Exploring Irish-Scottish connections in the period 1603–60, this book brings important new perspectives to the study of the early Stuart state. Acknowledging the pivotal role of the Hiberno-Scottish world, it identifies some of the limits of England’s Anglicising influence in the northern and western ‘British Isles’ and the often slight basis on which the Stuart pursuit of a new ‘British’ consciousness operated.

Regarding the Anglo-Scottish relationship, it was chiefly in Ireland that the English and Scots intermingled after 1603, with a variety of consequences, often destabilising. The importance of the Gaelic sphere in Irish-Scottish connections also receives much greater attention here than in previous accounts. This Gaedhealtacht played a central role in the transmission of religious radicalism, both Catholic and Protestant, in Ireland and Scotland, ultimately leading to political crisis and revolution within the British Isles.

‘Edwards has drawn together an unusually cohesive set of articles grouped around an orderly sequence of themes that include land, office, religious identity, and politics.’
Pádraig Lenihan, National University of Ireland, Galway, Renaissance Quarterly, 70.3 (Fall 2017)

David Edwards is Senior Lecturer in History at University College Cork

Simon Egan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow