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TOBY B A R NA R D

Print in Ireland, 1680 – 1784

BROUGHT to BOOK
Also from Four Courts Press Also from Four Courts Press
Brought to Book considers what was written, printed,
The Boulter Letters Irish provincial cultures in
published, owned and sometimes read in Ireland the long eighteenth century
Kenneth Milne & Paddy McNally, editors
between 1680 and 1784. It seeks to evaluate the Essays for Toby Barnard
The building site in ephemeral and what has subsequently vanished Raymond Gillespie & R.F. Foster, editors

BROUGHT
eighteenth-century Ireland
Arthur Gibney
in order to challenge some common assumptions Charles O’Conor of Ballinagare
Livia Hurley & Edward McParland, editors about the nature and impact of print during the Life and works
period. It is based on the surviving texts and the Luke Gibbons & Kieran O’Conor, editors

to BOOK
The history of Jack O’Connor,
by William Chaigneau letters and comments of contemporaries. Peopled with authors, Ourselves alone? Religion,
Ian Campbell Ross, editor publishers and readers, it offers a novel approach to the history society and politics in eighteenth-
of the book in Ireland. Also, it places print in the mental and and nineteenth-century Ireland
Improving Ireland? Essays presented to S.J. Connolly
Projectors, prophets and profiteers, 1 64 1 – 1 78 6 material cultures of the eighteenth century, and among the efforts Print in Ireland, 1680 – 1 784 D.W. Hayton & Andrew R. Holmes, editors
Toby Barnard to subordinate Ireland more firmly to England. It suggests how
Marsh’s Library: a mirror
enthusiastically Ireland plunged into the cultural currents of the
The Irish stage on the world
A legal history eighteenth century — cosmopolitan rather than introverted and insular. Law, learning and libraries, 1650 –1750
W.N. Osborough Muriel McCarthy & Ann Simmons, editors

Irish demesne landscapes, 1660–1740 T o b y B a r n a r d has been a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, Portraits of the city
Vandra Costello since 1976 (emeritus from 2012). His first book, Cromwellian Ireland, Dublin and the wider world
appeared in 1976, and has been followed by, among others, A new Gillian O’Brien & Finola O’Kane, editors
Nathaniel Clements, 1705–77
Politics, fashion and architecture in anatomy of Ireland (London, 2003), Making the grand figure: lives and Economy, trade and Irish merchants
mid-eighteenth-century Ireland possessions in Ireland, 1641 – 1770 (London, 2004), Irish Protestant ascents at home and abroad, 1600–1988

TOBY B A R NA R D
A.P.W. Malcomson L.M. Cullen
and descents (Dublin, 2004), Guide to the sources for the history of material
Wilhelmina Geddes culture in Ireland, 1500 – 2000 (Dublin, 2005) and Improving Ireland? Oral and print cultures
Life and work Projectors, prophets and profiteers, 1641 – 1786 (Dublin, 2008). in Ireland, 1600–1900
Nicola Gordon Bowe Marc Caball & Andrew Carpenter, editors

The Old Library, Irish and English

Trinity College Dublin, 1712–2012 Essays on the Irish linguistic and cultural frontier,
FOUR COURTS PRESS
W.E. Vaughan, editor 1600–1900
James Kelly & Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, editors

Episcopal visitations of the

The jacket, by Anú Design, incorporates (front) a watercolour diocese of Meath, 1622–1799
drawing by Caroline Hamilton, ‘The booksellers’ workshop’,
www.fourcourtspress.ie Michael O’Neill, editor
reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, and
(back) Robert Birch MP reading newspapers, private collection.

11234561234566123 1234561234566123456234545 123145 1234561234566123

Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 1

BROUGHT TO BOOK
Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 2
Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 3

Brought to Book
Print in Ireland, –

T O B Y B ARNARD

FOUR COURTS PRESS

Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 4

Set in . pt on .pt M Ehrhardt for

FOUR COURTS PRESS
 Malpas Street, Dublin , Ireland
www.fourcourtspress.ie
and in North America for
FOUR COURTS PRESS
c/o ISBS,  N.E. th Avenue, Suite , Portland, OR .

© Toby Barnard & Four Courts Press 

A catalogue record for this title

is available from the British Library.

ISBN ‒‒‒‒

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the
copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Printed in England
by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts.
Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 5

In fond and grateful memory of Mary-Lou Jennings

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Contents

LIST OF TABLES 
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 
PREFACE 
INTRODUCTION 

 The s 

 Dublin, – 

 Schooling and Learning 

 The Past 

 The Present 

 Future Irelands 

 Salvation 

 Entertainments 

 The South, – 

 The North, – 

 Writers and Readers 

 Conclusion: Ireland Brought to Book 

INDEX 


Brought to Book (01a):Layout 1 09/02/2017 20:12 Page 8

Tables

 Dublin imprints: annual averages of recorded titles by decade 

 Percentages of titles in classified genres, – 
 Provincial printing: totals of recorded titles to  
 Places of printing, Hingston library,  
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Abbreviations

Adams, Printed word J.R.R. Adams, The printed word and the common man:
popular culture in Ulster, – (Belfast, )
Amory and Hall H. Amory and D.D. Hall (eds), A history of the book in
America: . The colonial book in the Atlantic World, pbk
edn (Chapel Hill, NC, )
Barnard, A new anatomy T. Barnard, A new anatomy of Ireland: the Irish
Protestants, – (New Haven and London, )
Barnard, Ascents and descents T. Barnard, Irish Protestant ascents and descents, –
 (Dublin, )
Barnard, Improving Ireland? T. Barnard, Improving Ireland? Projectors, prophets and
profiteers, – (Dublin, )
Barnard, Making the grand T. Barnard, Making the grand figure: lives and
figure possessions in Ireland, – (New Haven and
London, )
Barnard and McKenzie J. Barnard and D.F. McKenzie, assisted by M. Bell, The
book in Britain, IV. – (Cambridge, )
BH Bowood House, Wiltshire
BL British Library
BNL Belfast News-letter
Bodleian Bodleian Library, Oxford
Brown and McDougall S.W. Brown and W. McDougall (eds), The Edinburgh
history of the book in Scotland: II. Enlightenment and
expansion, – (Edinburgh, )
Chatsworth Chatsworth House, Derbyshire
Christ Church Christ Church, Oxford
CJI Journals of the House of Commons of the kingdom of lreland
Clonalis Clonalis House, Co. Roscommon
DIB Dictionary of Irish biography, ed. J.I. McGuire,  vols
(Cambridge, )
ECI Eighteenth-Century Ireland
EHR English Historical Review
ESTC English Short Title Catalogue
FHL Friends’ Historical Library, Dublin
Gillespie, Reading Ireland R. Gillespie, Reading Ireland: print, reading and social
change in early modern Ireland (Manchester, )
Gillespie and Hadfield R. Gillespie and A. Hadfield (eds), The Oxford history of
the Irish book: III. The Irish book in English, –
(Oxford, )


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 Abbreviations
Greene, Theatre in Dublin J.C. Greene, Theatre in Dublin, –: a history, 
vols (Bethlehem, )
HIP E.M. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish parliament,
–,  vols (Belfast, )
HJ Historical Journal
HMC Historic Manuscripts Commission
Hoppen, Dublin Philosophical K.T. Hoppen (ed.), Papers of the Dublin Philosophical
Society Society, –,  vols (Dublin, )
Huntington Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
IADS Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies
IESH Irish Economic and Social History
IHS Irish Historical Studies
IMC Irish Manuscripts Commission
JCHAS Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society
JRSAI Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
JRL John Rylands Library, Manchester
Kennedy, French books M. Kennedy, French books in eighteenth-century Ireland
(Oxford, )
KIAP E. Keane et al. (eds), King’s Inns Admissions Papers,
‒ (Dublin )
Legg, Synge letters M.-L. Legg (ed.), The Synge letters. Bishop Edward
Synge to his daughter, Alicia, Roscommon to London,
– (Dublin, )
LJI Journals of the [Irish] House of Lords,  vols (Dublin,
–)
Loeber, Guide R. Loeber and M. Loeber, A guide to Irish fiction, –
 (Dublin, )
Mrs Delany Lady Llanover (ed.), The autobiography and
correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany,  vols
(London, –)
Munter, Dictionary R. Munter, A dictionary of the print trade in Ireland,
– (New York, )
Munter, Irish newspaper R. Munter, The history of the Irish newspaper, –
(Cambridge, )
NAI National Archives of Ireland
NAS National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh
NLI National Library of Ireland, Dublin
NLS National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
NLW National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Ó Ciosáin, Print N. Ó Ciosáin, Print and popular culture in Ireland, –
 (Houndmills, )
ODNB Oxford dictionary of national biography,  vols (Oxford,
, continuing)
Phillips, Bookselling in Dublin J.W. Phillips, Printing and bookselling in Dublin, –
: a bibliographical enquiry (Dublin, )
PHS Presbyterian Historical Society, Belfast
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Abbreviations 
Pollard, Dictionary M. Pollard, Dictionary of members of the Dublin book
trade, – (London, )
Pollard, Dublin’s trade M. Pollard, Dublin’s trade in books, – (Oxford,
)
PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy
PRONI Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
QUB Queen’s University, Belfast
RCBL Representative Church Body Library, Dublin
RDS Royal Dublin Society Library, Dublin
RIA Royal Irish Academy, Dublin
Sher, Enlightenment and the R.B. Sher, The Enlightenment and the book: Scottish
Book authors and their publishers in eighteenth-century Britain,
Ireland and America (Chicago and London, )
Strickland, Irish artists W.G. Strickland, A dictionary of Irish artists,  vols
(Dublin and London, )
Suarez and Turner M.J. Suarez, SJ and M.L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge
history of the book in Britain, – (Cambridge,
)
TNA The National Archives, Kew
UCC University College Cork
UCNW University College of North Wales, Bangor
UJA Ulster Journal of Archaeology
UL University Library
Ward, Letters of Charles R.E. Ward, J.F. Wrynn and C.C. Ward (eds), Letters
O’Conor of Charles O’Conor of Belanagare (Washington, DC,
)
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Preface

H E Q U E S T I O N S P U R S U E D in this book reach back to research in Ireland

T during the mid-s. Guided by William O’Sullivan and Mary (‘Paul’)
Pollard, respectively keepers of manuscripts and early printed books in Trinity
College Dublin, I tried to connect a small number of printed texts issued in mid-
seventeenth-century Ireland (so few in comparison with the abundance in contem-
porary England and France) and the documentation (patchy) offered by
manuscripts. Gradually extending the investigation into the eighteenth century,
when print abounded, still raises puzzles as to why one medium rather than the
other was chosen, perhaps because it was thought more effective. Choices can be
traced sometimes to the authors or to the publishers and booksellers. The latter
were involved in making a living from a trade, often a precarious one. Writers
were variously motivated and were no longer content to have their compositions
shared through manuscript copies. Wanting to be published often seemed a vanity
to which those of status and means readily surrendered.
This text does not eschew the quantification now possible thanks to advances
such as ESTC, but nor does it shun anecdote. Where available, use is made of
documentation which tells something of the circumstances in which a text was
produced, printed and sold. My ambition is to retrieve the social, financial and
human contexts of print. This account also seeks to do justice to the varieties of
print on offer in eighteenth-century Ireland, rather than concentrating on what
in retrospect is now assumed to have been important.
In the last half century, the history of the book has extended beyond metic-
ulous bibliographical approaches. Not all the theories and findings fit Ireland
neatly, so distinctive traits and factors have to be considered. Human faces behind
the print are glimpsed: the authors, frustrated and querulous; the publishers and
booksellers; buyers and readers, cautious and sceptical. The tone of the text owes
nothing to my own dealings with several publishers, which have been almost
universally happy ones. I have reversed the preference in the eighteenth century,
to have studies of Ireland published in England. My own decision reflects my
happy dealings with Michael Adams and now with Martin Fanning. I am grate-
ful to the latter for his care over the book, as also to the three ‘anonymous’ read-
ers for their suggestions.
Since the research and thinking for this project reach back into the s, my
debts are many and, alas, some to whom I am most indebted are now on another


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 Preface
shore. I am grateful for many invitations to test my ideas at seminars, lectures
and conferences, and to examine dissertations. My own graduate students have
been vital in helping me to scale what loomed like an unconquerable peak. The
ascent was materially helped by the award of a Leverhulme research readership
between  and , as earlier it had been by a British Academy readership
and a visiting fellowship at Archbishop Marsh’s Library in Dublin (into which
Paul Pollard had first admitted me).
Over the decades, several manuscript collections have passed from private into
institutional care. These migrations are noted, but it has not always been possi-
ble to update call-marks. In quotations, spelling and punctuation are silently
modified. Before , the year is taken as starting on  January; money is
rendered in pounds, shillings and pence; distances and measures are imperial ones.
I am grateful for help to Richard Ansell, Gabrielle Ashford, Sister Alice
Aylward, Jonathan Bardon, Cormac Begadon, John Bergin, Bob Bonar,
Elizabethanne Boran, Mary Broderick, Marc Caball, Ursula Callaghan, Ian
Campbell Ross, Andrew Carpenter, Christine Casey, Lucy Collins, Bernadette
Cunningham, Derry Falvey, Julie Farguson, Jane Fenlon, Rachel Finnegan,
Alison FitzGerald, Susan Flavin, David Fleming, Roy Foster, Raymond Gillespie,
Michael Harnett, David Hayton, Kevin Herlihy, Jackie Hill, Jimmy Kelly,
William Laffan, Rolf Loeber, John Logan, Anthony Malcomson, Patricia
McCarthy, Edward McParland, Jane Meredith, Ian Montgomery, Jennifer Moore,
Ciaran O’Neill, Martyn Powell, Mark Purcell, Ray Refaussé, Willie Roulston,
Patrick Walsh, Robert Whan, and Mark Williams. Thanks to Pyers and
Marguerite O’Conor-Nash I was able to read manuscripts and printed books
which remain at Clonalis: a boon that helps to explain the frequency with which
Charles O’Conor appears in the story.
A trio has been vital in keeping me at the bench. Alison FitzGerald has taken
time from her own crowded schedule and regularly compared our vicissitudes in
completing our books, thereby reminding of the pleasures of scholarship when
shared. Anthony O’Connor has yet again ensured an environment conducive to
reflection and writing. The unstinting interest, insights, criticisms and support
of Mary-Lou Jennings are much missed. Whether at Strokestown or Sabbioneta,
we shared the pleasures, stimulus and irritants. Although inadequate as a tribute,
this study is dedicated gratefully to her memory.
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Introduction

N THE s, George Hayman, a sea captain, sailed regularly between south-
I ern Ireland, the Bristol Channel and the United Provinces. Hayman had rela-
tions on both sides of the Irish Sea, especially around Minehead and in Youghal.
Among bulkier cargoes, he shipped small articles requested by kinsfolk and
acquaintances. In , he carried over a few books. Some he had bought in
Bristol. The package included Henry Phillippes, The purchasers pattern, ‘The
moral practice of the Jesuits’, Cocker’s Decimal arithmetic, a description of
Jerusalem; The duty of every one that will be saved, the fifth edition of Crouch’s
The wars in England, and printed music.
Several features in this transaction stand out. First, the books came from
Bristol via local ports to Munster, so bypassing both London and Dublin. Second,
readers of English-language works were supplied by England and its printers and
booksellers, rather than by operators in southern Ireland. Both the age and nature
of the imported texts varied. Only one was recent: E.G., The horrid, direful, prodi-
gious and diabolical practice of the Jesuits. This piece of scare-mongering, occa-
sioned by the anti-Catholic hysteria during the Popish Plot in , still resonated
among anxious Protestants in Ireland. With the recent accession of the Catholic
James VII and II, the spirits of Catholics in Munster had risen and those of
Protestants were sinking. Indeed its Irish implications led to a Dublin edition.
Yet, it was the earlier London printing of  that Hayman carried. Crouch’s
History, reaching its fifth edition, conveyed a similar message to the tocsin for
the Jesuits. Crouch’s account focused on the s, when Irish Protestants had
been overwhelmed. There were fears that the events might be repeated. It placed

 Bridgewater port books, TNA, E //; E //, ff v, , .  Notebook of George
Hayman, –, Somerset CRO, DD/X/HYN, . Cf. C.B. Estabrook, Urbane and rustic England:
cultural ties and the social spheres in the provinces, – (Manchester, ), p. ; Gillespie,
Reading Ireland, pp –.  Originally London, , it then went through another six editions,
the most recent in .  E.G., The horrid, direful, prodigious and diabolical practice of the Jesuits
(London, ).  The dutie of every one that intends to be saved (London, ).  ‘The choice
flageolet book’ might be either Thomas Greeting’s of  or Thomas Swain’s of . Notebook
of George Hayman, –, Somerset CRO, DD/X/HYN, .  T.C. Barnard, ‘The political,
material and mental culture of the Cork settlers, c.–’ in P. O’Flanagan and N.G. Buttimer
(eds), Cork: history and society (Dublin, ), reprinted in Barnard, Ascents and descents, pp –;
D. Dickson, Old world colony (Cork, ), pp –, .


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 Brought to Book
the experiences of the Protestants of Ireland in the larger context of their co-reli-
gionists’ travails throughout Britain and beyond. The History was a partisan narra-
tive that remained popular in Irish Protestant quarters (as elsewhere) throughout
the eighteenth century.
Other items in Hayman’s package, notably Christiaan van Adrichem’s A
description and explanation of two hundred and eight places in Jerusalem and the
suburbs catered to curiosity. The Jerusalem had first appeared in London in .
The holy city remained the ultimate destination for pilgrims, but, because hard
of access, easier to read about. Two other volumes, The purchasers’ pattern and
Decimal arithmetic, had obvious utility in a region where the buying or leasing of
land and trade preoccupied many. Recreation also received its due. John
Playford’s Apollo’s banquet and his Brief introduction to the skill of musick had
already proved popular with music-makers in Caroline England. In Munster, too,
where musical skills were highly prized, the latest tunes from London were
craved. In the Haymans’ circles, a trainee barrister from County Cork asked his
father to send over ‘any pretty new song if the words be good and the air pleas-
ing’. Catches with bawdy or ‘rogueish’ words were particularly desired. By ,
a book trader in Dublin, Robert Thornton, responded to the demand. Thornton
promised his customers ‘all the choicest new songs, with musical notes, set by
the best masters, and fairly engraven on copper plates’. The longing for the
latest directly from London persisted. In Ulster, a recent ode by Nahum Tate set
to music by Dr Staggin was eagerly shared.
As a guide to the reading matter sought by Protestant settlers in south
Munster towards the end of the seventeenth century, Hayman’s parcel hints at
variety, but a limited one. It reinforces the belief that books instructed, edified,
perhaps alarmed, and entertained. Hayman’s modest cargo introduces several
characteristics of the reading matter to be found in Ireland between the mid-
seventeenth and later eighteenth centuries. The dependence on England and the
relative ease with which small consignments could be imported into provincial
Ireland through ports such as Drogheda and Belfast, as well as in south Munster,
suggests how readily the Irish could participate in English print cultures. A

 J. Moulden, ‘“James Cleland”: the library of a small farming family in early nineteenth-century
Co. Down’ in M. Caball and A. Carpenter (eds), Oral and print cultures in Ireland, –
(Dublin, ), p. ; Ó Ciosáin, Print, pp –, –. More generally, A. Immel, ‘Children’s
books and school books’ in Suarez and Turner, pp , ; R. Mayer, ‘Nathaniel Crouch, book-
seller and historian: popular historiography and cultural power in later seventeenth-century England’,
Eighteenth-Century Studies,  (), pp –.  Cf. G. Kecke, The use of money; or, A table
of interest (London, ), sig. [A].  A. Brodrick to Sir St J. Brodrick,  and  May [?],
MS /, Midleton MSS, Surrey CRO, Guildford. Cf. HMC, Egmont MSS, ii, p. .
 Pollard, Dictionary, pp –.  A. Dalway to R. Dobbs,  Feb. [], PRONI, D .
Also, J. Evelyn, Jr, to J. Evelyn,  Oct. , Evelyn MSS, formerly Christ Church, Oxford, now
BL.  J.T. Dolan, ‘Drogheda trade and customers, ’, County Louth Archaeological Journal,
 (–), p. ; Gillespie, Reading Ireland, pp , , , , , , , –; R.J. Hunter,
‘Chester and the Irish book trade, ’, IESH,  (), pp –; S. Flavin and E.T. Jones
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Introduction 
second glimpse of print entering provincial Ireland comes from a cargo consigned
from Liverpool to Drogheda in . Other than an unnamed folio and a quarto
Bible, the vessel carried two dozen grammars, a dozen small ‘bonds books’ (possi-
bly pro forma sheets of recognizances and legal bonds) and twenty-four copies of
the venerable favourite, Seven wise masters. The presence of well-known schools
in Drogheda may explain the nature of the orders, which are austere in compar-
ison with the heterogeneity of Hayman’s parcel.
Hayman’s customers were of recent English origins and had settled in districts
easily accessible from Britain. Moreover, they were English-speakers and pros-
perous enough to be taught to read and to buy print. The well-to-do Irish
Haymans continued to value education, music and literature into the late eigh-
teenth century. As yet in the later seventeenth century, judging by monetary
worth, print occupied only a minor place among the Haymans’ possessions. When
Samuel Hayman, the patriarch of the family, died in Youghal in , his books
dominated by a ‘great Bible’ were valued at £ s. in an estate totalling about
£,.
One question inevitably raised but hard to answer is whether print of the kind
sought by members of the settler elite such as the Haymans circulated among
their neighbours who were mostly Irish-speakers and Catholics. In the region,
levels of literacy were low and poverty endemic, as they were throughout much
of rural Ireland. Those for whom Irish was their first language could rarely read
it. A lack of likely customers deterred the book traders from venturing into Irish-
language publications. Instead, both venerable and recent compositions were
copied and circulated in hand-written versions. In practice, readers of Irish origins
tended to be bilingual. For print, they turned to the same titles as their Protestant
neighbours and to what sustained Catholics across Britain and continental Europe.
When writings intended to fortify faith and to remind of past turbulence and
sacrifices were addressed to them, they were usually produced outside Ireland.
While there were publications that exuded confessional and ethnic distinctive-
ness, and assumed incompatibility between Irish and English or Catholics and
Protestants, many avoided partisanship. A core of pious writings was approved
by Christians regardless of communion. Other than the Bible, fundamentals
promoted by François de Sales and Thomas à Kempis, and later by the Abbé
Bossuet and Bishop Fénelon bestrode the confessional chasms, as did the simpli-
fied Whole duty of man.
In another aspect, Hayman’s offerings may obscure a development that would
quicken over the next decades. Readers in Ireland might be expected to rely less

(eds), Bristol’s trade with Ireland and the Continent, –, Bristol Record Society,  (Dublin,
), pp –.  Dolan, ‘Drogheda trade and customers, ’, p. .  M. Quane,
‘Drogheda Grammar School’, County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal,  (), pp –
.  Will of John Hayman,  Apr. , NLI, D – ().  S. Hayman, inven-
tory,  July , NLI, D – (); Barnard, Ascents and descents, pp –.  Cf. A.
Kenny, A path from Rome (London, ), p. .
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 Brought to Book
on England as first Dublin and then provincial Irish booksellers printed more.
However, the expectation is not always fulfilled. Some commentators have iden-
tified the s as decisive in animating and diversifying the Dublin print trade.
Hitherto it had served the state and established church. While continuing to do
so, it also responded to the excitements of the Exclusion Crisis and Popish Plot,
rebellion in the west of England and Scotland, and the accession of the Catholic
James. The availability of this print disquieted the Dublin and London authori-
ties. It belonged to a process, as yet in its infancy, through which the number
and variety of titles published in Dublin grew rapidly, but it was only in the
s that this development became clearer. At the same time, imports such as
Hayman’s, and also from continental Europe, continued. Policing the trade taxed
the authorities and may have inclined them to exaggerate its dangers. The
mariners themselves brought news and ideas, fresher and arguably more depend-
able than those in the prints.

II

Totals of titles produced in Ireland year by year are retrievable. They suggest a
surge in the s, rather than s. Comment and possible explanations are
offered in the succeeding chapters.

Table : Dublin imprints: annual averages of recorded titles by decade

Decade Average annual total of published titles

s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 
s 

 Gillespie, Reading Ireland, pp –; C. Lennon, ‘The print trade, –’ in Gillespie and
Hadfield, p. ; J. Kelly, ‘Political publishing, –’ in ibid., pp –  On the trade:
Susan Flavin, ‘Consumption and material culture in sixteenth-century Ireland’ (DPhil, Bristol
University, ); Flavin and Jones (eds), Bristol’s trade with Ireland and the Continent.
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Introduction 
Between the s and s the decennial totals increase, not unexpectedly,
although it is not an uninterrupted process (for example, the plateau in the s).
In part, the upward trend is related to the emergence of new genres: printings of
poems, either as single sheets or bulkier compilations; squibs and satires; topical
polemic; self-help manuals; novels; newspapers; magazines. Increased production,
measured not just by annual tallies of titles, but by greater numbers of operatives
in the print trades; the appearance of specialist book-shops, circulating and
subscription libraries and of auctions devoted to books; and the spread of print-
ing from Dublin into the provinces all attest to a widening market for print. In
turn, the rising demand can be linked with larger populations in the capital and
some provincial towns. The inhabitants of these places acquired an appetite for
print; the taste could be indulged thanks to the modest prosperity of many people,
enabling them to buy education and at least occasional publications.
Throughout the eighteenth century, books remained luxury items; authors
frequently chose anonymity; earnings for most were meagre. Few not of
respectable status and resources bothered to write, lacking the leisure and urge.
Reception and readership are notoriously hard to assess. The hand-written and
oral continued to be important, and their relationship with print is complex. All
these issues have to be taken into account in trying to evaluate how print affected
eighteenth-century Ireland. In addition, there are problems evident in, or even
peculiar to, Ireland. One is the prevalent poverty that stopped many from buying
print. Another is the use of two languages across the island: Irish and English.
Then, too, there is the status of Ireland as a satellite (subordinate kingdom or
colony) of England. Conquest and future peace and productivity were linked with
the ascendancy of the English language and (for some) the extinction of Irish.
The dependency was especially pronounced in relation to print. Ambitious
authors preferred to publish in London, calculating that thereby they would earn

 M. Kennedy, ‘Book mad: the sale of books by auction in eighteenth-century Dublin’, Dublin
Historical Record,  (), pp –; Kennedy, French books, pp –; M. Kennedy,
‘Eighteenth-century newspaper publishing in Munster and South Leinster’, JCHAS,  (), p.
; V. Kinane, ‘The early book trades in Galway’ in G. Long (ed.), Books beyond the Pale: aspects
of the provincial book trade in Ireland before  (Dublin, ), pp –; Lennon, ‘The print
trade, –’ in Gillespie and Hadfield (eds), The Irish book in English, –, pp –;
R.L. Munter, A hand-list of Irish newspapers, – (London, ); Munter, Irish newspaper;
S. Ó Casaide, A typographical gazetteer of Ireland (Dublin, ); F. O’Kelley, ‘Irish book-sale cata-
logues before ’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Ireland, vi (), pp –; W.G.
Wheeler, ‘The spread of provincial printing in Ireland before ’, Irish Booklore, : (), pp
–.  D. Griffin, ‘The rise of the professional author?’ in Suarez and Turner, pp –; J.
Raven, ‘The book as commodity’ in ibid., pp –.  A. Fox, Oral and literate culture in
England, – (Oxford, ); A. Fox and D. Woolf (eds), The spoken word: oral culture in
Britain, – (Manchester, ); H.W. Love, Scribal publication in seventeenth-century England
(Oxford, ); D. McKitterick, Print, manuscript and the search for order, – (Cambridge,
).  T.C. Barnard, ‘The impact of print in Ireland,  to : problems and perils’ in J.
MacElligott and E. Patten (eds), The perils of print culture: book, print and publishing history in theory
and practice (Houndmills, ), pp –.
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 Brought to Book
more and reach a larger audience. Because the  Copyright Act did not apply
to Ireland, those who published there enjoyed no legal entitlement to money for
their copy. Cautious publishers and booksellers in Ireland, with meagre resources,
played safe by publishing and stocking what was known to have sold well else-
where. Then, too, there was the matter of everyday language. Irish, for both tech-
nical and commercial reasons, was rarely printed, and so was communicated in
manuscript and through the spoken and sung word. Yet, for much of the eigh-
teenth century, Irish was the first language of a majority of the population,
although bilingualism grew steadily. This situation parallels that in several other
European countries. But in Ireland, printing, as well as becoming intimately
associated with English settlement and rule, and so with the English language,
was sometimes said also to be the sole preserve of the Protestant churches there.
The accuracy of this contention will be tested (and challenged). Instead, it can
be argued that the Catholic church in Ireland, which adopted English as the prin-
cipal language of evangelization through print, thereby strengthened English and
weakened Irish. The tentative conclusion is that, because print in eighteenth-
century Ireland was almost exclusively in English, it represented one of the great-
est successes in bringing the Irish, if not to English political authority, then into
its linguistic and cultural orbit.
Even so, the optimistic interpretation of the consequences of such develop-
ments, implying higher levels of literacy and a spreading fashion for print as
either a necessary adjunct to daily life or a denominator of status and refinement,
may sometimes overlook the limits to the developments. Booksellers were obliged
to diversify what they sold if they were to survive. Patent medicines and lottery
tickets were most frequently favoured as dependable supplements. Authors
complained about poor sales of their writings. Less partisan evidence also tells of
unsold stock gathering dust in warehouses. Accordingly, it has to be noted that
published titles seldom sold out. Moreover, many printings were subsidized, by
vain or obsessed writers, or by the state, the churches and other institutions.

 P. Burke, Languages and communities in early modern Europe (Cambridge, ); A. Doyle, A
history of the Irish language from the Norman invasion to independence (Oxford, ), pp –, –
, –; R.A. Houston, Literacy in early modern Europe (London, ), pp –; W.J. Smyth,
Map-making, landscape and memory: a geography of colonial and early modern Ireland, c.–
(Cork, ), pp –.  Adams, Printed word, ch. ; T.C. Barnard, ‘Learning, the learned and
literacy in Ireland, c.–’ in T. Barnard, D. Ó Cróinín and K. Simms (eds), A miracle of
learning: studies in manuscripts and Irish learning. Essays in honour of William O’Sullivan (Aldershot,
), pp –; G. Kirkham, ‘Literacy in north-west Ulster, –’ in M. Daly and D.
Dickson (eds), The origins of popular literacy in Ireland: language change and educational development,
– (Dublin, ), pp –; Ó Ciosáin, Print, pp –; R. Whan, ‘Presbyterians in Ulster,
c.–: a social and political study’ (PhD, QUB, ), pp –.  A. Kelburn to Sir J.
Caldwell,  Aug. ,  Nov. , JRL, B //, ; J. Murray to J. Hoey,  Mar. ,
NLS, MS ,; T.C. Barnard, ‘Writing and publishing histories in eighteenth-century Ireland’
in S.P. Forrest and M. Williams (eds), Constructing the past: writing Irish history, –
(Woodbridge, ), pp –.
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Introduction 
Some indeed were given away, so that ownership of the tracts and broadsides did
not necessarily mean that they had been bought spontaneously or that they were
then read. These qualifications have been explored more thoroughly outside than
in Ireland, but should caution against assuming that more titles issued annually
can be interpreted simply as evidence of an insatiable Irish craving for print.
Nevertheless, the eagerness with which print was embraced to spread a variety
of messages suggested that it was accepted as a prime medium through which to
reach big audiences.
The increase in annually issued titles is accompanied by subjective comment
on the availability of print. In , Revd Philip Skelton, a prolific if acidulated
author, acknowledged the rich choice. But he was less happy that the profusion
had bred pundits eager to lecture and censure. He lamented what he regarded as
the deadening influence, spreading into Ireland, of Lord Shaftesbury, with his
pinching rules of taste. Skelton wanted a permissive approach to reading. The
‘one great community or republic of books’ gave liberty to all to select whatever
they fancied. Thereby, he believed, everyone was able to engage in ‘the great and
delectable exercise of reading’. His generosity (less evident in later life) was encap-
sulated in his injunction, ‘as we freely live, so let us freely read’. He imagined
how particular categories of print appealed to different types of reader. ‘The plod-
ding mathematician hath his Euclid or his Newton; the reader of fire and fancy
hath his Lucian or his Milton; the sage politician his Tacitus and Machiavel; the
young ladies, their books of battles and slaughter; the young gentlemen, their
plays and novels; the honest farmer, his “Donbelliaris” [Don Belianis] and Seven
wise masters; the gay have their comedies; the melancholy, their tragedies; the
morose, their satires; the flatterers, their panegyrics; the hasty, precipitate reader
hath his newspapers and duodecimos; the patient and laborious, his huge perform-
ances in folio’.
Unusually for one of his status, Skelton defended the chap-book romances
mocked by literary snobs. Plausibly enough he suggested that the ‘renowned’
history of Valentine and Orson, a perennial favourite throughout the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, was read by four times the number who tackled Homer
or Isaac Newton. Indeed, this ratio probably overestimated the interest in
Newton. Genre and intended reader determined format and thereby price.
Skelton’s classifications influence some of the categories for discussing publica-
tions in the chapters below.
More was printed, and in more locations, and in a greater variety of genres,
during the s than in the s. To give some sense of the development, the
first chapter surveys print in the Ireland of the s. It takes up the themes and
approaches in Raymond Gillespie, Reading Ireland (). This contrasts with the
rapid growth thereafter in Dublin, set out in chapter . Publications, authorized

 Gillespie, Reading Ireland, p. ; Ó Ciosáin, Print, p. ; Pollard, Dublin’s trade, pp , , .
 [P. Skelton], The candid reader; or, A modest, yet unanswerable apology for all books that ever were,
or possibly can be wrote (Dublin, ), pp –.
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 Brought to Book
(mostly by parliament) and the unauthorized in newspapers, are singled out for
content and impact. Here, and in the subsequent chapters, the possibility that
print was drawing more – individuals and groups – into political awareness and
activism is addressed: in short, whether or not, print benefited those hitherto
either disenfranchized or outside formal political processes. Education is next
discussed, as a route to literacy and as a dependable user of print. Three chap-
ters then consider how much print reflected on past, the present and future, and
indeed made it easier for the articulate and opinionated to do so. The demands
of the several churches and the variations in their attitudes towards exploiting
print are discussed. Diversion and amusement receive separate attention, both the
continuing enthusiasm for verse and plays and the newer vogues of novels and
essays. Publishing outside Dublin, which had grown by the mid-eighteenth
century, prompts reflections on regional variations arising from earlier patterns
of settlement and continuing connections. Examples of the tribulations and satis-
factions of authors, occurring in earlier chapters, are drawn together to try to
form a collective portrait of ‘the author’. Also, the often contradictory and usually
terse reactions of readers are reviewed. The conclusion attempts to do justice to
the complexity of the situation. This investigation ends in , when a new law
curtailed the presses. Modernity, rationalism, enlightenment, secularism, disre-
spect for conventional authority and the independent judgment of individuals can
be matched by conformity, deference, conservatism, traditional religious and polit-
ical beliefs, and sheer whimsicality. Moreover, if one consequence looks undeni-
able, the Englishing of Ireland with the virtual monopoly of the English language
in what was printed, the implications are rather more occluded. Ireland did not
become English. This, together with other failures – to convert the Catholic
majority to Protestantism – may call into question just what print could achieve.
Uncertainties on this score remind of the continuing power of talk, recitation,
song, spectacle, ritual and seeing to reach where print could not.
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The s

A R L Y I N T H E s, the relative quiet in Ireland, notwithstanding fresh

E excitements in England and Scotland, may show the success of the adminis-
tration in filtering provocative print. The presentation of British news was osten-
sibly dead-pan, but loyalist. In the summer of  it was observed that Dublin
abounded in all things, including news. Tidings from elsewhere were more unset-
tling. News of Louis XIV’s harassment of the French Protestants – the
Huguenots – reached Ireland through pamphlets as well as private letters. A few
Huguenots had already settled in Ireland; more would soon follow. Since Charles
II was courting Louis, the hostile reports offered ammunition for critics of royal
policy. The vivid details of a Catholic monarch’s persecution of Protestant
subjects were an augury of how Charles’ successor might behave. Irish Protestants
identified with the Huguenots as sufferers at Catholic hands and were reminded
of their own past. Sympathy and fears of similar treatment would only increase
as the tales of the dragonnades seeped through. In , Dublin editions dealt
explicitly with the ominous events.
The accession of a Catholic king in  worsened fears about the printing
presses. A sense of powerlessness and edginess in the face of a possible deluge of
cheap print runs through the comments of those in power during the s. ‘it
is incredible what seditious nasty things are spoken openly and printed now in
England’. A landowner and magistrate in Ulster commented, ‘the beginning of
our mischiefs may be truly imputed to too great a liberty and freedom of speech
against superiors’. The authorities frequently jumped at shadows. The jumpi-

 Lord Dering to Sir R. Southwell,  July , Kent Archives Office, U , C /.  R.
Hylton, Ireland’s Huguenots and their refuge, –: an unlikely haven (Brighton and Portland,
OR, ), pp –.  T.C. Barnard, ‘Crises of identity among Irish Protestants, –’,
Past and Present,  (), pp –.  Ormond to Sir C. Wyche,  Dec. , NAI, Dublin,
Wyche MSS, /; W. Hovell to J. Putland,  Sept. ,  Mar. [], Hovell letter book,
private collection; HMC, Ormonde MSS, new series, vi, p. .  D. Derodon, Funeral of the mass,
rd ed. (Dublin, ); B. Le Brun, A true and exact coppy of the several articles (together with the
form of the abjuration of the Protestant religion …) imposed upon the French Protestants (Dublin, );
A true and exact relation of the raising of the siege of Vienna (Dublin, ).  Sir R. Bellings to Sir
J. Arundell,  July , Cornwall CRO, Truro, AR //.  Sir R. Colvill to Ormond, 
Feb. , TCD, MS /, quoted in S.J. Connolly, Divided kingdom: Ireland, –
(Oxford, ), p. .


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 Brought to Book
ness worsened in . Protestants in Ireland masked their unease; Catholic
demeanour expressed the expectation – sometimes provocatively – that better
times were imminent. In a tense situation, the king and those sent to govern
Ireland feared the effects of impetuous print. Accordingly, controls, already strict,
were tightened. Printed papers and newsletters were the first targets; soon it was
decided that their publication in Dublin should cease. Next, the king himself
decreed that a virulent anti-Catholic tract, Evan Griffith’s Pax Vobis, ‘and all
books of controversy be suppressed’. The lord lieutenant, Clarendon, agreed
that Pax Vobis was a ‘very ill book and nothing but controversy’. But he and
the Irish privy council had candidates of their own for suppression. In December
, the printer of The narrative of the sale and settlement of Ireland was seized.
The narrative, by the Catholic bishop of Ferns, Nicholas French, excoriated the
English architects of the acts of settlement and explanation of the s. French’s
chief targets were Ormond and the first earl of Clarendon. A re-opening of the
highly contentious land settlement was not wanted by either the Dublin or
London government. Also, Lord Lieutenant Clarendon may have been touchy
about the pillorying of his own father by Bishop French.
Searchers located only six copies of French’s tract. Their retailer in Dublin,
William Weston, was said to have received them from a London supplier.
Weston, taxed with a misdemeanour, at first retorted disingenuously that he had
seen nothing wrong in offering them for sale. At New Ross, a consignment of
Popish books, some (presumably French’s) libelling Clarendon and Ormond, and
of holy relics was impounded. But it was revealed that the officer who seized
them had let many go. In any case, French’s diatribes against the mistreatment
of Catholic Ireland had been entering the kingdom for years. His The bleeding

 T.C. Barnard, ‘Sir Richard Bellings, a Catholic courtier and diplomat from seventeenth-century
Ireland’ in B. MacCuarta (ed.), Reshaping Ireland, – (Dublin, ), pp –; R.
Gillespie, ‘The social thought of Richard Bellings’ in M. Ó Siochrú (ed.), Kingdoms in crisis: Ireland
in the s (Dublin, ), pp –.  W. Bridgeman to Lord Lieutenant, ,  Mar. and
undated [], BL, Lansdowne MS A, ff , v, .  J. Knight to Sir R. Bellings,
 Apr. , Cornwall CRO, Truro, AR //; Clarendon to Sunderland,  Mar. [],
TNA, SP //; S.W. Singer (ed.), The correspondence of Henry Hyde, earl of Clarendon, 
vols (London, ), ii, p. . See too: T. H. Clancy, ‘Pax Vobis: its history and author’, Recusant
History (), pp –. Pax Vobis was reissued in Dublin in . Two copies turned up later in
the listings of the books of the Irish scribe, Muiris Ó Gormáin: L. Ní Mhunghaile, ‘An eighteenth-
century Gaelic scribe’s private library: Muiris Ó Gormáin’s books’, PRIA, C (), p. .
 J. Knight to Sir R. Bellings,  Apr. , Cornwall CRO, Truro, AR //; Clarendon to
Sunderland,  Mar. [], TNA, SP //; Singer (ed.), The correspondence of Clarendon,
ii, p. .  Sir R. Southwell to Ormond,  Aug. , Ormonde MSS, vol /, Victoria and
Albert Museum, Forster MS  A . For French: J. McHugh, ‘Catholic clerical responses to the
restoration: the case of Nicholas French’ in C. Dennehy (ed.), Restoration Ireland: always settling
and never settled (Aldershot, ), pp –.  Irish PC to ?Sunderland,  Dec. , TNA,
SP //; Boyle to Ormond, NLI, MS , pp , ; HMC, Ormonde MSS, vii, pp –
. For similar attitudes in Scotland A.J. Mann, The Scottish book trade, – (East Linton,
), p. .  Longford to Ormond,  June , Bodleian, Carte MS , f. .
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The s 
Iphigenia, when first published in  (at Louvain), had been sent to Galway
city. It was said that the townspeople ‘make much of it as it goes from hand to
hand’. Less plausible was the assertion that, had , copies arrived, instead of
the three presented by French himself, ‘they would all have been bought up’.
Elsewhere, Clarendon, in implementing his instructions, differentiated between
breviaries, books of hours ‘or such books as are for people’s devotion’, and the
controversial. It was the last, Clarendon suggested, that should be vetted before
their sale was permitted. The books judged offensive came from Rouen.
Action in  might interrupt fresh supplies, but was unlikely to uncover the
mass of material already on the island. French’s invectives were one example;
another (from the opposed camp) is Temple’s History, venerated among
Protestants for telling what they had suffered during the s. Published orig-
inally in , new editions were not welcomed during Charles II’s reign, but
nevertheless appeared. Memories and topical applications persisted even with-
out the assistance of print. Entirely beyond the control of governments was the
massive residue of print, manuscript and memory left by previous generations.
The stance of government towards Ireland altered frequently and violently
throughout the seventeenth century. Because of this, texts looked at askance by
Charles II and James II, such as Temple’s, had earlier been applauded. Copies
of accounts no longer approved in the s abounded. So too did attitudes
formed from or refracted in the contentious interpretations. Survivors from the
wars raked over the embers, causing them to flare up anew. Rival interpretations
of the events were handed down, occasionally through unpublished manuscripts,
remembered stories, legends that gathered around places, rarely through print.

 Unnamed friar,  June , BL, Stowe MS , f. .  J. Knight to Sir R. Bellings, 
Apr. , Cornwall CRO, Truro, AR //; Clarendon to Sunderland,  Mar. [], TNA,
SP //; Singer (ed.), The correspondence of Clarendon, ii, p. .  H. Coventry to Essex,
 Nov. , BL, Stowe MS , f. ; Essex to H. Coventry,  [Dec.] , Bodleian, Add.
MS C , f. ; J. Temple, The Irish rebellion; or, An history of the beginnings and first progress of
the general rebellion raised within the kingdom of Ireland (London, ).  D. Loftus to E. Borlase,
 Oct. , BL, Sloane MS , f. ; W. Molyneux to E. Borlase,  Nov. , BL, Sloane
MS , f. v; Anglesey to Bp H. Jones, undated [c.], NLI, MS ; H. Jones, A sermon
of antichrist, preached at Christ-Church Dublin, Novemb.   (Dublin, ), reprinted in London,
 and ; T.C. Barnard, ‘“Parlour entertainment in an evening”: histories of the s’ in M.
Ó Siochrú (ed.), Kingdoms in crisis: Ireland in the s (Dublin, ), pp –; T. Barnard, ‘The
uses of  October  and Irish Protestant celebrations’, EHR,  (), pp –, reprinted
in Barnard, Ascents and descents, pp –; A. Ford, ‘Past but still present: Edmund Borlase,
Richard Parr and the reshaping of Irish history for English audiences in the s’ in Mac Cuarta,
SJ (ed.), Reshaping Ireland, –, pp –; J. Kerrigan, Archipelagic English: literature, history
and politics, – (Oxford, ), pp –; P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union
with Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge, ), pp –; D. Rankin, Between Spenser and Swift:
English writings in seventeenth-century Ireland (Cambridge, ), pp –; M. Perceval-Maxwell,
‘The Anglesea–Ormond–Castlehaven dispute: –: taking sides about Ireland in England’ in
V. Carey and U. Lotz-Heumann (eds), Taking sides? Colonial and confessional mentalités in early
modern Ireland (Dublin, ), pp –; M. Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Sir Robert Southwell and the
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 Brought to Book
II

In the later years of Charles II’s reign, manuscript newsletters were circulating.
Towns in Munster subscribed to them. In , a trainee barrister in Dublin paid
d. for ‘a printed sheet of news’ brought from Plymouth into Dublin. The next
year, a judge in Dublin mentioned receiving a gazette, which ‘came by a private
hand from Chester’. The main consignment of official reports had been delayed,
but this communication had slipped into Ireland. Shortly after James’ accession,
it was reported of newsletters, ‘now, Sir, we have them in print; and because it is
so, they carry as much credit as any relation in the London Gazette’. The freedom
was soon curtailed. The recall of the Protestant Clarendon and his replacement
with the assertively Catholic Tyrconnell in  worsened Protestant unease and
increased the possibility of disorder. It was reported that ‘the newsletters will not
be printed for the future, nor anything else, unless licensed’. Ballads also came
under the ban. One newspaper, The News-Letter, did continue: presumably it was
censored. So much is implied by the comments of William Hovell, a Protestant
merchant in south Munster. In , he begged a correspondent in Dublin ‘to
advise anything of news, without any observations or animadversions thereon, but
only bare and public matters of fact … for we have here nothing certain’. Private
communications, although necessarily guarded, helped more in assessing the situ-
ation than the bland reassurance of the state-controlled press.
Alternative channels along which rumour and fact might travel to those in the
provinces included the courier services of the Somerset mariner, Hayman. Indeed

duke of Ormond’s reflections on the s’ in Ó Siochrú (ed.), Kingdoms in crisis, pp –. 
Mayor’s accounts,  and –, Youghal Municipal Archives, Cork Archives Institute; M.
Mulcahy, (ed.), Calendar of Kinsale documents,  vols (Kinsale, –), i, pp , ; ii, p. .
For examples: Corporation of Londonderry, minute book, –, s.d. May , PRONI,
LA/A/A, p. ; R. Caulfield (ed.), The council book of the corporation of Kinsale (Guildford,
), p. ; R. Caulfield (ed.), The council book of the corporation of Youghal (Guildford, ),
pp , ; M. Kennedy, ‘Eighteenth-century newspaper publishing in Munster and South
Leinster’, JCHAS,  (), pp –; C. McNeill (ed.), The Tanner letters (Dublin, ), p. .
 Notebook of H. Ellis,  Mar. [], UCNW, Gwyneddon MS ; also, Pollard, Dublin’s trade
in books, pp –.  HMC, Ormonde MSS, new series, vii, p. .  W. Cooper to Sir John
Perceval,  Mar. , BL, Add. MS ,, f ; Singer (ed.), Correspondence of Clarendon, ii,
p. .  Colles’ notes on proclamations, Feb. [], NLI, MS , printed in expurgated
form in HMC, Ormonde MSS, new series, viii, p. .  Account of arrival of the new charter
for the corporation of Galway was geared for publication, but in the Gazette, ‘for their honour’.
‘The reception of the charter by the maior of Galway on Wednesday the  Mar. /’, De Vesci
MSS, NLI, Ms ,/; T.C. Barnard, ‘Ireland, –’ in T. Harris and S. Taylor (eds), The
final crisis of the Stuart monarchy (Woodbridge, ), pp –; R.L. Munter, A hand-list of Irish
newspapers, – (London, ), p. ; Munter, Irish newspaper, pp –.  W. Hovell to
J. Putland,  June ,  July ,  Dec. ,  Jan. [],  Mar. [],  July ,
 Nov. , W. Hovell letter book, private collection: Barnard, ‘Cork settlers’, pp –. Cf. J.
Boyse to R. Thoresby,  Dec. , MS , Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Leeds; Lord Athenry
to J. Browne,  Jan. [], NLI, MS ,/.
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The s 
Hovell alluded to ‘ill news from west of England ships’, relating to Monmouth’s
rebellion. From Dublin, Hovell was sent ‘Occurrences’, probably a manuscript
newsletter. Although veiled to pass the vigilant authorities, its contents were
enough to ‘lead me out of errors I might otherwise fall into’. By the summer of
, growing fear of hostile attention from the authorities made Hovell destroy
the newsletter immediately after reading it. Elsewhere, in Galway, Lord Athenry
informed a correspondent, ‘here is no news except the publick’, meaning what
had come in the official news-sheets, whether printed or hand-written. In fact,
Athenry knew more, presumably heard by word of mouth. Late in , it was
reported from Dublin that libels were dispersed ‘by stealth to undermine the
constitution’. Such was the atmosphere that it was dangerous to entrust anything
incriminating to paper. By , a regime frightened at the effects of rumour and
critical talk was trying through proclamations to bridle loose tongues.
Overt printed comment on current events in England and Ireland was
certainly reduced. The other principal user of the Dublin press, the established
Church of Ireland, proceeded circumspectly once faced with the uncertainties of
a Catholic monarch and increasingly Catholic administration. A member of a
discussion group in Trinity College (and a future provost and bishop) noted in
 ‘circumstances now do more ordinarily oblige us to study the controversies
betwixt us and the papists’. In , it was reported that a bishop had received
from an English colleague a parcel of many pamphlets on the current controver-
sies. Yet, religious works with contentious messages did not cease altogether.
Notable among them, and hardly calculated to allay confessional animosities, was
the exchange between a recent clerical convert to Catholicism and a Church of
Ireland minister in Dublin. The convert elaborated on the theological reasons for
his switch in . The conversion came when Protestant morale was sinking fast,
but a rejoinder on behalf of the Protestants by a prominent Dublin incumbent,
William King, was soon published.

 W. Hovell to J. Putland,  July , Hovell letter book, private collection.  W. Hovell to
J. Putland,  Mar. ,  May ,  and  June ,  July ,  Oct. , Hovell
letter book, private collection.  W. Hovell to J. Putland,  July , Hovell letter book, private
collection.  Athenry to J. Browne,  Jan. [], NLI, MS ,/.  J. Bonnell to J.
Strype,  Dec. , Cambridge UL, Add. MS /.  J. Kelly with M.A. Lyons, The procla-
mations of Ireland, –,  vols (Dublin, ), ii, pp –, –, –.  St G. Ashe to
H. Dodwell,  June , Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. , f. b.  Mr Dent to Bp A. Dopping,
 Apr. ; W. Molyneux to same,  May , Dopping MSS / and , Armagh Public
Library.  P. Manby, The considerations which obliged Peter Manby dean of Derry to embrace the
Catholique religion ([Dublin], ). [J. Boyse], Some impartial reflections on D[r] Manby’s consider-
ations, &c. and Dr King’s answer (Dublin, ); W. King, An answer to the considerations which
obliged Peter Manby, dean of Londonderry … to embrace what he calls the catholique religion (Dublin,
); W. King, A vindication of an answer to the considerations (Dublin, ); W. King, A vindi-
cation of the Christian religion and reformation against the attempts of a late letter wrote by Peter Manby
(Dublin, ); P. Manby, A letter to a friend showing the vanity of the opinion that every man’s sense
and reason is to guide him in matters of faith (Dublin, ); R. Gillespie, ‘Irish print and Protestant
identity: William King’s pamphlet wars, –’ in Carey and Lotz-Heumann (eds), Taking
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 Brought to Book
Printed justifications of conversions were not new in Dublin. The novelty
in  was for a Catholic perspective to be offered from the Dublin press.
Previous ripostes had had to be issued from the security of continental Europe.
In , despite the easier times for Catholics, it seemed as if the authorities
wanted to preserve a balance between the confessional protagonists. Words spoken
in public were more inflammatory than those read in seclusion. During , it
was reported that two preachers in Dublin had been silenced ‘for their over-warm
discourse against the Roman Catholics’. This contrasted with the Dublin publi-
cation in the following year of another narrative of a Catholic abandoning the
faith of his fathers. The press was not ignored by the Dublin government as an
influence over opinion and behaviour as the Catholic revanche gathered momen-
tum. It sanctioned a celebratory ode on the birth of an heir to James II in .
King himself had prepared answers to Protestant dissenters, but was stopped from
publishing them by the bishops. At the critical juncture in , a show of
Protestant unity had to be maintained.
It may be that Irish Protestants, familiar with the effectiveness of their pred-
ecessors’ propaganda in the s, were alert to its usefulness in the new crisis.
Two Church of Ireland clerics, one of them King, prepared to construct a history
of the recent sufferings to win English and international support. William III’s
victory meant that the project could be laid aside. Instead King composed an
exculpatory narrative of the Irish Protestants’ actions. It would be published in
, initially in London, for it was there that policy towards Ireland and its
inhabitants was being decided.

III

Outside official and clerical circles, few authors in Ireland chose to publish there
during the s. Relatively easy access to London and the prospect of better

sides?, pp –; P. O’Regan, Archbishop William King of Dublin (–) and the constitution
in church and state (Dublin, ), pp –.  The Jesuite converted or the recantation of Andrew
Saull (London, ); A. Sall, A sermon preached at Christ-Church in Dublin, the fifth day of July,
, before the lord lieutenant and council (Dublin, ); The recantation of Cornelius O Donnel, prior
of Trim (London, ); T.P. Power, ‘“A weighty serious business”: the conversion of Catholic
clergy to Anglicanism’ in M. Brown, C.I. McGrath and T.P. Power (eds), Converts and conversion
in Ireland, – (Dublin, ), pp –.  N. French, The dolefull fall of Andrew Sall,
a Jesuit of the fourth vow (?Louvain, ).  J. Boyse to R. Thoresby,  Dec. , Thoresby
MS , Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Leeds.  Neal Carolan, Motives of a conversion to the
Catholic faith (Dublin, ). Cf. N. Carolan to A. Dopping,  July , Dopping MSS /,
Armagh Public Library.  Serenissimi Walliae principis, cited in V. Morley, ‘Roderick O’Flaherty’,
DIB, , pp –; Kelly with Lyons, The proclamations of Ireland, ii, –.  W. King to H.
Dodwell,  Mar. [], Bodleian, MS Eng. Lett. C. , f. v.  Barnard, ‘Ireland, –’,
pp –.  J. Bonnell to J. Strype,  Aug. ,  Feb. [],  Apr. , Cambridge UL,
Add. MS /, , ; W. King, The state of the Protestants under the late King James’ government
(London, ).
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