The starting point for this stimulating study is the suggestion that the foundations of Anglo-Irish Protestant nationalism can be found in print culture. Sean Moore explores this notion through the writings of Jonathan Swift, focusing especially on those that demonstrate Swift’s engagement with the making of Irish financial institutions. In doing so, he considers not only how Swift defended the interests of Irish public creditors but how that defense had the dual purpose of promoting the Irish book trade and imbuing a sense of Irish nationalism in the readers of his work.

At the heart of Moore’s argument is the idea that the establishment of a national debt could have the effect of tying those who invested in that debt closer to the state. This was a phenomenon observed in England during the early financial revolution, when it was argued that the creation of a long-term national debt incentivized the investing public to support William III’s new and vulnerable regime. In the Irish case, however, investment in the state’s debt was limited to a relatively small group of dominant Anglo-Irish landowners. Their willingness to invest was motivated partly by profit potential but also, as Moore argues, by a desire to defend their property and to ensure that the Irish executive remained under their influence, something that would be impossible if the English state, or perhaps worse still English financiers, held the government’s purse strings. As such, the debt, and its management, not only served to connect the state and its creditors but also became part of a resistance to the attempted hegemony of the English fiscal-military state and, thus, English colonialism. While Swift was not one of the investors in Irish debt, through his writings he supported its creation and worked hard to ensure its survival and independence from the English state.

It should, of course, be remembered that Swift was already a prominent critic of the English financial revolution. Most notably, he condemned the supposed ability of some public creditors to influence political policy and thereby force governments to act in the interests of the few public creditors rather than the majority of English taxpayers. It was attempts by the English government to gain control of Irish funds and revenue, therefore, that mobilized Swift to work for the protection of the investments of Ireland’s leading citizens and to support the establishment of a patriotic print culture through which the autonomy of Irish society and its economy could be defended. Swift’s willingness to leap to the defense of an institution that he had criticized in England can perhaps be explained by the nature of the Irish debt, which was kept in the hands of the landed class rather than those of professional financiers.

Moore expands on his themes by connecting various aspects of Swift’s comment and commentary on the Irish financial revolution with the development of the book trade in Ireland, arguing that the strength of public discourse on the financial revolution formed the basis from which a modern Anglo-Irish literature could emerge. Chapters deal variously with the impact and aftermath of the South Sea Bubble and with proposals for the establishment of a Bank of Ireland. Swift’s complicated relations with the London culture industry are explored, along with the growing competition between the Irish and the English book trades and the means by which writers like Swift sought to promote the Irish industry. The problems caused by English interference in the Irish coinage and the question of what constituted real money are also investigated. Swift’s Modest Proposal commands the attention of one chapter. Moore interprets the Modest Proposal as an intervention in the budgetary debates of the 1729 legislative session of the Irish parliament. This work demonstrates that Swift was not uncritical of the Anglo-Irish public creditors. In the Modest Proposal, he is clearly warning them that seeking to profit from their debt holdings during the famine conditions of the 1720s was akin to cannibalizing Irish children. The final chapter focuses on the rise of a literary public sphere in Ireland and considers how far that rise was dependent on the Dublin book trade having already forged its identity through the publication of works of what might be termed political economy.

This book will appeal to a range of audiences. While it is foremost a work of literary criticism and a contribution to our understanding of the writings of Jonathan Swift, it does offer ideas that are useful to the student of European financial revolutions, and, in particular, it provides a fascinating discussion of the development of state finance in a colonial context. Moore’s study also forms an important addition to a growing body of work that explores the relationships between states and their creditors.