Improving Ireland? : projectors, prophets and profiteers, 1641-1786 / Toby Barnard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barnard, T. C. (Toby Christopher)

Contributor:

Class of 1924 Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ireland--History--17th century.

Ireland.

History.

Ireland--History--18th century.

Ireland--Social conditions--17th century.

Social conditions.

Ireland--Social conditions--18th century.

Physical Description:

192 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Improving Ireland?

Place of Publication:

Dublin ; Portland, OR : Four Courts Press, [2008]

Summary:

The idea of improvement featured consistently in schemes to transform Ireland into a prosperous, peaceful and English place. Two strands were especially strong: physical changes through different kinds of agriculture, new industries and even the substitution of skilled immigrants for the existing inhabitants; and changes in attitude, to be achieved through the spread of ideas from elsewhere, such as Protestantism. In a series of linked studies, these themes are explored from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. Advocates of improvement, such as Sir William Petty and Richard Lawrence, and landowners who promoted the projects, like Petty, the Frenches in County Galway and the Smythes in Westmeath, are examined. Also discussed are collaborative undertakings that culminated in the work of the Dublin Society.

These detailed studies suggest that the impact of the ventures was limited and the consequences sometimes unpredicted. Furthermore, signs of a reaction, with a growing appreciation of antiquity, the unimproved and the picturesque, are traced.

Contents:

The cult and cultures of improvement

Sir William Petty, Irish landowner and improver

Interests in Ireland : Richard Lawrence as improver

Improving Ireland's past

Improvement, imagination and antiquarianism in mid-eighteenth-century Ireland : the earls of Egmont and Lohort Castle, County Cork

The worlds of an improving Galway squire : Robert French of Monivea, 1716-79

Ireland improved?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1924 Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781846820557

1846820553

OCLC:

220016352