Problems in the Interpretation and Revision of Eighteenth-Century Irish Economic History

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Abstract
The economic history of Ireland in the late seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies unfolded in an age marked by considerable legislative interference by the British parliament in Irish affairs. The impact of this interference was all the greater because the executive in Dublin was, from the point of view of an Irish colonial nationalist, constitutionally irresponsible, answerable to the king's ministers in London rather than to the Irish legislature. It is not surprising that against this background colonial nationalism emerged at an early date. The interpretation of economic issues fell inevitably under the shadow of constitutional controversy and rising colonial nationalism. In the eyes of contemporaries, and subsequent Irish historians who have borrowed largely both their facts and interpretation of events from the writings of the period, economic development was subsidiary to political issues; not only subsidiary but its achievement or negation a product of policy.

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