Brought to book

Print in Ireland, 1680–1784

Toby Barnard

Brought to book considers what was written, printed, published, owned and sometimes read in Ireland between 1680 and 1784. It seeks to evaluate the ephemeral and what has subsequently vanished in order to challenge some common assumptions about the nature and impact of print during the period. It is based on the surviving texts and the letters and comments of contemporaries. Peopled with authors, publishers and readers, it offers a novel approach to the history of the book in Ireland. Also, it places print in the mental and material cultures of the eighteenth century, and among the efforts to subordinate Ireland more firmly to England. It suggests how enthusiastically Ireland plunged into the cultural currents of the eighteenth century – cosmopolitan rather than introverted and insular.

Toby Barnard has been a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, since 1976 (emeritus from 2012). His first book, Cromwellian Ireland, appeared in 1976, and has been followed by, among others, A new anatomy of Ireland (London, 2003), Making the grand figure: lives and possessions in Ireland, 1641–1770 (London, 2004), Irish Protestant ascents and descents (Dublin, 2004), Guide to the sources for the history of material culture in Ireland, 1500–2000 (Dublin, 2005) and Improving Ireland? Projectors, prophets and profiteers, 1641–1786 (Dublin, 2008).