This is a study of the constructive side of English policy in Ireland during a formative period. T. C. Barnard relates actions in these years to English policy towards Ireland earlier and later in the seventeenth century, and also uses policy in Ireland to throw light on English politics during the Interregnum. Dr Barnard anatomizes the Irish problem of the mid-seventeenth century, and considers how and by whom Ireland was ruled and how its government was financed. He explores the reforms on which the Cromwellians laid such stress: propagating the Protestant gospel, providing English and Protestant education, advancing learning, and reforming the law.

The first detailed scholarly study of this evocative period in Irish history, Cromwellian Ireland is now reissued in paperback with a new historiographical essay.