In the autumn of 1678, the revelations of the Popish Plot came to light. Amongst these were the allegations that Irish Catholics were planning a rebellion. In a recently conquered country whose Catholic majority population was now dominated by an uneasy Protestant elite who remembered the Catholic rebellions of the 1640s, this was bound to have a resonance. Over the following three years, a colonial government in Dublin was forced to negotiate between the fears of Protestants in Ireland, and the pressures generated by the crisis in England. In a tense climate fostered by prejudice, informers and innuendo, concerns about the possibility of a Catholic rebellion in Ireland began to trickle into the emerging campaign to prevent the Catholic Duke of York from succeeding to the throne. Ireland and the Popish Plot is the first comprehensive study of these events.