Anthony Malcomson has built up a formidable reputation as the leading analyst of conservatives in the heyday of “Ascendancy” Ireland. His ability to unravel the thinking of figures such as John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Commons immediately before the Act of Union, and of Foster's contemporaries, John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare, the lord chancellor, and Charles Agar, as archbishop of Cashel the most prominent ecclesiastical politician, is unrivalled. Given that conservatism, even reaction, not generous liberalism, was the predominant outlook of propertied Irish Protestants, Malcomson's studies have offered unique insights into the dynamics (and limitations) of this ruling caste. For his latest foray, Malcomson has moved deep into the nineteenth century. His subject, the Third Earl of Leitrim, is famed chiefly for having been murdered in 1878. Both before and after his death, he attracted hostility through his unbridled utterances and erratic behavior. For many, he came to personify the evils of the landlord system. Few mourned his death.
At one level, Leitrim offers an opportunity for Malcomson to apply his remarkable mastery of the workings of politics, administration, and public finance to Victorian Ireland and Britain. Malcomson detects consistency in Leitrim's objections to centralization and bureaucracy as they encroached on the powers of local potentates such as himself. However, the tactlessness with which Leitrim expressed his views reduced their impact. Leitrim was eventually alienated from the political establishment and increasingly embarrassed even those who shared his opinions. These sections of the study add valuably to the exiting scholarly literature—so, too, does the detailed analysis of Leitrim's oversight of a neglected and troublesome inheritance, in a remote and infertile region of northwest Ireland. As a landowner, Leitrim ardently promoted innovations in agriculture and infrastructure. Unfortunately, as other activists discovered, tenants did not always wish to be improved. Easy customs might be ruptured, rents increased, and some were compulsorily relocated. Improvement, when it became a dogma, inspired a crusading spirit insensitive to the idiosyncrasies of individuals. Malcomson documents the heavy spending and personal supervision that Leitrim lavished on his estates. At the same time, he concedes that too much authority was delegated to a ruffianly crew of bailiffs. Worse, Leitrim, unmarried, lamed in a riding accident, and disappointed of various ambitions, became obsessed and may have lost a sense of perspective.
The energetic biographer does not limit himself to these conventional historical undertakings. He wishes, if not to rehabilitate the peer, at least to challenge some of the outlandish legends that have accumulated around him. In doing so, Malcomson uses Leitrim as an example of the upbringing, attitudes, and activities of those of similar circumstances in nineteenth-century Ireland. These sections undoubtedly illumine the social history of the propertied elite. However, the massive detail and leisurely pace, offering numerous insights and amusements, sometimes threaten to submerge Leitrim. Also, the minutiae of Leitrim's and his family's doings contrast sharply with a perfunctory and generally unsympathetic treatment of those with different backgrounds and opinions. Fellow peers, notably Carlisle and Granard, are shown to have been animated by political and personal spite. Parish priests, harassed government functionaries, and officious police inspectors are generally given short shrift. Nor are the reasons why Leitrim's lands harboured so many troublemakers—Ribbonmen, Fenians, and malcontents—ever investigated. At times, Malcomson appears to echo his subject's impatience with and incomprehension of any who crossed him.
In the end, the copious detail deployed by Malcomson looks disproportionate to his chosen task. He wishes to demonstrate that Leitrim avoided sectarian bias in his dealings with tenants, quarrelled with only two of his relations, was of sound mind when he made his numerous wills, had an informed interest in art and architecture, and was capable of generosity and humour. For all his biographer's eloquent advocacy, Leitrim remains irascible and stubbornly unlikable. Contemporaries within the landed order were happy to allow him to become a scapegoat for collective failings. Malcomson shows why this happened and contends that it was not altogether fair. Others, considering the voluminous evidence assembled here, may disagree and even wonder whether Leitrim is well served by such a lengthy study.
The nineteenth century was the heyday of eulogistic lives and letters of assorted worthies, often bulked out to two or three volumes. Malcomson, albeit in a single book, shows signs of reviving the genre. This is not an altogether welcome regression. The gains—many unexpected insights, much unfamiliar information, and a highly polished, if marmoreal, style—are offset by inconsequential details, extended genealogical excursions, lengthy quotations from unpublished documents, and odd digressions. The book demonstrates yet again the author's superlative qualities as a historian of conservatives and conservatism, but a pointed essay might have done more to brighten Leitrim's spotted image.
