This collection of essays was compiled by colleagues and former students as a Festschrift in honor of historian James I. McGuire to mark a long career researching and teaching Irish history. McGuire's own writings ranged broadly, but he made his most important contributions with essays on politics in Restoration and Williamite Ireland; biographical studies on Church of Ireland figures; as an editor of Irish Historical Studies; and, most recently, as a contributor and a driving force behind the monumental Dictionary of Irish Biography. The essays here reflect well the interests of McGuire and are a fitting tribute to his influence. Thematically they can be divided into two general categories. Five essays are of a broadly biographical nature. The remaining four examine law and legal culture, with essays on divorce, outlaws, oaths, and Catholic legal culture.

In keeping with McGuire's preferred medium, a number of contributors use the biographical essay to illuminate broader patterns. John McCafferty provides an exemplary model of this approach with an essay on John Bramhall's Restoration career. Ivar McGrath analyzes the controversial speakership of Alan Brodrick and reflects on the differences between the role of the speaker in the Irish and British Houses of Commons. Patrick Geoghegan's discussion of the place of the Act of Union in the thought of Daniel O'Connell offers some perceptive insights on the rhetoric and style of O'Connell's speeches. James Quinn draws attention to the place of the Irish parliament of 1689 in the thought of the Young Irelander, Thomas Davis.

James Kelly contributes a fine essay on Richard Woodward, bishop of Cloyne, best known for his popularization of the term “Protestant Ascendancy.” The essay reinforces the importance of defending the Church of Ireland in all aspects of Woodward's activities. But Kelly also examines other strands of Woodward's thought and career. An Englishmen pursuing a benefice in Ireland, Woodward had been influenced by the improving ideas of his stepfather and tutor, Josiah Tucker. On his arrival in Ireland, Woodward published a number of pamphlets on the care of the poor and became an advocate for the national provision of poor relief, resulting in the opening of a number of houses of industry. Kelly draws attention to this overlooked aspect of Woodward's career, and this essay will hopefully encourage more research on the ideology and practice of poor relief in eighteenth-century Ireland.

Throughout this period, Woodward and other excited commentators contended that the Church of Ireland and the ruling dynasty were under threat. How much stock should we place in such claims? How much of this hysteria can be put down to Protestant paranoia? Research on Irish Jacobitism continues to provide a fruitful way of answering this question. Éamonn Ó Ciardha provides an account of the outlaw in early modern Ireland, focusing on both the reality and representation of tory and rapparee activity. Utilizing a range of Irish language sources, he emphasizes the political motivations of outlaws, especially their Jacobite sympathies. Vincent Morley likewise discusses the continued importance of Jacobitism, even after the threat of a Stuart restoration had all but vanished. He focuses on a pamphlet debate provoked by an oath of allegiance in 1774 designed to allow “loyal” Catholics to publicly display their commitment to the Hanoverian dynasty and concludes that debates over the interpretation of the oath were based on the assumption of enduring loyalty to the Stuart dynasty among many Catholics.

Students recently supervised by McGuire contribute two of the more innovative contributions to the volume, with Hazel Maynard highlighting the role of Catholics in the legal profession after the Restoration and John Bergin focusing on divorce in the eighteenth century. Building on McGuire's concept of a Catholic “counterrevolution” in Restoration Ireland, Maynard shows the centrality of law and the legal profession to the process of a Catholic revival during this period. Making good use of chancery records, she demonstrates that by the 1680s, London-educated Catholic lawyers played a vital role in Catholic admission to local government and attempts to overturn Protestant ascendancy in politics and land. Bergin examines the relatively small number of private divorce bills and acts in the eighteenth century in order to uncover the mechanics, motivations, and consequences of divorce. He offers a tantalizing, if necessarily opaque, window into the marital and sexual relations of elites, as well as those just below them, such as professionals and merchants. We are even afforded glimpses of the role of servants in eighteenth-century Ireland, who figure in a number of cases as both witnesses and adulterers. While we are perhaps used to seeing the eighteenth-century Irish elite as preoccupied with marriage, land, and reputation, these cases suggest that there was a surprising degree of indulgence for sexual and marital impropriety and that the consequences for those involved in these public scandals were usually minimal. These two essays offer new research findings on neglected topics; others in this volume provide important new perspectives on familiar themes. This is an admirably coherent collection of essays and offers acknowledgment of McGuire's significant contribution to Irish history over the past forty years.