The Irish Penal Code and Some of Its Historians

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Abstract
In 1891 W. E. H. Lecky wrote a topical essay in which he observed ”that the kind of interest which belongs to Irish history is curiously different from that which attaches to the history of England and tothat of the great nations of the continent.… It is an invaluable study of morbid anatomy.” Irish history is indeed the study of sickness but of an induced, not a natural sickness. While Lecky's diagnosis for Ireland's malade historiqueleaves much to be desired, he was able to isolate a singularity of Irish history which should command more than the limited attention of interested historians. Irish history since 1691 is more than the tragic chronicle of ”the Pope and the potato,” it is the record of one of the most persistent legislative efforts ever undertaken to change a people. The magnitude of that effort makes the history of the Irish Penal Code a profitable field of study for all students of the behavioral sciences.

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