Benjamin Bankhurst is currently a Research Assistant on the Dissenting Academy Libraries project at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. He completed his PhD in history at King's College London and his research explores the interrelated histories of eighteenth-century Ireland and colonial North America resulting from mass migration.

Introduction: John Moore's Crossing, 1760 1. Atlantic Migration and North America in the Irish Presbyterian Imagination 2. The Press, Associational Culture and Popular Imperialism in Ulster, 1750-1764 3. He Never Wants for Suitable Instruments: The Seven Years War as a War of Religion 4. Sorrowful Spectators: Ulster Presbyterian Opinion and American Frontier Atrocity 5. An Infant Sister Church, in Great Distress, Amidst a Great Wilderness: American Presbyterian Fundraising in Ireland, 1752-1763 Postscript: John Moore's Return and Reflections on America, 1763

Bankhurst examines how news regarding the violent struggle to control the borderlands of British North America between 1740 and 1760 resonated among communities in Ireland with familial links to the colonies. This work considers how intense Irish press coverage and American fundraising drives in Ireland produced empathy among Ulster Presbyterians.