These pioneering essays provide a unique study of the development of political ideas in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.The book breaks away from the traditional emphasis in Irish historiography on the nationalism/unionism debate to throw light on previously neglected areas such as Catholic Royalism, Anglo-Irish political theology, the role of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Irish socialism and conservatism. A wide range of original and unknown primary sources are used and the assumption that Irish political thought is not found simply in 'great treatises' is reflected in the use of such varied sources as journalism, devotional tracts and poetry. The development of popular as well as academic political thought is traced through figures as diverse as seventeenth-century poets, eighteenth-century clerics, nineteenth-century artisans and twentieth-century novelists.By challenging preconceptions and offering new and exciting perspectives this book presents a fresh approach to the study of Irish political thought.