The Dublin Paper War of 1786-1788: A Bibliographical and Critical Inquiry. Including an Account of the Origins of Protestant Ascendancy and Its "Baptism" in 1792 by W. J. McCormack (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 293 TheDublinPaper War of1786-1 788:A Bibliographical and CriticalInquiry. Including an Account of the Origins ofProtestant Ascendancy and Its "Baptism" in 1792. By W. J. McCormack. (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 1993· Pp. 165.) This work, the author tells us, "is published to mark the bicentenary of the passing in the Irish Parliament of die Catholic Relief Act (1793) . · ·" (p. 7). His focus, however, is primarily on the pre-history of the act to which he brings a close linguistic analysis. He contrasts his methodology with "the essentially narrative account of the subject" (p. 8) such as is set forth in Thomas Bartlett's 1992 work The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question 1690—1830. A major purpose of McCormack's approach is to challenge the view that "a coherent 'protestant ascendancy' ideology" predated the Relief Act itself. Indeed, he tells us in his preface, "Catholic Relief, in die early 1 790's, was possible partly because no such ideology had seized the commanding heights of debate . . ." (p. 8). In his dissection of the emergence and exact meaning ofthe term "protestant ascendancy," the author is confident that he has belatedly brought to eighteenth-century Irish history the modernization of attitude and procedure which first began to characterize Irish historiography in the 1930's. Crucial to McCormack's analysis of the concept of the "protestant ascendancy " is an agonizingly detailed linguistic and bibliographical analysis of Richard Woodward's 1786 pamphlet The Present State of the Church ofIreland ; he attempts to convince the reader that Woodward's use of the term "protestant ascendancy" has been seriously and widely misunderstood, even by such respected contemporary scholars of eighteenth-century Ireland as Thomas Bartlett and James Kelly. The author concludes his chapter entitled "The Debate Surrounding Woodward's Present State" with die assertion that "those who endorsed protestant ascendancy in 1786—88" (p. 85) were few in number and tíierefore tiiat the concept did not play an important role in Irish politics until several years later. A significant portion ofthis volume is a recapitulation ofMcCormack's views on the protestant ascendancy set forth more than a decade ago and further elaborated in the 1987 volume ofEighteenth Century Ireland. In the present volume, he has marshaled more evidence, especially that drawn from linguistic analysis, to support the position at which he had arrived at least as early as 1981. An important body of die evidence analyzed is the actual Irish parliamentary debates which preceded the passage of the 1792 Catholic ReliefAct. In what this reviewer found as one of the clearest statements of his central thesis, he concludes his analysis of the debates as follows: "all of die features of the parliamentary debates point unambiguously to the inauguration as concept [protestant ascendancy] of what had been an unfamiliar phrase" (pp. 125-126). 294 BOOK REVIEWS In his "Afterword—a Reply to Some Colleagues" McCormack again challenges Thomas Bartlett and James Kelly and reiterates the importance of linguistic analysis in his own (presumably) more correct approach. He is hopeful that his methodology might lead to a closer analysis of "other familiar terms of debate in Irish history," such as "emancipation, union, repeal, home rule, parnellism, free state, etc." (p. 150). If McCormack or others undertake this endeavor, let us hope that their work will be less cluttered by the jargon which mars this work and more characterized by the clarity which is often the hallmark of those traditional narrative historians whose approach McCormack finds so inadequate. Thomas F. Moriarty College of Our Lady of the Elms Late Modern European Sacrificed for Honor Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics ofReproductive Control. By David I. Kertzer. (Boston: Beacon Press. 1993. Pp. xvi, 272. 825.00.) Filled with dead babies, heartless parents, imprisoned women, syphilitic wetnurses, and caesarian operations on cadavers ofpossibly pregnant women so as to assure baptism of the unborn, this book is not for the squeamish, but it certainly deserves a wide audience because it focuses on a variety of important topics dealing with gender, religion, and power, and brings to light a story that is at once informative and frightening. Using extensive archival and bibliographic sources...