Charles Carroll of Carrollton is most often remembered as the sole Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. In this monumental study of the Carrolls in Ireland and America, that act vindicates a family's determination to triumph without compromising lineage and faith.
Ronald Hoffman peels back layer after layer of Carroll family history, from dispossession in Ireland to prosperity and prominence in America. Driven to emigrate by England's devastating anti-Catholic policies, the first Carroll brought to Maryland an iron determination to reconstitute his family and fortune. He found instead an increasingly militant Protestant society that ultimately disenfranchised Catholics and threatened their wealth and property. Confronting religious antagonisms like those that had destroyed their Irish ancestors, this Carroll and his descendants founded a fortune--and a dynasty that risked everything by allying with the American Revolutionary cause.
Meeting each crisis with a tenacious will to survive and prevail, the Carrolls earned an esteemed place in the new nation. Hoffman balances private lives against their contentious public role in American history. The journey from Irish rebels to American revolutionaries shaped and shattered the Carrolls--and then remade them into one of the first families of the Republic.

"[A] magnificently researched and engrossing book.--Times Literary Supplement

"A contribution both to early modern Irish history and to the history of colonial Maryland. Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland is a study of the survival and revival of a family that by all the odds ought to have gone to the wall at several points in its history. . . . It is an engrossing tale, expertly told.--Journal of American History

"I applaud the striking degree of interplay between editing and interpretative analysis in this project. . . . [Hoffman] draws very effectively on the family correspondence to tell a lively human interest story.--William and Mary Quarterly

"The Carroll family saga is full of powerful, often tragic figures that Hoffman and Mason describe with flair and grace. Theirs is the rare book that will appeal to both professional historians and to those whose interest in early American history is more casual.--American Historical Review

Charles Carroll of Carrollton is most often remembered as the sole Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. In this fascinating study of the Carrolls in Ireland and America, that act vindicates a family's determination to triumph without compromising lineage and faith. Peeling back layer after layer of Carroll family history, Ronald Hoffman shows how the dramatic journey from Irish rebels to successful American revolutionaries shaped and shattered the Carrolls--and then remade them into one of the first families of the Republic.