Peep o'day boys and defenders: Selected documents on the disturbances in County Armagh, 1784-1796

by David W. Miller

155 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Mathieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I repeatedly wrote that one do not rate sources, and this is a book of published sources. But precisely, I want to acknowledge how useful and indispensable this book is, as it is a collection of documents on the birth and the rise of the Defenders and the Peep O'Day Boys (the latter being the first iteration of the Orange Order) in County Armagh in the 1780s and 1790s.

The original sources are accompanied by short commentaries by David Miller who put them in context.

I have only one complain: the sources are not published in their entirety but only in extracts, except for the main one, the pamphlet An impartial account of the disturbances... whose author, one J. Byrne, has still not definitively been identified, though it might be none other than James Coigly.

This book is an invaluable tool for any one interested in the history of Ireland in the 1790s and who is looking for answers to questions about where the sectarian conflicts originated and what they meant.