The Irish Enlightenment The Irish Enlightenment m Michael Brown Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2016 Copyright © 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing George Szirtes, ‘Orgreave,’ from New and Collected Poems (Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2008), reproduced with permission of Bloodaxe Books on behalf of the author. www.bloodaxebooks.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Michael, 1972– author. The Irish enlightenment / Michael Brown. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-04577-4 1. Enlightenment—Ireland. 2. Religion and politics—Ireland—History— 18th century. 3. Church and state—Ireland—History—18th century. 4. Ireland—Intellectual life—18th century. 5. Ireland—Politics and government—18th century. I. Title. B802.B76 2016 941.507—dc23 2015031525 For Sandra and Daniel Contents m Introduction: Locating the Irish Enlightenment 1 part one The Religious Enlightenment, 1688–ca. 1730 1 The Presbyterian Enlightenment and the Nature of Man 23 2 The Anglican Enlightenment and the Nature of God 60 3 The Catholic Enlightenment and the Nature of Law 106 part two The Social Enlightenment, ca. 1730–ca. 1760 4 Languages of Civility 161 5 The Enlightened Counter Public 210 6 Communities of Interest 252 part three The Political Enlightenment, ca. 1760–1798 7 A Culture of Trust? 307 8 Fracturing the Irish Enlightenment 345 9 An Enlightened Civil War 405 Conclusion: Ireland’s Missing Modernity 459 Notes 475 Acknowledgements 589 Index 593 The earth could keep its darkness. It was the end of the century right now, the end of the war. A new kind of peace would creep out of the atom with pale hands, its brow unlined and vacant. There was something deadly about its frivolity, which would allow Anything at all except fire and memory —‘Orgreave’, George Szirtes, 2001