The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610-1745

This work provides a valuable insight into the political and material world of Ireland's leading aristocratic family.

For much of their lives the two dukes of Ormonde dominated public events in Ireland, where they served the English sovereign as viceroy five times; they were also powerful presences in the Stuart court in England, and commanded armies both in Ireland and Europe.

Later, they spent long periods on the continent as travellers and exiles.

Yet despite their importance in the public life of the age, neither duke has been the subject of a full modern biography, a gap which this collection of essays aims to fill, using key episodes and phases in the Ormondes' careers to investigate the larger picture.

The dukes' lives as great nobles, landowners and converts to Protestantism raise problems specific to Ireland, but they also exemplify the predicament of nobles elsewhere in Europe.

A particular focus is on the worlds that they and their wives created, often innovative and always dazzling, and on the clienteles who looked to them for preferment and on which a part of the Ormondes' political weight rested. Throughout, much new light is cast on such vexed questions as the troubled and constantly changing relationship between Ireland and England, between public and private interests, and the roles of women.

Dr Toby Barnard teaches at the University of Oxford.

The contributors include: G.E. Aylmer, T.C. Barnard, Eveline Cruickshanks, David Edwards, Jane Fenlon, Raymond Gillespie, David Hayton, Patrick Little, Rene Moulinas, Eamonn Ciardha, and Nathalie Genet Rouffiac.