The Pamphlet Controversy about Wood's Halfpence (1722-25) and the Tradition of Irish Constitutional Nationalism (review)

The convulsion that seized the Irish political nation in the mid-1720s, precipitated by the attempted introduction of new copper coins of small denomination minted in England by the Wolverhampton ironmaster William Wood, marked not only a political crisis in the English government of Ireland but a crystallization of emerging 'patriotic' tendencies in Irish political thought. The opposition to 'Wood's Halfpence', articulated most forcefully and effectively in the pamphlets and other miscellaneous writings produced by the dean of St Patrick's, Jonathan Swift, attracted widespread support among the protestant public at large, among members of the Irish parliament, and even among the local politicians who made up the Dublin Castle administration. So formidable was this reaction, and so fearful were British ministers of the potential consequences for the security of the Anglo-Irish political connexion, that for once government climbed down, withdrew the coinage and terminated the patent. This sequence of events was sufficiently unusual in the political history of early eighteenth-century Ireland, its principal actors so prominent, and its implications for the development of Irish protestant 'patriotism' apparently so significant, that it has drawn the attention of a number of historians and literary scholars. However, their interest has not usually extended very far beyond the affair of the halfpence itself, and the broader political and ideological context is often overlooked. The author of this latest contribution to the literature, a published doctoral dissertation produced in the Ehrenpreis Centre for Swift Studies at the Westfäalische Wilhelms-Universitäat in Müunster, concentrates firmly on the literary and ideological aspects of the crisis, but does seek to place her findings within a long perspective. The core of the book is a lengthy review of every known contribution to the contemporary debate on the halfpence, but this is prefaced by a series of chapters which trace the development of Irish constitutional pretensions from the middle ages. The purpose of the prolegomena is to highlight the existence of an Irish, or Anglo-Irish, constitutional tradition, whose proponents asserted the autonomous rights of the Irish parliament and denounced the legislative imperialism of Westminster as illegitimate. Although there is nothing very new in any of this, Dr Baltes's narrative is well grounded in the existing historiography and is generally accurate and sensible. The real contribution of the book is of course the analysis of the many texts on the halfpence. Here the author presents a careful, scholarly and comprehensive catalogue of relevant tracts, ballads, squibs and even one engraving. She picks out the constitutional implications of the arguments used, especially Swift's, and her conclusion, that these raised issues of profound importance for protestant Irish political discourse, is unchallengeable. The thoroughness of the research into these primary sources is very impressive. At the same time, it is a pity that some effort was not reserved for the many surviving manuscript collections of relevance: to give only one example, the hesitant ascription of the authorship of one pamphlet to Thomas Brodrick, M.P., might have received some illumination from an investigation into his extensive correspondence in the family papers at the Surrey History Centre. Closer attention to the precise political context might also have offered alternative explanations of some difficult texts. For all Dr Baltes's readings among modern historians, her book remains very much a textual study, placed in a political narrative that is sometimes rather skimpy. There are also one or two moments of incomprehension - the explanations offered of the contemporary term 'sugar plum' (p. 249) or the pseudonym 'Cato Ultonensis' (the Ulster Cato) (p. 158) preferring the abstruse to the obvious - and there are one or two gaps in Dr Baltes's reading (most obviously Dr Isolde Victory's Dublin thesis on early eighteenth-century Irish political thought). Overall, however, this is a...