This article examines the Church of Ireland’s relationship with Scots Presbyterians after the Restoration, focusing on the churchmen’s regular complaints against the ‘disorderly’ practices of the Presbyterian communities in Ireland. The established church leaders spoke of the threat of political and social disorder from the Presbyterians, and they repeatedly targeted the spontaneous ex tempore prayer and preaching practised by Scottish ministers in order to illustrate their concerns. This article uncovers the theological roots of these apparently civic complaints to explain their ubiquity and vehemence. It argues that the churchmen feared that such uncontrolled, unscripted prayer could lead to blasphemy and provoke the wrath of God on the nation, thereby triggering war and unrest such as they had experienced in the preceding decades. In their view, there was little difference between holding to an improperly ordered church hierarchy and worship practice, and forcing this disorder on the state. By illustrating the links between theology, ecclesiology and the potential for political sedition as they were understood by Restoration churchmen, this article demonstrates the importance of theological nuance for clarifying the complex relationship between Ireland’s two largest Protestant denominations in the seventeenth century.

This article examines the case of Helen Arthur, a Catholic and Jacobite Irish woman who travelled with her children to France following William III’s victory over James II in the War of the Two Kings (1689–91). It considers Helen’s circumstances and her representation in The Popish pretenders to the forfeited estates in Ireland, a pamphlet published in London in 1702 as a criticism of the act of resumption. The act, introduced by the English parliament in 1700, voided the majority of William III’s grants to favourites and supporters. Its provisions offered many dispossessed, including the dependants of outlawed males, a chance to reclaim compromised or forfeited property by submitting a claim to a board of trustees in Dublin. Helen Arthur missed the initial deadline for submissions, but secured an extension to submit through a clause in a 1701 supply bill, a development that brought her to the attention of the anonymous author of The Popish pretenders. Charting Helen’s efforts to reclaim her jointure, her eldest son’s estate and her younger children’s portions, this article looks at the ways in which dispossessed Irish Catholics and/or Jacobites reacted to legislative developments. More specifically, it shines a light on the possibilities for female agency in a period of significant upheaval, demonstrating opportunities for participation and representation in the public sphere, both in London and in Dublin. It also considers the impact of the politicisation of religion upon understandings of women’s roles and experiences during the Williamite confiscation, and suggests that a synonymising of Catholicism with Jacobitism (and Protestantism with the Williamite cause) has significant repercussions for understandings of women’s activities during the period. It also examines contemporary attitudes to women’s activity, interrogating the casting of Helen as a ‘cat’s paw’ in a bigger political game, invariably played by men.

The history of sex and sexuality is underdeveloped in Irish historical studies, particularly for the period before the late-nineteenth century. While much has been written on rates of illegitimacy in Ireland, and its regional diversity, little research has been conducted on how ordinary women and men viewed sex and sexuality. Moreover, we still know little about the roles that sex played in the rituals of courtship and marriage. Drawing on a sample of Presbyterian church records, this article offers some new insights into these areas. It argues that sexual intercourse and other forms of sexual activity formed part of the normal courtship rituals for many young Presbyterian couples in Ulster. Courting couples participated in non-penetrative sexual practices, such as petting, groping and bundling. Furthermore, while sexual intercourse did not have a place in the formal route to marriage, many couples engaged in it regardless.

Among the abuses experienced by children in Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, kidnapping and stripping stand out both for what they reveal of the changing nature of the manner in which children were preyed upon and contemporary attitudes to children and child welfare. Though it is misleadingly presented as evidence of the existence of a vibrant trade in ‘white slaves’, children were not only kidnapped so they could be ‘sold’ in the crown’s Caribbean and American colonies. They were also targeted domestically for a variety of pursuits in which children laboured – among which begging and chimney sweeping stand out. In any event, the diminished visibility of child kidnapping after the 1780s suggests it was not pursued actively thereafter. Children continued to be targeted, but the primary object of those who did so was to strip them of the clothes and jewellery they wore in order to realise the monetary value of these goods. Pursued primarily by female offenders, the fact that a majority of the reported incidents occurred in Dublin, Belfast, Limerick and Cork indicates that it was first and foremost an urban crime. Its identification attests both to the vulnerability of children to exploitation, and to the active engagement of adults in that exploitation.

The manufacturing sector of the 1920s Irish Free State was substantially more complex in structure than occasional references to a ‘beer and biscuits’ economy suggest. There were nine factories employing 500 workers or more in 1929, while the larger firms in sectors such as bacon curing, flour milling and fertilisers each operated more than a single factory. This article identifies the largest manufacturing firms and establishments of the era, as well as the largest within each industrial sector. Twenty-two firms had workforces of a minimum of around 400. Three of the five largest were foreign subsidiaries, the most significant of which – the Ford Motor Company – employed, at one stage, more than twice as many workers as Guinness. Of the larger indigenous companies, the majority were Protestant-owned, though Catholic-owned firms dominated in certain industrial segments.

Historical scholarship has interpreted the Public Dance Halls Act, 1935 in a relatively uniform manner. Most works on the subject have emphasised the expanding influence of Catholic church authorities over dancing following the enactment of the legislation, as well as the increasing restrictions placed on the freedom of dancers. The act has been viewed as one element in a sequence of pieces of legislation passed by successive Free State governments that aimed to limit and control citizens, including the Censorship of Films Act, 1923, and the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929. Using previously unexamined Department of Justice records, this article questions the dominant interpretation of the Public Dance Halls Act. It analyses whether dances moved predominantly into parochial halls, as has been the common understanding, and also considers whether the supposedly harsh restrictions imposed on dancers were actually enforced or observed. The article also proposes that two largely unexamined facets of the legislation and its subsequent implementation be given more consideration. Safety concerns played a sizeable part in shaping dancing regulations, as did the interests and worries of local communities. The article concludes by suggesting that lacunae in the historiography of dance halls in the 1930s are emblematic of wider gaps in Irish social and cultural history and recommends avenues for future research.

Down to the mid-nineteenth century, the rural population in Ireland was obliged by law to contribute to the upkeep of the Church of Ireland clergy by means of tithes, a measure denoting a proportion of annual agricultural produce. The document illustrates what was happening in the late sixteenth century, as separate ecclesial structures were emerging, and Catholics were beginning to determine how to support their own clergy. Control of ecclesiastical resources was a major issue for the Catholic community in the century after the introduction of the Reformation. However, for want of documentation the use of tithes to support Catholic priests, much less the impact of this issue on relationships within that community, between ecclesiastics and propertied laity, has been little noted. This text – a dispensation to hold parish revenues, signed by a papally-appointed bishop ministering in the south-east – illustrates how the recusant community in an anglicised part of Ireland addressed some issues posed by Catholic ownership of tithes in the 1590s. It exemplifies the confusion, competing claims, and anxiety of conscience among some who benefited from the secularisation of the church’s medieval patrimony; it also preserves the official response of the relevant Catholic ecclesiastical authority to an individual situation.