ABSTRACT
This book is not a general survey of the economic history of Ireland between the Union and the famine. It is not intended as such and should not be read for the purpose of an introduction to the subject. It is true that no up-to-date work has tried to supersede O’Brien (1921) as a general textbook covering the period. There is perhaps a reason for that absence: modem scholarship has revised and criticized many of the positions taken by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers, but disagreements among scholars persist and many revisionist positions find themselves subject to the same degree of criticism their proponents have raised against earlier scholarship. It may be appropriate to postpone the writing of more definitive work which synthesizes modem research until the dust has settled on current controversies.
