The aim of this book is to examine Ireland's place and role in the British Empire in the period 1692–1770. The subject emerged in 2004–5 from research I had undertaken between October 1999 and September 2003 on the related topics of money, politics and power in Ireland in the years 1714–61. I have published the results of that research during the past decade in various journal articles, essays and edited collections and I am indebted to both the National University of Ireland and the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for providing the postdoctoral fellowships that facilitated all of that work. This book builds upon those foundations with further research undertaken since 2004–5, combined with a return to material first examined in the 1990s.

The completion of this book has been greatly assisted by a variety of people to whom I am deeply grateful. Marnie Hay, Eoin Magennis and Patrick Walsh have read and commented upon various chapters and have provided important corrections and improvements. All three have also discussed the work at length with me and patiently listened to lengthy discourses on the trials and tribulations associated with it. I am also much indebted to Catriona Magennis for her sage advice and assistance at a particularly difficult moment in the book's gestation. All of the participants at the biennial ‘Money, Power and Print’ Colloquia have helped me to form my ideas over the years, while my two co-convenors of those events, Chris Fauske and Rick Kleer, have been unstinting in their encouragement, support and intellectual stimulation. My colleagues in the School of History and Archives at UCD have all offered encouragement and support in a variety of ways and I could not have completed the writing of the book without a crucial research semester provided in the autumn of 2011, which was facilitated by the good graces of my co-workers. I am particularly indebted in this respect, and in many others, to my friend and Head of School, John McCafferty.