A detailed study of changing patterns of consumption, showing how these related to wider political, social and economic developments. This book, based on extensive original research, argues that everyday Irish consumption underwent major changes in the 16th century. The book considers the changing nature of imported goods in relation especially to two major activities of daily living: dress and diet. It integrates quantitative data on imports with qualitative sources, including wills, archaeological and pictorial evidence, and contemporary literature and legislation. It shows that changes in Irish consumption mirrored changes occurring in England and across Europe and that they were a function of broader developments in the Irish economy, including the increasing participation of Irish merchants in European markets. The book also discusses how consumption was related to wider political, economic and cultural developments in Ireland, showing how the acquisition and interpretation of material goods were key factors in the mediation of political and social boundaries in a semi-colonised and contested society. Susan Flavin completed her doctorate in early modern history at the University of Bristol.

This book explores the politicization of consumer goods in eighteenth-century Ireland. Moving beyond tangible items purchased by consumers, it examines the political manifestations of the consumption of elite leisure activities, entertainment and display, and in doing so makes a vital contribution to work on the cultural life of the Protestant Ascendancy. As with many other areas of Irish culture and society, consumption cannot be separated from the problems of Anglo-Irish relations, and therefore an appreciation of these politcal overtones is vitally important.

Analyses data from the Bristol Port Books to rewrite the history of trade in Bristol, including the city's early involvement with the slave trade. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a transformative period for global commerce, with the principal focus of England's trade shifting away from trade with Europe, primarily in woollen cloth, to a new Atlantic system, with trade in a diverse range of commodities. Based on the fantastically detailed Bristol Port Books, previously thought impenetrable, and using new computer technology to analyse the vast amount of data, this book provides the first long duration history of a major Atlantic port in this period. It rewrites the history of Bristol's trade, overturning much established thinking, for example showing that trade flourished in the late Tudor and early Stuart period, demonstrating that Bristol was involved in the slave trade much earlier than was previously thought and charting the growth of commerce with North America and the Caribbean from nothing to three quarters of Bristol's imports in the short period from the 1630s to the 1650s. Overall, the book represents a major contribution to understanding how the Atlantic economy worked and how it developed in this crucial period.

This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political, military, religious, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts. The opening chapters focus on 'Politics' and 'Religion and War' and offer a chronological narrative, informed by the re-interpretation of new archives. The remaining chapters are more thematic, with chapters on 'Society', 'Culture', and 'Economy and Environment', and often respond to wider methodologies and historiographical debates. Interdisciplinary cross-pollination - between, on the one hand, history and, on the other, disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, geography, computer science, literature and gender and environmental studies - informs many of the chapters. The volume offers a range of new departures by a generation of scholars who explain in a refreshing and accessible manner how and why people acted as they did in the transformative and tumultuous years between 1550 and 1730.

Lady Alice Le Strange of Hunstanton in Norfolk kept a continuous series of household accounts from 1610-1654. Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths have used the Le Stranges' rich archive to reconstruct the material aspects of family life. This involves looking not only at purchases, but also at home production and gifts; and not only at the luxurious, but at the everyday consumption of food and medical care. Consumption is viewed not just as a set of objects owned, but as a process involving household management, acquisition and appropriation, a process that created and reinforced social links with craftsmen, servants, labourers, and the local community. It is argued that the county gentry provide a missing link in histories of consumption: connecting the fashions of London and the royal court, with those of middling strata of rural England. Recent writing has focused upon the transformation of consumption patterns in the eighteenth century. Here the earlier context is illuminated and, instead of tradition and stability, we find constant change and innovation. Issues of gender permeate the study. Consumption is often viewed as a female activity and the book looks in detail at who managed the provisioning, purchases, and work within the household, how spending on sons and daughters differed, and whether men and women attached different cultural values to household goods. This single household's economy provides a window into some of most significant cultural and economic issues of early modern England: innovations in trade, retail and production, the basis of gentry power, social relations in the countryside, and the gendering of family life.

Ireland was England's oldest colony. Making Empire revisits the history of empire in Ireland—in a time of Brexit, 'the culture wars', and the campaigns around 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Statues must fall'—to better understand how it has formed the present, and how it might shape the future. Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states that are the blip on the historical horizon. Making Empire re-examines empire as process—and Ireland's role in it—through the lens of early modernity. It covers the two hundred years, between the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century, that equate roughly to the timespan of the First English Empire (c.1550-c.1770s). Ireland was England's oldest colony. How then did the English empire actually function in early modern Ireland and how did this change over time? What did access to European empires mean for people living in Ireland? This book answers these questions by interrogating four interconnected themes. First, that Ireland formed an integral part of the English imperial system, Second, that the Irish operated as agents of empire(s). Third, Ireland served as laboratory in and for the English empire. Finally, it examines the impact that empire(s) had on people living in early modern Ireland. Even though the book's focus will be on Ireland and the English empire, the Irish were trans-imperial and engaged with all of the early modern imperial powers. It is therefore critical, where possible and appropriate, to look to other European and global empires for meaningful comparisons and connections in this era of expansionism. What becomes clear is that colonisation was not a single occurrence but an iterative and durable process that impacted different parts of Ireland at different times and in different ways. That imperialism was about the exercise of power, violence, coercion and expropriation. Strategies about how best to turn conquest into profit, to mobilise and control Ireland's natural resources, especially land and labour, varied but the reality of everyday life did not change and provoked a wide variety of responses ranging from acceptance and assimilation to resistance. This book, based on the 2021 James Ford Lectures, Oxford University, suggests that the moment has come revisit the history of empire, if only to better understand how it has formed the present, and how this might shape the future.

This book examines the environmental, political, and economic history of Ireland's marine fisheries from 1400 to 1600. It combines a wide range of historical sources with innovative digital research methods to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview. Government letters and court documents highlight the diverse range of fishing fleets from across Europe that visited Irish waters in the early sixteenth century, bringing wealth and cultural influence to the native Irish, who developed complex systems to protect and tax the visitors. Furthermore, trade records illustrate that fish was Ireland's premier export in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. However, a range of factors led to the industry's collapse by the end of the sixteenth century: the Tudor conquest which disrupted fishing operations and fundamentally altered who controlled fishing resources; the destabilization of Irish waters resulting from the terrestrial conflict, which allowed pirates to thrive; an influx of cheap cod from the newly exploited fisheries in Newfoundland which changed consumption patterns in Ireland and across Europe; and shifting climatic conditions and decades of over-exploitation which meant fewer fish and poorer catches. Overall, the book reveals that fisheries form a vital part of the broader environmental, political, and economic history of Ireland.