The article highlights the gap between Ireland’s peaceful reality in 1715 and the Hanoverian administration’s assumption that a Catholic majority might support rebellion. This uncertainty shaped disarmament, surveillance, militia planning and taxation, while a Protestant parliament gained a role in financing defence. The shortage of muskets and ammunition is revealing: security policy depended as much on perceived danger and political organisation as on military capacity. It also suggests that emergency measures could strengthen state power and sectarian exclusion without an uprising. How should we interpret the relationship between precaution, political opportunity and discrimination in Ireland’s response to the Jacobite crisis?