The Colonial World of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork

David Edwards, Colin Rynne

• Publisher: Four Courts Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781846827143
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork (1566-1643), ranks among the most famous and infamous figures in the history of early modern Ireland and the wider English Atlantic world. The archetypal crooked land-grabber who made his initial fortune defrauding the crown of hidden revenues; the grasping colonial adventurer who became the biggest landowner in the Munster Plantation and the richest subject of the crown throughout the Three Kingdoms; and the vindictive leader of the powerful Protestant interest that seized control of the Irish government and persecuted native Catholics-these are just three elements of the reputation that attaches to him in histories of the period. This book re-examines his place in early seventeenth-century English colonialism, and reassesses his reputation, presenting an interdisciplinary interrogation of his life and activities by a panel of prominent and upcoming historians and archaeologists. Boyle emerges as a markedly more flexible figure than once was thought. The book pays close attention to his estates and clientele-a long neglected area-to reveal new evidence of connections with Virginia and the New World, and the methods deployed to manage large-scale industrial operations in southern Ireland, as well as identifying the military personnel he recruited to defend it all. It offers a new view of what colonialism was like in the early seventeenth century, and of how it was practiced. [Subject: History, 17th C. History, Colonialism, Irish Studies, Military History]

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Nuancing an archetype: Richard Boyle and hiscolonial world
• 1 Shapeshifters and mimics: exploring elite strategies in theearly modern British Atlantic
• 2 Theory and practice in the Munster Plantation: the estates of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, 1602–43
• 3 Boyle and the East India Company in Co. Cork: a case studyin colonial competition
• 4 Virginian connections: the wider Atlantic setting of Boyle’s Munster estate and clientele’
• 5 Colonial entrepreneur and urban developer: the economic andindustrial infrastructure of Boyle’s Munster estates
• 6 The metallurgical enterprises of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork
• 7 ‘A godly resolucon to rebwilde’: Richard Boyle’s patronage ofelite architecture
• 8 ‘Acquiring magnificence’: luxury goods in the material world ofRichard Boyle, first earl of Cork
• Plates
• 9 The land-grabber’s accomplices: Richard Boyle’s Munster affinity, 1588–1603
• 10 The first earl of Cork and Gaelic Carbery
• 11 Good ladies and ill wives: women on Boyle’s estates
• 12 Boyle’s private army: the creation of a colonial security forcein early Stuart Munster
• 13 Boyle’s war: the first earl of Cork and the First Bishops’ War
• List of Contributors
• Index