ABSTRACT
For a long time the Restoration period remained a relatively neglected area of study, for England and Scotland as well as Ireland, especially when compared to the immense amount of scholarship dedicated to exploring the troubles that bedevilled the early Stuarts and the roots and causes of the mid-century revolution. If we are to understand why the world was to be so different by the early days, for all the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, then we surely need to focus as much attention on the later Stuart period and the successful revolution of last century as on the failed revolution of the mid-seventeenth century. The enterprise has become somewhat fashionable of late as a way of refreshing what remains essentially English history, albeit enriched by an awareness of what was going on in Scotland and Ireland. When dealing with the politics of resentment, we have to recognise that some Irish Catholics had more reason to feel aggrieved than others.
