Waging War: The Irish Military Establishment and the British Empire, 1688–1763

Abstract

The arrival of William of Orange in England in 1688, and the constitutional and financial revolutions that ensued, had extensive repercussions for Ireland. The significant changes in British foreign policy — in particular the extended periods of war in the British Isles, on the continent, and across the Atlantic in the eighteenth century — were attributable in large part to the events of 1688-1689 and the ensuing reign of William III.¹ In Ireland the war of 1689-1691, which was a direct result of the Glorious Revolution, paved the way for the emergence of a new political and constitutional reality, centred upon a wholly dominant Protestant minority ruling elite which controlled the public purse strings through a parliament that took centre stage in Irish affairs. This new reality was made possible primarily because of the Irish government’s increasing need from the 1690s onwards for money to pay for the enlarged military Establishment in Ireland, as the country became a permanent barracks for the largest part of Britain’s peacetime standing army and the first port of call for active troops for overseas service when Britain went to war. Such a situation came into existence because the Irish parliament put in place the financial structures necessary to maintain that army at home and, on occasion, to pay for it when overseas. In so doing, the Irish Protestant political nation engaged in financial innovation that mirrored much of what occurred as part of England’s Financial Revolution, which in turn provided the money necessary to fight the four main wars that Britain was involved in between 1689 and 1763.