Agricultural History Review, Volume 57 Part 2 (2009), p. 291

One of the many joys of living in Ireland is that bookshops in small provincial towns still tend to have ‘History’ sections populated with the works of academic historians. One of the ways in which both Irelands have managed to avoid the dismal UK situation wherein a solitary copy of Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Empire is often the token gesture beyond the ‘coffee table’ is through supporting innovative independent publishers. Arguably the very best of these independents is Four Courts Press, a Dublin-based publisher who has consistently managed to publish the work of historians of Ireland attractively and at a reasonable price. In their ability – and willingness – to so do lies a lesson for many UK publishers. This reviewer then is happy to report that Dooley’s book, the latest addition to the already rich historiography on Irish popular protest, continues Four Court’s good work.

The murder of eight individuals by setting fire to Wildgoose Lodge, near Ardee, County Louth, on the night of 29 October 1816 has long assumed a symbolic centrality in the history of early nineteenth-century Ireland. Dooley’s book though is rather more than the latest telling of a familiar story. As he recounts in the opening chapter, essentially an extended essay on the historiography and ‘social memory’ of the fire, all past accounts have singularly failed to locate the fire in the broader economic, political and social context. Moreover, so Dooley claims, past accounts have been decidedly partisan, mobilising the story for obvious political ends. These are bold statements that most historians would tend to avoid for fear of setting up straw men. Does Dooley avoid such pitfalls? The answer is – a partial – yes. Such is the thoroughness of his research that one is almost tempted to say that his book represents a definitive archival statement on the subject. But, no doubt, documents will be uncovered which add further layers to this most recent telling. Nevertheless, Dooley situates each twist in the unfurling tale and each individual actor’s involvement in social, religious and political context. This is a work of considerable historical sensitivity. The downside of Dooley’s approach is that at times the flow of the narrative is disrupted by contextual, but nonetheless somewhat tangential, asides. Do we need to know that two members of the all-Catholic jury at Thomas McCullough’s trial in April 1818 would subsequently sit together as commissioners for the improvement of Dundalk Harbour? A more judicious use of footnotes would have eliminated this problem. Conversely, whilst the events of 29 October 1816 are effectively located in the local social and political milieu – a reflection of the continuing strength of locality studies in Ireland – Dooley is weaker on the wider context of Irish agrarian discontent. In part, this is a reflection of the fact that Ribbonism and the Captain Rock disturbances of the early 1820s still await systematic national analysis. It is also a reflection of the author’s (untested) assertion that much agrarian discontent in the period reflected essentially local non-sectarian socio-economic tensions. This assertion is singularly at odds with what otherwise is a book remarkable for the fact that every contention and possibility surrounding both the fire and the subsequent arrests and trials is explored.

The conclusion offers a useful but somewhat impressionistic account of the subsequent resort to the tools of rural terror in Louth and the surrounding counties. It would however have added much to our understanding of the ways in which the fire and repression were mobilised by the poor and dispossessed if a more systematic survey was offered. Other than for the skilful, nuanced account of the fire itself and the subsequent trials, Dooley’s greatest contribution to the historiography of Irish popular protest derives from his careful reworking of the evolving relationship between the local landowners and magistracy, the Dublin Castle authorities, and the London-based legislature. Any historian of Peel’s later move to the Home Office would get considerable profit from reading Wildgoose Lodge. Indeed, Dooley’s grounded narrative of a single episode of agrarian discontent sheds considerably more light, in the mind of this reviewer, on Peel’s formative experiences than Palmer’s voluminous Protest and police in England and Ireland. Historians of English popular protest would do well to remember though that, whilst the Swing quasi– insurrection resulted in the death of one protestor and nineteen executions, the burning of Wildgoose Lodge alone ended with eight individuals burnt to death and eighteen men hanged. Irish agrarian protest could be far more brutal than English protest and the authorities’ response far less concerned with judicial procedure and precedence.

In conclusion, this is a superbly researched and well-written study of a much mythologized episode in Irish history. Some sensible editing and greater attention to the historiographical context of Irish popular protest would have most welcome but this does little to detract from a book for which both author and publisher deserve credit. I hope Wildgoose Lodge inspires other historians to return to Dooley’s rural Ireland of the 1810s and 1820s for there is much work to be done.