Land, Politics, and Society in Eighteenth-Century Tipperary

This is a scholarly new study of Ireland during the eighteenth century. It is the first full-scale examination of an entire Irish county for the period, and is based on extensive and meticulous research. In it, Thomas P. Power sets out to reconstruct in detail the economic, social, and political history of Tipperary, Ireland's largest inland county. The examines the growing commercialization of the local economy, the changing composition of landed society, the dynamics of land tenure, sectarian tension, and the emergence of long-term rural unrest. In addition, he devotes a chapter to the revolutionary decade of the 1790s. By testing at local level the relevance of generalizations made for Ireland as a whole, the book makes a valuable contribution to current debates on the nature of Irish social and economic development in this period.

"Power's meticulous study is the first full-scale history of an Irish county for this critical and formative period....Power's conclusions regarding the diversification and rapid commercialization of the county's economy, the diversity and change within its landed elite, the strategies by which landowners maintained their positions, and the political and social influence of Tipperary's Catholic families challenge important generalizations about Irish history."--Choice