and how their arguments about legitimacy shaped the contested political and religious identities of early modern Ireland.