Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
Ireland, Irishmen, and Revolutionary
America
a review by David Noel Doyle, Mercier Press, Dublin and Cork,
1981
Reviewed by George Geib
Irish Protestants, particularly from
Ulster, played a leading role in two dramatic movements for change
in the 1770s and 1780s: the Volunteer movement in Ireland and the
American Revolution in Pennsylvania. Doyle has written a detailed
comparison of the two, asking why one led to loyalty and the other
to disloyalty to the Crown. He finds the roots of the differences
in the varied forms of access to land and political power in the
two countries, and the roots of the similarities in the powerful
role of thought and organization in the Presbyterian church and
ministry. Rich in personalities and particularly detailed in its
treatment of rural Pennsylvania and of the great Ulster migration
to America, this was a fine and often-overlooked contribution to
the American Revolution bicentennial.
- George Geib is a professor of History at Butler
University.