Palmerston’s Conquest of Sligo

Abstract

The third Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) left his mark on the Victorian period as a prominent British statesman (notably his tenure of the Foreign Office, 1830–4, 1835–41 and 1846–51, the Home Office 1852–5, and his two terms as Prime Minister, 1855–8 and 1859–65). His frequently overlooked role as a landlord in Ireland, however, shows in important ways how his Whig instincts for ‘progress’ (broadly defined) manifested themselves in terms of social and economic, and what can now be considered environmental, change. As this essay will show, Palmerston’s career as an Irish landlord represents an interesting case study of environmental conquest',^ in which nature—including also human nature—was seen as something to be mastered, controlled, and even improved. As an initially reluctant, or hesitant, landlord, who did not visit his estates in Dublin and, more substantially, those in Sligo during the first six years of his proprietorship, Palmerston ultimately set out to transform their physical environment in order to advance his broader socio-political and economic goals of making his Irish estates profitable and secure. Alongside his battles with religious groups, government agencies, and local notables in pursuit of the reform of his estates, there is also an important story to be told about how his conquest of nature suggests the ways in which the Irish landscape was, and could be, understood or regarded by this particular Victorian politician and how this reflected prevailing attitudes.

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