Oxford, Ireland and the Defeat of the English Revolution

Empire has always served as a safety valve to relieve pressure for revolution at home. Colonial wealth can help buy off social unrest; the colonies can be used for the export of an unruly populous; the colonial mindset can foster a racial chauvinism that helps disrupt working class unity; and, ultimately, the militarised policing and legal systems pioneered in the colonies can be reimported back to the homeland whenever necessary. 

It was Ireland where the British state first developed these features, becoming a model for imperial rule across the globe. And much of the strategies used there were developed in Oxford, and by Oxford graduates. Yet Oxford has also been a hotbed of rebellion over the years. This tour will show how and these dynamics have played out here, from the 1640s right up to the present day. 

The tour will cover: 

• The links between the conquest of Ireland and the defeat of the English Revolution in the seventeenth century
• The Levellers executed by Cromwell in Gloucester Green
• The politicians and military officers who used Ireland as a laboratory for neocolonial warfare 
• The lawyer who ended the rule of law in the North of Ireland 
• The land surveyor whose system for commodifying Irish land laid the groundwork for the dispossession of the Native Americans