Ireland and the Popish Plot (review)

In “Silver Blaze” (1892), Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes memorably refers to the dog that did not bark. In Ireland, the Popish Plot of 1678–81 has the same status: a plot that never was. Its nonexistence therefore poses severe difficulties for historians who study it. In essence, what any analyst has to do is to show why such as plot was widely believed to exist, or, if it was a complete fabrication, why it was invented. John Gibney’s account generally follows previous ones in its answers. However, it is based on a fuller review of the evidence than has usually been attempted, and therefore it carries conviction.

Gibney makes clear that the notion of a plot among Catholics in Ireland to kill their Protestant neighbors and for some from Ireland to murder the king and leading politicians was the product of febrile English politics. Charles II’s inclinations toward France, indulgence of Catholics, and Frenchstyle absolutism were resisted fiercely by English opponents, derisively labeled as “Whigs.” Misgovernment in Ireland, notably in allowing too great latitude to the Catholic majority there, was a cudgel with which to belabor the king. However, reticence about attacking the monarch directly, and thereby risking the charge of treason, made many critics indict evil councillors. In Ireland, the obvious target was the incumbent viceroy, a veteran from the 1640s, the duke of Ormond. Both in England and Ireland, Ormond had rivals keen to topple him. Catholics blamed him for their disappointments following Charles II’s restoration, while ultra-Protestants accused him of leniency toward the Catholics.

The crisis over the alleged Popish Plot was an English one. So, too, was the attempt to exclude the Catholic heir, James, duke of York, from the succession to the throne. Opportunists and demagogues in England believed that Ireland could play a vital role in building up belief in a Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles and substitute a French puppet regime in England, Ireland, and Scotland. After all, Ireland had an overwhelmingly Catholic population. As a separate island it gave France a possible beachhead from which to invade Britain. There was also the powerful and assiduously reinforced memory of the Catholic uprising of the 1640s, and the negative connotations that the terms Catholic and Irish carried among many Protestants.

That the drama that played out in London caused only muffled echoes in Dublin owed much to the very different political structures in Ireland. No Parliament sat, although Ormond had wanted to summon one; the press was puny in comparison with its English counterpart and relatively easily policed. Even so, there were justifiable anxieties in Ireland, which could be whipped into something more dangerous. Vulnerable Protestant minorities scattered across the country feared that they might suffer as their forebears had in and after 1641. In practice, while individual Protestants might reasonably fear violence from supplanted Catholics, a coordinated popish plot was implausible in 1679. By that date, two Catholic grievances remained: the loss of lands and the penalties attaching to the exercise of their faith. Politically experienced Catholics calculated that a Fabian approach was best. Not only would their loyalty commend them to Charles II and entitle them to greater generosity but the accession of James promised even brighter prospects. Therefore, to risk all in a new rising would be premature and foolhardy. In the event, the hopes pinned on James proved misplaced. Even when he came to Ireland in 1689 and used it as the base from which to try to regain his lost kingdoms, he remained loath to alter the land settlement or to give back to Catholicism the status and resources of the established church.

Of course, not all had the patience to wait for a change of king to improve matters. But the violence that punctuated provincial Ireland remained episodic and largely uncoordinated. It was relatively easy, nevertheless, to point to the large numbers of priests ministering surreptitiously and the many contacts between Catholic Ireland and continental Europe, and...