Introduction

Abstract

This book comprises 14 essays by historians on the middle class in Ireland from the late eighteenth century to the 1990s. The novelty of this collection lies in its deliberate focus on class and class awareness as crucial factors in Irish socio-economic, cultural and political life in the late modern period and, more particularly, in its attention to the middle class as a locus of extensive social and political power. Unfortunately, dedicated analysis of the middle class — and social classes in general — has remained underdeveloped in Irish historiography, despite a widespread acceptance of its central role in key events and movements, such as, for example, the United Irishmen of the 1790s, the Catholic emancipation movement and the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, and state building after 1921. Historians have repeatedly accentuated the importance of the middle class in Irish society, but specific interrogations of its development and trajectory; composition and boundaries; internal texture, conflict and contradictions; economic, social, cultural and political power; consumption patterns; relationship with the state; and interaction with other social classes are still uncommon. Indeed, the present collection is the first by a group of scholars to focus exclusively on the Irish middle class.