The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.
§ 38. J. P. Prendergast
Among Irish historians, Lecky holds an undisputed preeminence, but of him we shall speak immediately in a wider connection. Like him, John Patrick Prendergast took up the defence of his countrymen against the aspersions of Froude; but, though he bore a name associated with the suffering entailed by the Irish policy of Cromwell, and had himself the reputation of being a nationalist, he was not under the influence of the sentiments of seventeenth century “toryism.” His works on Irish affairs, of which The History of the Cromwellian Settlement (1863) is the best known, form a very important contribution to the political history of Ireland, and led to his appointment as one of the commissioners for selecting official papers from the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian. In 1887, he published Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution.