Pamphlets, pamphleteers and the problems of Irish society, c. 1727-1749

• Main Author: Rees, Gordon Alexander
• Published: Queen's University Belfast 2011
• Subjects: 070.170941709033
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.557648

This thesis offers a comprehensive analysis of Irish pamphleteering on political and economic subjects in the period between 1727 and 1749. Pamphleteering is analysed as an activity in itself. The study determines who wrote pamphlets, investigates how widely the tmcts were read and by whom, and explores the overlap between pamphleteering and membership of the wider public sphere. The various rhetorical strategies employed by authors to appeal to the prejudices and anxieties of their assumed audiences are discussed. The main themes and issues preoccupying Irish pamphleteers are identified. The study seeks to illuminate the most significant developments in pamphleteering in this period, including authors' attempts to encourage economic improvement and the pragmatic approach they adopted towards the British connection. This thesis also looks beyond the ideas articulated by pamphleteers to uncover their underlying assumptions, frames of reference and intellectual influences. Assumptions about parliament and public opinion, trade, the workings of the economy and the social structure are examined in detail. The ideas advanced in pamphlets are considered in the context of other contemporary sources, including private correspondence and parliamentary journals. Historians have debated whether pamphlets provide a valuable source for historical research. This thesis, which examines the links between pamphlet rhetoric, wider contemporary assumptions and practical political action, sheds important new light on this issue. It reveals how far the work. of pamphleteers reflected the prejudices and assumptions of the wider political classes and asks if the content and tone of the pamphlet literature changed in response to political and economic developments.