As Patrick Kelly reminds us, William Molyneux's The Case of Ireland's Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (Dublin, 1698) has strong reasons to be regarded as the most important political pamphlet published in Ireland before the Act of Union between England and Ireland of 1801. Challenging the claims of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland (without the consent of the Irish Parliament), it also denied the claims of the English House of Lords to be the final court of appeal in Irish cases. The Case passed through nine subsequent editions in the course of the eighteenth century (mostly coinciding with events that raised questions about the relationship between the Irish and British parliaments), and there were a further six printings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kelly provides lists and details of all these later editions (pp. 49–52, 79–86). The topicality of the work for scholars is suggested by the fact that an article by Ian McBride, entitled “The Case of Ireland (1698) in Context: William Molyneux and His Critics” was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (vol. 118C (2018), pp. 201–30), at more or less the same time as the edition under review appeared.

Given the acknowledged importance of The Case, it is not surprising to find that Molyneux has attracted a good deal of attention from scholars. Not, admittedly, as much as Jonathan Swift – but certainly as much as or more than others with whom his name is often associated, Charles Lucas and Henry Grattan (see “person as subject” at www.irishhistoryonline.ie). In what ways, then, does Patrick Kelly's edition break new ground? From the outset of his “General introduction”, the editor emphasises the structure of The Case as “a legal case as submitted to a court” (p. 1). Later, this point is further developed, where (taking the cue from the title of the work), it is contended that it was the author's intention “to put forward his arguments in a form analogous to the presentation of a civil case in a court of law” (p. 28). Such a format was typified by marshalling evidence for one point, then moving on to a completely new one. The value of this insight – which would not necessarily be apparent to historians without legal training – is that without it, the reader is inclined to think that Molyneux's arguments can be marred by unexplained contradictions and shifts of position. One of the most obvious of these apparent contradictions arises where Molyneux first argues that the voluntary submission of the Irish to Henry II indicated that Ireland was not conquered, then later doubles back and contends that rights acquired by conquest were not sufficient to give Henry II a title to Ireland. Kelly notes that the legal structure of The Case was not only common for such publications at the time, but was a natural consequence of the author's legal training. A member of the Irish Protestant elite, Molyneux was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and subsequently spent time in the 1670s at London's Middle Temple. As an M.P. for Dublin University in the 1690s, he also gained experience of and interest in Irish parliamentary procedure.

Given the legal structure of The Case, what sort of arguments did the author use? Essentially, Molyneux looked back over Irish history, and in particular that of the Irish Parliament, its procedures and relations with the English Parliament. Some of his arguments (as would be common in a legal case) drew on existing sources, such as “A declaration”, arguing in favour of Irish legislative independence, first mentioned as circulating in manuscript in 1644, and which Kelly contends (pp. 57–58) was written by the then Irish solicitor general, Sir Richard Bolton. An even more important source was Sir William Domville's “Disquisition”, written in 1660. (Domville, who was Molyneux's father-in-law, was Irish attorney general from 1660 to 1687.) Kelly points out (pp. 54–57) that Molyneux did not simply reproduce such sources, but made judicious and considered use of them. He built up his case for Irish legislative independence by locating the foundations of the Irish Constitution in the early mediaeval period, contending that even if Henry II could be said to have conquered Ireland, he did not conquer “the English and Britains, that came over and Conquered with him, [who] retain'd all the Freedoms and Immunities of Free-born Subjects”. As for “the Antient Irish”, Molyneux argued that only “a meer handful” of the latter remained in his own day – a view that the editor suggests was widely shared at the time (p. 32). By the early thirteenth century, Molyneux contends, Irishmen had the full benefits of English laws and liberties, including the right to assent to future laws passed in Parliament, and it was this that made possible the future divergence between English and Irish law. However, in addition to arguments from precedent, throughout the work Molyneux also drew on natural law and natural rights. Here, he made use of earlier thinkers including Grotius, and his own near contemporary Pufendorf, as well as the ideas of his English correspondent John Locke. Indeed, he went further than Locke in contending that natural rights extended not only to individuals but also to nations, which had a natural right to liberty. And although Molyneux did not consider that the American colonies enjoyed the same constitutional status as Ireland, his concerns about the possibility of being taxed without consent would later attract colonial interest to the work.

What motivated Molyneux to write The Case in the 1690s? In the “General Introduction”, Kelly sets out the background to the publication of the work (pp. 7–13). Although the ousting in Ireland of James II and his replacement by William and Mary in 1690 produced no significant constitutional change in Ireland (unlike England and Scotland), other events did raise constitutional issues. These included the controversy in England over competition from Irish woollen exports; the matter of forfeited Jacobite lands; and (in a dispute over fishing rights) the appeal by the Irish Society of London to the English House of Lords against the Irish Lords’ decision in favour of the Bishop of Derry. The wider context, which could perhaps have received rather more emphasis here, was that from the 1690s onwards there began to be more regular Irish parliamentary sessions: there had been no meeting at all of the Irish Parliament between 1666 and 1689, whereas sessions were held in 1692 and from 1695 to 1699. This pattern of regular meetings would continue throughout the eighteenth century, and helps explain why clashes between the Irish and English legislatures could become more frequent, and why The Case was so often cited or brought out in new editions. On the issue of a possible legislative union between Ireland and England (topical because union was then being considered in respect of Scotland and England), the editor argues that Molyneux was not a serious advocate of union. A much-debated comment in The Case on union being “an Happiness we can hardly hope for” is deemed essentially rhetorical (p. 37) rather than as a serious proposal for union. Meanwhile in England (following the Williamite revolution), Parliament developed a new sense of its own importance; and in that context the claim that Ireland's allegiance was due to the Crown rather than to the English Parliament came to be regarded as distinctly outmoded. At all events, in the English Parliament The Case was deemed to be dangerous to the Crown and people of England, though Kelly confirms that there is no evidence (as began to be asserted later) that it had been ordered to be burned by the common hangman. Critical responses to The Case are noted, with the editor identifying two broad underlying assumptions. The first was that Ireland should be subordinate to a higher imperial interest that bound England and her colonies; the second that the author was challenging England's “ancient constitution” – deemed to date back to time immemorial, and hence superior to any claims advanced by the Irish Parliament.

Turning to Kelly's edition itself, the principal way in which it breaks new ground is that readers are presented with a fresh text of the first (1698) edition of The Case, which draws not only on the author's holograph of the work but also the manuscript copy used by the printer to set it. Remarkably, both these manuscripts have survived, and are located in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, MS 890. (There is apparently no evidence that Molyneux, who died later in the year of publication, corrected any further editions of the work.) Kelly makes clear (pp. 68–69) that this new edition is by no means “a quasi-facsimile reproduction of the first edition of The case”, but represents a new critical edition with corrections (and notation) of any errors in the 1698 text, and designed not only for specialists interested in the evolution of the work but also for general readers. The critical apparatus provides a set of symbols indicating the source of variants in the different manuscripts; there are notes offering background information and translations of Latin passages, and all of this is displayed on the same page as Molyneux's text, along with the author's own marginal headings, notes and references. A detailed textual introduction (pp. 53–75) discusses the principal manuscript and printed sources on which the author drew. And explanatory notes are provided, identifying works mentioned in the text; giving information about lesser-known individuals, documents and events, as well as cross-references. A set of appendices includes some earlier texts relating to Ireland's legislative status, together with a list of pamphlets relating to the Irish woollen industry controversy, and reasons critical of the English House of Lords’ finding against the Irish Lords’ verdict. There are several illustrations, including facsimiles of the title page of The Case (original 1698 Dublin edition, and the second (London) edition), as well as pages from the printer's copy of the main text, with interpolations in Molyneux's hand. Finally, there is an index of statutes cited in The Case (pp. 307–10), a full bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a general index.

Patrick Kelly, a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Dublin, has published various works on Molyneux, and is the editor of Locke on Money (1991) for the Clarendon edition of the works of John Locke. He is therefore particularly well qualified to produce this splendid edition, on which he has laboured for some three decades. The extensive critical apparatus is clearly set out, and not difficult to follow. It is a spectacular achievement, and it is hard to imagine that any future edition could surpass it.