Hill, Jacqueline
(2008)
The language and symbolism of conquest in Ireland, c. 1790-1850.
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 18.
pp. 165-186.
ISSN 0080-4401
Abstract
The question of whether Ireland had been conquered by England
has received some attention from historians of eighteenth-century Ireland, mainly
because it preoccupied William Molyneux, author of the influential The Case of
Ireland . . . Stated (1698). Molyneux defended Irish parliamentary rights by denying
the reality of a medieval conquest of Ireland by English monarchs, but he did
allow for what could be called ‘aristocratic conquest’. The seventeenth century, too,
had left a legacy of conquest, and this paper examines evidence of consciousness
among Irish Protestants of descent from ancestral conquerors. It considers how and
why this consciousness took a more pronounced sectarian turn during the 1790s.
Williamite anniversaries, increasingly associated with the Orange Order, became
identified in the Catholic mind as symbolic reminders of conquest. Thanks to the
protracted struggle for ‘Catholic emancipation’, this issue continued to feature in
political debate about Ireland well into the nineteenth century, while the passing of
the Act of Union (1800) revitalised the older debate about whether England could
be said to have conquered Ireland. Liberal Protestants and Catholics contended
that England had invariably intervened to prevent any possibility of reconciliation
between conquerors and conquered.Thus the language of conquest remained highly
adaptable.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
conquest in Ireland; 1790-1850; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > History |
| Item ID: |
4687 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0080440108000698 |
| Depositing User: |
Jacqueline Hill
|
| Date Deposited: |
08 Jan 2014 15:57 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |
| Publisher: |
Cambridge University Press |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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