Abstract

It should be stated at the outset that this is a frankly polemical paper. It may ultimately mean no more than a plea to Irish readers to read Samuel Johnson more sympathetically and more often; bearing in mind that there is a need to treat Johnson's famous "opinions" in their full rhetorical context and to question their relative importance alongside the material that Johnson actually published. It is true that Johnson wrote very little directly about Ireland, but it is important to stress that his broad principles are of interest to anyone studying Ireland in the eighteenth century. Indeed, as the most eloquent anti-imperialist writer writing in English at this time, he has almost automatic claims on an Irish readership.