Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland - (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American Histo) by Ronald Hoffman (Paperback)

About the Book

Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782

Book Synopsis

Charles Carroll of Carrollton is most often remembered as the sole Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. In this monumental study of the Carrolls in Ireland and America, that act vindicates a family's determination to triumph without compromising lineage and faith.
Ronald Hoffman peels back layer after layer of Carroll family history, from dispossession in Ireland to prosperity and prominence in America. Driven to emigrate by England's devastating anti-Catholic policies, the first Carroll brought to Maryland an iron determination to reconstitute his family and fortune. He found instead an increasingly militant Protestant society that ultimately disenfranchised Catholics and threatened their wealth and property. Confronting religious antagonisms like those that had destroyed their Irish ancestors, this Carroll and his descendants founded a fortune -- and a dynasty that risked everything by allying with the American Revolutionary cause.
Meeting each crisis with a tenacious will to survive and prevail, the Carrolls earned an esteemed place in the new nation. Hoffman balances private lives against their contentious public role in American history. The journey from Irish rebels to American revolutionaries shaped and shattered the Carrolls -- and then remade them into one of the first families of the Republic.

Review Quotes

[A] magnificently researched and engrossing book. ("Times Literary Supplement")

A contribution both to early modern Irish history and to the history of colonial Maryland. An engrossing tale, expertly told. ("Journal of American History")

Ronald Hoffman breathes passion and interest into this [story]. An outstanding contribution. ("Georgia Historical Quarterly")

What Hoffman has done, adding significantly to the many previous Carroll studies, is investigate the family's background--the chaotic Ireland of Tudor and Stuart times. This is a complicated narrative, but Ronald Hoffman tells it surely and well. ("Baltimore Sun")

ÝA¨ magnificently researched and engrossing book. ("Times Literary Supplement")

Hoffman offers a magnificently researched and engrossing book that places a family firmly within the context of its time. It is a story of patriotism, capitalism and religious discrimination. (Library of Virginia Literary Awards Committee)

About the Author

Ronald Hoffman is director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia, and professor of history at the College of William and Mary. Sally D. Mason is associate editor of the Charles Carroll of Carrollton Papers.