By Brian Igoe
By Brian Igoe
By now the English were once more alienating the Anglo Irish, the Ascendancy. Prior to the advent of the Stuarts, a measure of prosperity had come to Ireland, albeit primarily to Protestant Ireland. The woollen industry had been growing, the Merchant Shipping industry had been thriving, the livestock industry based on exports to England had been healthy. Gradually these had been strangled since - a series of Navigation Acts was passed by England giving English ships a monopoly on all shipment of goods to English Colonies, which killed the lucrative American trade for Ireland. The Cattle Acts outlawed the import of cattle, sheep, pigs, and related items such as meat from Ireland, while at the same time export duties made exports elsewhere uneconomic. And finally the Woollen Act of 1699 banned all exports of wool from Ireland, which apart from ruining the farmers most of whom were now Protestant, beggared the large community of weavers, most of whom simply emigrated. And what was once a heavily wooded country was being deforested for timber for the English Navy. All this was making the ownership of Irish land an unprofitable exercise, and many landowners gave up and went to England, leaving their lands in the hands of Stewards. That too had its adverse effects, for not only did they spend their money in England instead of Ireland, but the Stewards were as often as not corrupt, further increasing the misery of tenants. The Ascendancy were now a new, different...
That is the first paragraph of the chapter, which then goes on to look at the Ascendancy, William Molyneaux, 1768, Edmund Burke, Dean Swift, George Berkeley, Henry Flood, 'The Forgotten Famine', 1740, Kamchatka peninsula, 1739, Severe Arctic winds, ice nineteen inches thick on the Shannon, the Whiteboys, Munster, tithes, Protestant Church, Limerick, Cork, Tipperary, Lord Halifax, Grattan, Protestant Protest, Henry Grattan, Trinity College Dublin, American War of Independence, George Washington, 4th Viscount Charlemont, Earl of Charlemont, Henry Flood, Catholic Emancipation, Irish Parliament, Patriot Party, Octennial Bill, Penal Declaratory law, Irish House of Lords, William Molyneux, George Berkeley, Dean Swift, Henry Flood, Irish Volunteers, Convention in Dungannon in 1782, Yelverton's Act, Gardiner's Catholic Relief Act, Forbe's Act, Gardiner's second and third Catholic Relief Acts, 1791, deforested, beef, pork, butter, cheese, Royal Navy, Dublin, Arthur Guinness, Waterford Glass, Roads, Grand Juries, General Post Office, mail coaches, 'turnpike' or toll-road, Dublin, Kilcullen, County Kildare, Turnpike Contract, Limerick, John Anderson, Third Catholic Relief Act, Grattan's Parliament, Grattan's Constitution, George Knox, The Society of United Irishmen, Presbyterian rights, Ireland, Daniel O'Connell, Gardiner's Acts, Luke Gardiner, Lord Lieutenant, Lord Chesterfield, Oliver Goldsmith, Georgian Dublin.
The Book is called 'The Story of Ireland'.
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