JAMES STAFFORD
Cambridge University Press
£75/€90
ISBN 9781316516126
Reviewed by Timothy Murtagh
This book’s title is a reference to William Molyneux’s seminal 1698 pamphlet The case of Ireland, widely regarded as a turning-point in the evolution of ideas about Irish nationhood. Rather than focusing on concepts of Irish nationalism or national struggle, however, Stafford’s work is concerned with the ‘case of Ireland’, i.e. Ireland as a discrete social and political problem that was observed and debated by intellectual élites, whether in Britain, Ireland or beyond. While this is by no means the first book to look at how ‘the Irish question’ transfixed British élites, Stafford is not concerned with the ‘Irish question’ of the Victorian era but rather focuses on the period 1750–1848. Nor is he concerned with specific policies or legislation. Instead, the book places Ireland within a narrative of ideological dispute between differing interpretations of modernity.
The first chapter—‘The Enlightenment Critique of Empire in Ireland’—begins with a brief yet effective overview of Irish political history from 1542 to 1750. As ambitious as that sounds, Stafford succeeds in establishing the context for his more detailed discussion of the eighteenth century. His focus is on the tensions within the Irish Protestant élite concerning the best way of ‘improving’ Ireland economically in the context of the Penal Laws against the Catholic majority. In an era marked by advancements and the burgeoning of international trade, Ireland’s comparative economic disadvantage became a prominent subject of discussion. One pivotal matter under scrutiny was a ‘wealthy nation versus impoverished nation’ discourse. This debate revolved around the question of whether lower labour costs would inevitably result in the relocation of manufacturing industries from affluent nations such as England to less affluent ones like Ireland. What follows is an account of the debates over political economy (and particularly the topic of protective tariffs) during the era of the Penal Laws, one that draws on all the most recent secondary works as well as situating debates over the status of Irish Catholics within a wider European intellectual sphere. It concludes with an analysis of the work of Adam Smith and Arthur Young on Irish economic debate before 1780 and sets down several themes that are developed in later chapters, namely the variety of imperial and anti-imperial critiques of Irish politics, as well as the often-overlooked role that Ireland played in the work of French and German political economists. The second chapter continues this account into the period 1776–87, examining the effects of the American Revolution and Irish legislative independence on debates about commerce and empire. Stafford covers the obvious topics from these years (the debate over ‘Free Trade’ in 1779, Pitt’s commercial propositions in 1785–6), but succeeds in providing a deeper investigation of these themes, particularly after the conclusion of the American War in 1783.
The third chapter (and, to some degree, the rest of the book) is concerned with the impact of the French Revolution on Ireland. It begins with an exploration of the thought of Theobald Wolfe Tone. While Tone’s thought has been frequently analysed, Stafford manages to present a fresh account of his feelings towards empire. This includes an exciting examination of Tone’s abandoned proposals for colonising the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii), as well as his reading of the Nootka Sound crisis in 1789–90. Stafford is keen, however, to present some of the limitations in Tone’s thought. Moreover, he is sensitive to the voices of others within the United Irishmen’s movement, such as William Steel Dickson, Arthur O’Connor and Thomas Russell. His examination of Russell’s thinking is particularly strong, developing James Quinn’s insights into the role of labour and social reform within the ‘left wing’ of the United Irishmen. On the other hand, his examination of Arthur O’Connor is somewhat lacklustre, which is odd considering the impact of Adam Smith’s thought on O’Connor, particularly his work on Irish commerce and empire, key themes within this volume. This is all the more surprising given the existence of a compelling study of O’Connor’s The state of Ireland by James Livesey. This is a small quibble, given that the real strength of this chapter lies in moving beyond standard accounts of the 1790s. Stafford contextualises the first phase of Irish republicanism within larger developments of French military empire, as well as wider European debates about the effects of the Revolutionary Wars on international order. Notably, he presents compelling evidence concerning how Ireland features in German political consciousness in this period, such as in the works of writers like Johann-Wolfgang Goethe and Johann Georg Krünitz.
The fourth chapter, on the Act of Union and the debates over its passage, is one of the book’s most ambitious. It examines whether the Union was truly a piece of counter-revolutionary realpolitik and argues convincingly that the Union debates reveal much about British and European discourse concerning commercial empire, as well as understandings of the British constitutional tradition. Stafford’s account of the Union eschews an examination of the high politics of the Union or the explosion of popular pamphlet literature and instead restricts its focus to a handful of influential writers such as William Drennan, Theobald McKenna, Thomas Brooke Clarke and John Foster. Through the works of these men, Stafford traces the influence of earlier French writers such as Montesquieu concerning the nature of free states and ‘depending’ colonies such as Ireland. It is a refreshing narrative that moves away from standard accounts of the Union purely as a reaction to the 1798 Rebellion or as the project of a clique of venal and corrupt politicians. Once again, it is material from a lesser-known German commentator that is a highlight, in this case the writings of Friedrich Gentz, the German translator of Edmund Burke. Gentz viewed the Union positively, seeing in it more than military or political pragmatism but rather a model for ‘the regeneration of Europe’s established monarchies in the face of a revolutionary challenge that threatened the fragile civilisational progress made under the modern monarchies of the eighteenth century’. Gentz considered the Anglo-Irish Union to be proof of the continuing viability of the British constitutional alternative to what he considered to be France’s corrupted republican empire.
The last two chapters of the book are perhaps the most innovative. Chapter 5 examines the initial post-Union decades through the prism of debates on Irish population growth and agricultural development. Admittedly, there is already a substantial literature on how pre-Famine Ireland featured in debates among British economists on the ‘social question’, yet there is much that is new in these chapters, particularly on how Ireland became a debating point between proponents of agrarian-based versus industrial-based economic growth. Stafford presents the Union as the culmination of a ‘counter-revolutionary interpretation of Scottish moral philosophy’, one championed by Pitt’s secretary of war, Henry Dundas. This view held that the Union would not only quell Irish sectarianism and secure the island militarily but also foster prosperity and nurture Irish agricultural development. Stafford takes pains to highlight the new-found interest of British politicians in Irish living conditions and economic development in the immediate aftermath of the Union, a phenomenon also charted by K.T. Hoppen in his 2016 book Governing Hibernia. This concern has to be seen within the context of the Napoleonic blockades and Britain’s strategic need for Ireland as a ‘bread basket’, highlighting the link between intellectual or philanthropic concern and British national expediency.
Once again, Stafford charts the contribution of a circle of well-known commentators on Irish issues (Robert Malthus, Thomas Newenham and Edward Wakefield), and then draws out the wider resonance of their work within European discourse and debate. He does this partly by exploring how Continental authors such as Francis d’Ivernois and Julius Schmidt conceived of Ireland’s position in the post-Union constitutional arrangement, pointedly comparing it to France’s ‘Continental System’ of trade regulation and embargo. Notably, this chapter is one of the few cases in the book where Stafford examines a published work that had a truly popular and non-élite audience: Walter ‘Watty’ Cox’s Irish Magazine, which appeared between 1807 and 1815. Stafford argues that the Irish Magazine, notorious for its violent rhetoric and punchy visual style, also discussed Ireland within a surprisingly nuanced understanding of European affairs, particularly the context of imperial competition and alliance.
The final chapter turns to the dawning of mass Catholic democracy and the role that O’Connellite politics played in the minds of European observers. It argues that Ireland became central to an ideological battle over rival visions of how a commercial society could grow. This debate involved the work of Gustave de Beaumont but also that of Jean Charles Léonard Simonde, Georg Hegel and Benjamin Constant. It was the ideas of Beaumont that were to have the greatest impact, however, being taken up by the Young Irelanders, who helped popularise what was to be one of the most consequential ideas in subsequent Irish history: that democratic landownership was intimately tied to the cause of Irish nationalism. While Stafford’s account does not go past 1848, it has obvious implications for studying the ideological basis of later land reform movements, as well as the material basis of later nationalist groups. It is this link between national self-determination and mass property-holding that Stafford argues is one of the most important, if complex, legacies of the French Revolution.
This chapter is followed by a brief conclusion, which makes a compelling case for the relevance of these debates into the present time. Stafford ends with the argument that the necessary modes of thought to understand contemporary Ireland can be traced back to those employed by Adam Smith and the other intellectuals examined in the book. While this conclusion is questionable, far more convincing (or at least amusing) is his assertion of the deep historical precedents for Ireland’s becoming a ‘low-tax entrepôt for transatlantic commerce’, one that might reveal much about big questions facing contemporary political economists.
Although this is an impressive book that deserves a wide readership, potential readers should be made aware of a few points. First, this is an intellectual history that is focused on ideas, not on their reception. Stafford examines bodies of thought purely through a close reading of books and pamphlets; he does not follow how these publications were perceived or understood by any particular readership. It is not a book concerned with how published works affected popular mind-sets, or an appraisal of how ideas circulated within wider society. Second, one of Stafford’s main contentions is that Ireland was a ‘central’ problem within some of the most significant European intellectual debates of the day, such as those on empire and international commerce. This claim to Ireland’s ‘centrality’ is very much open to question, although this is not to deny the strength of the material that Stafford presents on French and German thinkers concerning Irish issues. While name-checking some well-known figures (Gustave de Beaumont, Joseph Droz), it also highlights lesser-known commentators such as Friedrich Gentz and Karl Gottlieb Küttner. It deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in the intellectual and economic history of Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Timothy Murtagh is a researcher with the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.