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The Case of Ireland. The anniversary of the death of William Molyneux (1698).

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Detail of pamphlet cover - visible words read "The Case of Ireland's"
Guest Post: Conrad Brunstrom.

This post was first published on Conrad Brunstrom‘s blog on October 11, 2017, and is reproduced here with permission.

Engraving of William Molyneux
William Molyneux. Line engraving by P. Simms, 1725.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images ( CC BY 4.0)

William Molyneux was invoked over and over again after his death by people he would not have acknowledged and for reasons he would not have approved.  His afterlife is far more important than his biography.

He was a wealthy Irish protestant who founded the Dublin Philosophical Society in 1683.  He had wide ranging interests in both natural and speculative philosophy and did his darndest to keep up with the latest developments in European science.  His correspondence reveals a desperate need to become a close friend of John Locke.  But he’s most famous for a book published in the year of his death.

The Case of Ireland’s being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England. Stated (1698) is a book that asserts a version of national self-determination.  The identity of the “nation” that is to be determined is less than generous and inclusive.  Much of the book is very dull indeed, consisting of endless nuggets of case law dealing with the meanings of old statutes.  What emerges from this scholarship is a conviction that Ireland is not a conquered or a colonised country but a nation that has compacted with England (Britain, we recall, did not yet exist in 1698).

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A Noble Woman: Lady Jane Wilde

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Jane-Wilde

wildeswomenGuest Post: Eleanor Fitzsimons
Wilde’s Women by Eleanor Fitzsimons is published today 16th October 2015. It is to be launched on Tues 20th October at 6.30pm in the Gutter Bookshop, Cows Lane, Dublin. In the book Eleanor Fitzsimons explores the central role women played in Oscar Wilde’s life and career, from his sister Isola, who tragically died young, to his accomplished wife Constance and a coterie of other free-thinking writers, actors and artists. The first female influence on Oscar is the subject of this post: his mother, the nationalist and feminist writer Lady Jane ‘Speranza’ Wilde.

When Lady Jane Wilde learned that her son Oscar’s latest play had the provisional title ‘A Good Woman’, she wrote to express her disapproval:

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God-Provoking Democrat: Archibald Hamilton Rowan

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god-provoking

God Provoking CoverGuest Post: Fergus Whelan

This is the address given by Fergus Whelan at the launch of his new book, God-Provoking Democrat: The Remarkable Life of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, published by New Island Press. The launch was held at The Church, Dublin – originally St Mary’s Church of Ireland, where Hamilton Rowan is buried.

My subject Archibald Hamilton Rowan the United Irishman was conceived in Ireland but was born and grew up in England in wealth and privilege. His mother contrived to keep him out of Ireland. She feared that her son would develop passions there which might lead to his ruin. Her fears came close to being realised in the great tumult in Ireland at the close of the eighteenth century.

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