Historians often view early modern Ireland as a testing ground for subsequent British colonial adventures further afield. McGrath argues against this passive view, suggesting that Ireland played an enthusiastic role in the establishment and expansion of the first British Empire. He focuses on two key areas of empire-building: finance and defence.

Historians often view early modern Ireland as a testing ground for subsequent British colonial adventures further afield. McGrath argues against this passive view, suggesting that Ireland played an enthusiastic role in the establishment and expansion of the first British Empire. He focuses on two key areas of empire-building: finance and defence.

"People, Politics and Power" presents some of the most recent thinking on politics and society in Ireland from the Restoration to the Great Famine. Written by students and colleagues of James McGuire, the essays reflect McGuire's scholarly engagement with the interaction between the individual and the political arena, the Church of Ireland, the exercise of power in all its multifarious manifestations, and political biography. Each essay presents a new reading of the career of an emblematical figure, an important moment or a significant trend or issue, ranging across topics such as the legislative process, the politics of persuasion, life within the law and beyond it, constitutional change, religion and ideology. This book provides a stimulating new perspective on the various processes and influences that help to define people and their actions in Irish history between 1660 and 1850. James I. McGuire, the managing editor of the forthcoming seven-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography, lectured in history at University College Dublin for more than thirty years until his retirement in 2008. He was a highly respected editor of Ireland's leading history journal, Irish Historical Studies, for a number of years and is the author and editor of a series of seminal articles and collections that have had a major impact upon the historiography of Ireland. As chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission he has overseen a major revival in the published output and electronic resources of that body. As an undergraduate teacher and postgraduate supervisor, he nurtured sever generations of scholars in Irish history.