Daughters of Ireland
The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
They were known as the Ascendancy, the dashing aristocratic elite that controlled Irish politics and society at the end of the eighteenth century—and at their pinnacle stood Caroline and Robert King, Lord and Lady Kingsborough of Mitchelstown Castle. Heirs to ancient estates and a vast fortune, Lord and Lady Kingsborough appeared to be blessed with everything but marital love—which only made the scandal that tore through their family more shocking. In 1798, at the height of a rebellion that was setting Ireland ablaze, Robert King was tried for the murder of his wife’s cousin—a crime born of passion that proved to have extraordinary political implications. In her brilliant new book, Janet Todd unfolds the fascinating story of how this powerful Anglo-Irish family became entwined with the downfall not only of their class, but of their very way of life.
Like Amanda Foreman’s bestselling Georgiana, Daughters of Ireland brings to life the world of a glittering elite in an age of international revolution. When her daughters, Margaret and Mary, were at their most impressionable, Lady Kingsborough hired the firebrand feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to be their governess, little realizing how radically this would alter both girls’ beliefs and characters. The tall, striking Margaret went on to provide crucial support to the United Irishmen in the days leading up to the Rebellion of 1798, while soft, pleasing Mary indulged in an illicit, and all but incestuous love affair that precipitated multiple tragedies.
As the Kingsboroughs imploded, the most powerful and colorful figures of the day were swept up in their drama—the dashing aristocrat turned revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald; the liberal, cultivated Countess of Moira, a terrible snob despite her support of Irish revolutionaires; the notorious philanderer Colonel George King, whose sexual debauchery was matched only by his appalling cruelty; Britain’s cold calculating prime minister William Pitt and its mad ruler King George III.
With irresistible narrative drive and richly intimate historic detail, Daughters of Ireland an absolutely spellbinding work of history, biography, passion, and rebellion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Todd is the biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the early feminist firebrand plays an important part in this well-researched and skillfully written look at the aristocratic, Irish Protestant King family, in particular the sisters Margaret and Mary and the role they played in the ill-fated 1798 Irish Rising. Todd asserts that Wollstonecraft, who served as a governess to the King children, had a crucial impact on the two young women, encouraging them to think for themselves and to question authority, especially their self-absorbed mother. Eventually, Charlotte King dismissed the governess for "encouraging insubordinate behavior." Todd does a fine job placing the King family in an age of revolutionary fervor in Europe. She explores the tense years before the 1798 Rising and stresses how political differences split the King family. Margaret joined the republican United Irishmen, while her brother George became a leading loyalist to the Crown. Mary was a rebel on the domestic front still a teenager, she had an affair with a married cousin, Henry Fitzgerald, which led her father, Robert, to kill Fitzgerald. Todd explores the scandal and the sensational murder trial of Robert, who was acquitted, as well as describing the simultaneous 1798 Rising of the United Irishmen. Informers in high places doomed the Rising, and Ireland was soon incorporated into Great Britain. George King played a central role in quelling the rebellion, much to sister Margaret's chagrin. Todd has written an excellent historical account of one fascinating Irish family and how it influenced Ireland during a crucial period of its history. 8 pages of illus. not seen by PW. (On sale Feb. 10)