In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Captain Rock: The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–1824
  • J. Joseph Lee
Captain Rock: The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–1824. By James S. Donnelly Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2009. Pp. xiv, 508. $35.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-299-23314-3.)

James S. Donnelly Jr. has made such an extraordinary contribution over forty years to our understanding of central aspects of the Irish experience, revolving mainly around land and religion, that it is impossible to fully understand modern Irish history without immersion in his work. Captain Rock enhances his stature even further by providing an indispensable interpretation of the interrelationship between these two factors in exploring the Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–24 in unprecedented detail and depth.

The Rockite agrarian movement in southwest Ireland, about a quarter of the country, is particularly interesting for the issues it raises about the blend of the material, religious, and political impulses underlying relationships between and within victors and vanquished in a colonial environment, broadly represented at this time in Ireland by the Protestant and English minority landlords in ascendancy over the Catholic Irish majority farmers/peasants.

Donnelly is so much the supreme master of his subject that queries have to be less about his work in particular than about the general challenge of the use of sources in the historiography of Irish protest movements. The source [End Page 379] material derives disproportionally from the world of the conqueror, looking in or looking down on the conquered. The issue is not so much that the “official mind” or even the conquest mind more broadly was hostile, as that it was so often uncomprehending. The material, evocative use though Donnelly makes of threatening Rockite notices, emanates disproportionately from the ascendancy side, despite some Catholic newspaper reporting. However rich in detail, this can often be more valuable for illuminating the mentalities of the rulers than of the ruled.

Although it is unlikely that the nuances of problematical sources in these situations can be captured entirely, Donnelly penetrates them to a depth that ensures an original interpretation of the composition and chronology of agrarian protest movements, which significantly adds to our understanding of the functioning of rural society.

Donnelly’s delineation allows the relationship between material and cultural factors to be addressed in a more structured manner than ever before. Nevertheless, a conundrum remains. Donnelly argues that the Rockite movement owed much of its momentum and intensity to the widespread dissemination of the millenarian prophecies of Pastorini (aka Charles Walmesley, O.S.B.) predicting the overthrow of Protestantism in 1825. But if Pastorini’s prophecies “gained a firm hold at the popular level” not only “in the affected region” but also “far beyond” (p. 4), a question then arises: Why did the areas “far beyond” remain so relatively unaffected by Rockite unrest? Donnelly traces the outbreak to a particular local agrarian dispute in west Limerick, which then spread far beyond the original source. But why did it stop spreading where it did? Insofar as the sources permit, intensive study of areas just beyond the restless counties or quieter areas within them, for counties were more administrative than socioeconomic units, might further illuminate the issue. However likely that the answer may lie in circumstances that would reinforce Donnelly’s interpretation, that remains to be demonstrated.

It is churlish to hunger for more in the face of so rich a repast. No short review can do full justice to the assiduity and ingenuity of so probing an inquiry, which can have few equals in the study of agrarian protest movements anywhere. The entire work wonderfully illuminates an important field of research with implications extending far beyond the Irish experience.

J. Joseph Lee
New York University
...

pdf

Share