Religion, Law, and Power

Dr Connolly is author of Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland 1780-1845 (Gill & MacMillan, Dublin, 1982), and Religion and Society in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Economic and Social History Society of Ireland, Dundalk, 1985).

• Abbreviations; Introduction; I. A NEW IRELAND; 1. December 1659: `A Nation Born in a Day'; 2. Settlement and Explanation; 3. A Foreign Jurisdiction; 4. Papists and Fanatics; 5. Counter-Revolution Defeated; II. AN ELITE AND ITS WORLD; 6. Uneven Development; 7. Gentlement and Others; 8. Manners; III. THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS; 9. A Company of Madmen: The Politics of Party 1691-1714; 10. `Little Employments...Smiles, Good Dinners'; 11. Politics and the People; IV. RELATIONSHIPS; 12. Kingdoms; 13. Nations; 14. Communities; 15. Orders; V. THE INVENTIONS OF MEN IN THE WORSHIP OF GOD: RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES; 16. Numbers; 17. Catholics; 18. Dissenters; 19. Churchmen; 20. Christians; VI. LAW AND THE MAINTENANCE OF ORDER; 21. Resources; 22. The Limits of Order; 23. The Rule of Law; 24. Views from Below: Disaffection and the Threat of Rebellion; 25; Views from Above: Perceptions of the Catholic Threat; VII. `REASONABLE INCONVENIENCES: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PENAL LAWS'; 26. `Raw Head and Bloody Bones': Parliamentary Management and Penal Legislation; 27. Debate; 28. The Conversion of the Natives; 29. Protestant Ascendancy? The Consequences of the Penal Laws; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

`Connolly's work is a fresh and stimulating examination of the century in which the structure and problems of modern Ireland took shape ... He is immensely well-informed, extracting the gold from the waste of earlier research and augmenting it with his own extensive accumulation. The diligence of his research is matched by the ingenuity of the questions he poses, his challenges to accepted orthodoxies and his convincing reassessments. All this is combined with an elegant style and a lightness of touch which makes the book exceedingly readable.'J.L. McCracken, Durban, EHR, Apr '93