Celebrating the Battle of the Saintes: imperial news in England and Ireland, 1782

This thesis will commence by setting the background to the Saintes, in the Caribbean and in London, and will then describe the battle in outline. Chapter Two traces the newspaper coverage of the Saintes and the ensuing celebrations, and provides further political context to assist with the analysis of the interplay between the imperial and local news in England and in Ireland. The final chapter seeks to resolve the apparent paradox which emerged in the reporting and celebrations of the Saintes in Ireland, which enthusiastically celebrated the imperial victory, whilst simultaneously celebrating Dublin’s legislative independence from Westminster. In order to fully assess the impact of the imperial news in Ireland, the third chapter includes an assessment of the information networks at play in the transmission of the news, and the mediating role of the press; and finally, places the reporting of the Saintes in the context of the recent historiography of patriotism in eighteenth-century Ireland.