Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century

by I.R. McBride

Scripture Politics examines the central role played by Ulster Presbyterians in the birth of Irish republicanism. Ian McBride restores the United Irishmen to their eighteenth-century social context, restructuring a world where religious doctrine, political theory, and social antagonisms remained inextricably linked.

Genres: Ireland, History, Irish Literature

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 1998

Reviews

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important if somewhat difficult to read book. It's important in the sense that it covers a totally neglected aspect of history, i. e. the importance of religion -- and more specifically religious thought -- in the development of politics, both revolutionary and loyal, during the 1790s. To do that, Ian McBride goes back to the 17th century to uncover the origins of the religious thought of Irish Presbyterians, examining the divisions within Presbyterianism between Old and New Light, Seceders and Covenanters to examine how and if these particular creeds and ethos had any impact on the political choices of the different congregations in the revolutionary decade of the 1790s and during the 1798 insurrection.

While McBride's research is deeply relevant, he concludes that it is not religion that has determined political choices or rather than the same creed could explain both loyalism or nationalism for the same exact reasons. Indeed, religion alone is not sufficient an explanation to understand the choices made then.

And this modest conclusion, while crucial, undermines in a way, the whole book. After having tried to follow the different sub-sects of Presbyterianism, after having tried to really get into the millennial and deeply religious thought and also raucous demeanour at the same time of the Presbyterians, it is rather disappointing to discover that well, we have to look elsewhere to find explanations.

Yet, McBride's remarkable achievement is to remind us of how deeply religious the Irish were, and how politics, indeed, blended with Scriptures to make for a potent and volatile mixture. It also encourages to refute those who look only at religious identities to write political history.