Ireland and the French Enlightenment, 1700-1800

By what channels did the French Enlightenment reach the eighteenth-century Irish reader, and what was its impact? What were the images of Ireland in current France? What did the like Montesquieu and Voltaire think of the country and its people? These are the questions a team of scholars attempts to answer in this volume. Part I explains who could read French; Part II examines the views of Ireland and the Irish; and Part III explores the transmission of ideas through the importation of French books and translations from a number of cosmopolitan centers.