An Eighteenth-Century Version of Diasporic Irish Identity

In this paper I would like to look at two contrasting examples of Irish Identity in the long eighteenth century.The port of Amsterdam provides an appropriate point of entry for our first example, since it was there in June 1685 that a young man boarded one of the three ships bounmd for an attempted invasion of England. The ships riding at anchor in Amsterdam bore the Protestant Duke of Monmouth and his small, but loyal, party of followers . This expedition was intended as a final and most extreme attempt to carry forward the aims of the Whig Party in England. Our second, contrasting, example of Irish diasporic identity in the long eighteenth century died in Paris in 1738 having reached the rank of major general in the French army. He had, like many others, arrived in France as part of the migration of defeated Jacobites after the signing of the Treaty of Limerick in 1691.In subsequent years he fought as part of the Irish regiments on battlefields throughout Europe