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.

A comprehensive history of parliament in the British Isles from the earliest times, covering all aspects of parliament as an institution. A Short History of Parliament is a comprehensive institutional history, not a political history of parliament, though politics is included where, as frequently occurred, institutional changes resulted from particular political events. It covers the English parliament from its origins, the pre-1707 Scottish parliament and the pre-1800 Irish parliament, the parliament of Great Britain from 1707 and the parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801, together with sections on the post-devolution parliaments and assemblies set up in the 1990s and on parliaments in the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and the Irish Republic. It considers all aspects of parliament as an institution:membership of both the Lords and the Commons; constituencies, elections and franchises; where the Lords and the Commons met; how business was arranged and managed, including Speakers, the use of committees, the development of parties, lobbying and voting procedures; legal cases in the House of Lords; official recording of and reporting of business and debates; the conflict and balance of power between the two Houses; and the position of the monarch in parliament. Each section contains a chronology listing key events, suggestions for further reading and "inserts" - short anecdotes or accounts of particular figures or episodes which provide lively illustrations of parliament at work in different periods. Clyve Jones is an honorary fellow of the Institute of Historical Research. He has been editor of the journal Parliamentary History since 1986. Previously he was reader in modern historyin the University of London and collection development librarian in the Institute of Historical Research. He has published extensively on the history of the House of Lords and of the peerage in the early eighteenth century.

"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.

Conversion was a highly controversial aspect of aspect of religious life in Early Modern Ireland, yet it remains under investigated by modern scholarship. This collection brings together both new and established scholars to begin the task of exploring this vexed issue. The book takes a wide chronological span, treats of the broad range of Irish confessional lives and uses a variety of disciplinary approaches, interrogating the variety of individual motivations in the face of religious and political pressures to conform during a controversial period in Irish history.