Anglophone political song in eighteenth-century Ireland: the evidence of print

Among the earliest-printed songs in Ireland are the political songs of Dublin’s prosperous English-speaking population—politicians, lawyers, clergy, tradespeople, and gentry. With the political campaigns and controversies which arise across the eighteenth century—particularly the Wood’s halfpence affair (1722–1725), the candidacy of Charles Lucas for a parliamentary seat (1748–1749), and the Volunteer movement (1779–1784)—the printing of partisan song becomes a marked feature of Dublin print culture and, increasingly, that of Irish regions: Belfast, Cork, and Downpatrick, for example. These three political controversies of the eighteenth century can be seen to inaugurate the strong traditions in which print culture bolsters the dissemination of political song, which would proliferate in the revolutionary years of the 1790s and beyond.