William Molyneux's The case of Ireland… stated (1698) is one of the best-known pamphlets produced in Ireland during the long eighteenth century. While very familiar to students of Irish constitutional, legal and parliamentary history and to those interested in Lockean ideas of sovereignty and legislative independence within a wider British Atlantic world context, it has long lacked a comprehensive scholarly edition. Patrick Kelly's much-anticipated new edition more than fills this lacuna, providing both an extremely valuable, readily accessible and authoritative edition of Molyneux's text as well as what will likely be the definitive scholarly study of the pamphlet.

The case of Ireland was written during a period of Anglo–Irish constitutional tension with disputes raging over the distribution of forfeited Jacobite estates, the appellate jurisdiction of the English House of Lords and especially English legislative attempts to regulate the woollen trade. The Irish parliament, which had lain dormant since 1666, had been revitalised first by the Jacobite ‘Patriot Parliament’ in 1689 and then by the beginning of regular parliamentary sessions in 1692 following the Williamite revolution. Historians have argued that the 1690s saw the transition from parliament being an event to becoming an institution. Molyneux's defence of the Irish legislature's independence and historic status might be seen as emblematic of the emerging Protestant interest's new found confidence in their political and constitutional supremacy.

Molyneux's spirited defence of Ireland's ancient constitution was not however welcomed by many of his fellow members of the Dublin parliament, with some of those active in delicate negotiations with the English administration and parliament regarding it as a rather unhelpful intervention in their proceedings. Indeed the contemporary reaction to the pamphlet has been frequently misunderstood, with many later accounts reporting how it so annoyed the English House of Commons that they ordered it to be burnt by the public executioner. Kelly carefully explores the contemporary reaction on both sides of the Irish Sea, providing the fullest account of the pamphlet and manuscript debates that followed its publication while also convincingly debunking the myth that it was judged to be so incendiary it needed to be publicly burnt. Its subsequent reprinting throughout the eighteenth century at moments of constitutional tension and the invocation of Molyneux's name by later ‘Patriot’ politicians into the nineteenth century indicate its enduring popularity and the success of his arguments.

What were these arguments and how were they pursued and developed? These are key questions that any scholar of the The case of Ireland must address, and this is where this edition really comes into its own. Acknowledging that it is not always an easy read, Kelly explains how readers should think of it as a cross between a political pamphlet and a technical court document, hence it is a ‘case’. This format helps explain the logic of Molyneux's argument and his reliance on precedent and the patient building up of examples to support each point made. Furthermore reading it in this vein helps the reader to understand his use of lengthy quotations and paraphrases of earlier authorities notably William Domville and Richard Bolton. As Kelly notes ‘originality was not at a premium’, instead the objective was to use these sources to build up the widest range of arguments to support his central thesis. Crucially this approach also explains the internal inconsistencies in Molyneux's argument, each chapter or section only had to be internally coherent, and not the whole range of historical and legal stratagems deployed.

Vital to the production of a critical edition is a reliable copy text and in this regard Kelly has been particularly fortunate, because not only do multiple copies of the first printed 1698 edition survive but so do both Molyneux's own holograph manuscript and, uniquely for any Irish text from this period, the printer's working manuscript (both in Trinity College Dublin), allowing a detailed insight into the production of the final printed text. Preserving the integrity of an original seventeenth-century text both in terms of pagination and marginalia in a modern edition presents particular challenges but these have been brilliantly risen to by both the author and especially his publishers at Four Courts Press who have done an exemplary job in laying out the text so as to preserve the look of the 1698 edition while still allowing modern textual footnotes.

This should serve as a model for future scholarly editions of this type. Kelly's footnotes provide a wealth of detail and help elucidate and explain some of the more obscure passages. The inclusion of appendices containing amongst other things a list of the other pamphlets written during the Irish woollens controversy, once again emphasising the essential context of The case, is likewise to be commended, while there is also a very valuable index of the statutes mentioned in the text alongside a comprehensive bibliography and general index. This volume deserves a wide readership both because of the strength of the critical apparatus and the contextual introduction, and the quality of the critical text of a crucial contribution to Irish political and constitutional thought.