In this wonderful and stimulating book, Jane Ohlmeyer considers the relationship between Ireland and empire in the early modern world. Ohlmeyer, professor of modern history at Trinity College, Dublin, is a leading authority on studies of early modern Ireland. The chapters which make up this monograph are based on her 2021 Oxford Ford Lectures. In the book, Ohlmeyer uses a variety of sources ‘to revisit the history of empire, if only to better understand how it has formed the present, and how this might shape the future’ (p. 29). As outlined in an elegant introductory chapter, empire is not a distant memory in Ireland and Ohlmeyer is sensitive to the need to treat it as an ongoing issue.
As the book discusses, the imperial power which loomed over early modern Ireland was England. Chapters two and three analyse, respectively, the themes of Anglicisation and assimilation. These are arguably the strongest parts of the monograph, with Ohlmeyer offering a brilliant synthesis of both existing literature and her own research. Especially illuminating are examples drawn from the 1641 depositions, the legal testimonies of those caught up in the decade of bloody conflict which began in October 1641. Ohlmeyer shows how multifaceted the efforts of English regimes to promote the dissemination of Englishness were. She also subtly teases out the ambiguities which worried contemporaries. At what stage can something as complex as an identity be said to have been altered? For some, cross-cultural marriage led to assimilation but others, such as the English author Edmund Spenser, feared that it prompted the degeneration of English families. While Ohlmeyer offers a deliberately wide-ranging discussion of Anglicisation, her approach to assimilation is dominated by a focus on ‘[w]omen in colonial Ireland’ (p. 69). This emphasis allows the rich sources of the 1641 depositions to be utilised and allows for a brilliant analysis of the issue of marriage in understandings of assimilation. It does, however, at times veer slightly away from the issue of assimilation to become a more wide-ranging discussion of women’s lives in colonial Ireland – an important issue but one which feels a little shoehorned into the chapter.
Ohlmeyer shows in chapters four and five how Irishmen became entangled in the workings of empire. As her fourth chapter demonstrates, some ended up being agents of imperial powers, English or otherwise, in a variety of ways. Some voluntarily and in high-profile positions as officials, but others as migrants, many of whom were indentured servants. The lives of those whom Ohlemeyer discusses were influenced by Ireland’s experiences as a ‘laboratory’ of empire, as analysed in chapter five. Under the English, Ireland was a testing site for imperial ideologies but also of anti-colonial resistance which would go on to be applied in other settings, such as India.
As all this suggests, and as Ohlmeyer’s sixth and final chapter analyses, empire was a fundamental part of life for the Irish in the early modern period. The extraordinary finds of a 2014 archaeological excavation of Rathfarnham Castle in Dublin allow Ohlmeyer to delve into the manner in which the commodities of imperial trade networks became quotidian in the Irish capital: Colombian emeralds, rouge made from Mexican cochineal insects, Chinese porcelain and the comparatively parochial German jeton minted at Nuremburg were all part of the dizzyingly diverse material lifestyle enjoyed by those in the castle (p. 173). In the world which Ohlmeyer recreates, empire was hard to escape.
The empire which dominates the study is that of the English. However, Ohlmeyer has a commendably ambitious approach to her subject and shows the links between the Irish people and early modern empires generally. Indeed, one of the most striking passages in the book comes with a discussion of trans-imperialism and the ability of individuals to pass through the boundaries of various empires. The ‘Irish names [which] litter the Cuban landscape’ (p. 116), such as Calle O’Reilly in Old Havana, are silent testimony to the passage of many Irish from the lands of the English empire to those of other European powers.
Ohlmeyer delivers a great deal of insight and stimulation in a relatively brief work (the text is 200 pages followed by almost 100 pages of notes). Each chapter is concise and packed with useful overviews of existing literature and historiographical debates. It seems almost certain that this book will become a mainstay on university reading lists, though it will be of interest to academic and non-academic communities alike. If there is one criticism, it is that some of the sharpness of the earlier chapters fades in the monograph’s second half. However, this minor criticism ought not to detract from what is an impressive scholarly achievement.
