In 1847 and 1848 a little-known farmer named James Fintan Lalor wrote a
series of newspaper articles in which he outlined his vision for Ireland
after the Great Famine. Although they have been reprinted and
republished many times since, until now there has been no systematic
study of the principles and proposals that Lalor expounded. In this
book, the author considers Lalor's brief career as a writer and offers
new insights into his treatment of the national and land questions.
By elucidating Lalor's ideas on these questions, exploring possible
influences on his thinking, and assessing the impact of his writings on
his contemporaries, the author seeks to address what he regards as two
deficiencies in the historiography. The first of these is the tendency
to assign only a minor, supporting role to Lalor during the brief heyday
of Young Ireland. Academic studies typically portray him as little more
than a catalyst in the radicalisation of figures like John Mitchel,
rather than as a profoundly original thinker in his own right. The
second issue is the commonly held perception of Lalor's proposals on
land tenure as foreshadowing the creation of a "peasant proprietary"
later in the century. The author argues that Lalor advocated a much more
radical plan that would link his two primary objectives: the creation of
a sovereign Irish republic, and transfer of control over landholding
from a small number of landlords to the entire Irish people.
By comparing and contrasting Lalor's theories with those of earlier
figures such as Thomas Paine and James 'Bronterre' O'Brien, this
ground-breaking book broadens the perspective on Lalor and his writings
beyond the context of Irish nationalism. As the author concludes,
Lalor's unique contribution to Irish radical thought merits a more
prominent place in nineteenth-century intellectual history than it has
hitherto received.
This book will be of great value to anyone interested in Irish history
since 1800, especially in the areas of the Great Famine, the Young
Ireland movement, and the Land War.
