About the Author

James P. Bruce was born in Dublin, Ireland. He spent the greater part of his adult life in banking, before setting up his own marketing consultancy in 1997. Ten years later he published his first book, Faithful Servant: A Memoir of Brian Cleeve. Researching the book involved many hours in libraries and archives. Stimulated by this experience he enrolled as a mature student at Trinity College Dublin in 2008. He graduated with a BA in History and later moved to University College Dublin, where he completed an MA in the History of Religion and Society. In 2019 he was awarded an MLitt by the University of Oxford. He continues to write for both general and academic audiences and currently hosts a podcast series entitled Talk About Ireland.

Reviews

This work offers a comprehensive analysis of James Fintan Lalor's intellectual formation and his awkward relationship with the wider nationalist movement in mid-century Ireland. Most importantly, and what makes this work highly relevant to historians of nineteenth-century Ireland and those interested in land reform in general, is the detailed study of Lalor's ideas within the political contexts he articulated them, as well as the formative influences on his work. This significant close reading of Lalor's letters and published work usefully contextualises his varying and sometimes contradictory expressions on land tenure, showing how they were shaped by the exigencies of contemporary economic conditions and Lalor's own particular social, political and familial circumstances. Given that, as the book clearly identifies, previous work on Lalor has often tried to fit him neatly into a specific (and often anachronistic) ideological tradition, this is an important corrective, and where the work makes its most original contribution.
Of interest to scholars of the Irish land question more broadly is the range of contemporary context regarding Lalor's associates, confidantes and competitors in the national movement. One thing that emerges is just how common the precepts and premises upon which Lalor made his deductions about land and sovereignty actually were - even if others were led to varying conclusions. In highlighting Lalor's general lack of academic knowledge on the question of property rights, the author brings in to focus both the generality of Lalor's presumptions and the originality of his conclusions. The author makes a very strong case and clearly explains how Lalor's conception of a 'right to the land' functioned to justify ownership of moveables but not the land itself, only in usufruct, and how this underpinned a democratic-republican understanding of national sovereignty.
The work also surveys the historiography effectively. Many assessments of Lalor and his work have sought to identify him as either a utopian land nationaliser, or simply a confused proponent of peasant proprietorship. This book corrects this false dichotomy by showing the complexity of contemporary understandings of the land question. The assessment offered here of Lalor as a 'de facto land nationaliser' is well supported by the evidence, and entirely consonant with what could be claimed within the realms of political possibility at the time.
There is much to commend in the quality of the scholarship, not least the broad range of secondary material consulted and the excellent and extensive archival work. It is well written, clear and concise. However, it retains the considered, perhaps even cautious, tone and historiographical focus of a scholarly study rather than a book for a more popular audience. This does not appear to be much of a drawback since there is a strong academic interest in nineteenth-century Ireland and the land question to which this book will be highly relevant. [...] This excellent and detailed study is certainly an important contribution, not only to the study of Lalor himself, but to the land question in mid-century Ireland more broadly. Dr Andrew Phemister
National University of Ireland, Galway
This is an exemplary exercise in intellectual history, distinguished for the clarity of its writing and the extensive research underpinning it. The result is a very dynamic picture of how James Fintan Lalor's ideas on land ownership and Anglo-Irish relations evolved during the 1830s and 1840s. It's an exciting account of one of Ireland's most important radical thinkers.Dr Ian McBride
Foster Professor of Irish History
Hertford College, University of Oxford