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Ireland during the period of 1536–1691 saw the first full conquest of the island by England and its colonization with mostly Protestant settlers from Great Britain. This would eventually establish two central themes in future Irish history: subordination of the country to London-based governments and sectarian animosity between Catholics and Protestants. The period saw Irish society outside of the Pale transform from a locally driven, intertribal, clan-based Gaelic structure to a centralised, monarchical, state-governed society, similar to those found elsewhere in Europe. The period is bounded by the dates 1536, when King Henry VIII deposed the FitzGerald dynasty as Lords Deputies of Ireland (the new Kingdom of Ireland was declared by Henry VIII in 1541), and 1691, when the Catholic Jacobites surrendered at Limerick, thus confirming Protestant dominance in Ireland. This is sometimes called the early modern period.

The English Reformation, by which Henry VIII broke with Papal authority in 1536, was to change Ireland totally. While Henry VIII broke English Catholicism from Rome, his son Edward VI of England moved further, breaking with Papal doctrine completely. While the English, the Welsh and, later, the Scots accepted Protestantism, the Irish remained Catholic. Queen Mary I then reverted the state to Catholicism in 1553–58, and Queen Elizabeth I broke again with Rome in 1559. These confusing changes determined their relationship with the British state for the next four hundred years, as the Reformation coincided with a determined effort on behalf of the English state to re-conquer and colonise Ireland thereafter. The religious schism meant that the native Irish and the (Roman Catholic) Old English were to be excluded from power in the new settlement unless they converted to Protestantism.

Re-conquest and rebellion (1536–1607)

Henry VIII
King of England and Ireland, who founded the Kingdom of Ireland and began the English re-conquest of the country, by Hans Holbein the Younger

There is some debate about why Henry VIII of England resolved to re-conquer Ireland completely. However, the most immediate reason was that the Fitzgerald dynasty of Kildare, who had become the effective rulers of Ireland in the 15th century, had become very unreliable allies of the Tudor monarchs. Most seriously, they had invited Burgundian troops into Dublin to crown the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnel as King of England in 1487. In 1535, Silken Thomas Fitzgerald went into open rebellion against the crown. Henry VIII put down this rebellion and then set about to pacify Ireland and bring it all under English government control, perhaps to prevent it from becoming a base for foreign invasions of England (a concern that was to be sustained for another 400 or more years).

Ireland was changed from a lordship to a full Kingdom under Henry VIII. From the period of the original lordship in the 12th century onwards, Ireland had retained its own bicameral Parliament of Ireland, consisting of a House of Commons and a House of Lords. It was restricted for most of its existence in terms both of membership – Gaelic Irishmen were barred from membership – and of powers, notably by Poynings' Law of 1494, which required the approval of the English Privy Council before any draft bills might be introduced to the Parliament. After 1541, Henry VIII admitted native Irish lords into both houses and recognised their land titles, in return for their submission to him as King of Ireland. However, the real power in Ireland throughout this period lay not with the Parliament, but with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, who was nominated by the King of England to govern Ireland. The Parliament met only when called by the Lord Deputy, when he wanted to pass new laws or raise new taxes. The Lord Deputy's permanent advisors were the Irish Privy Council.

With the institutions of government in place, the next step was to extend the control of the English Kingdom of Ireland over all of its claimed territory. Henry VIII's officials were tasked with extending the rule of this new Kingdom throughout Ireland by the policy of "surrender and regrant". They either negotiated or fought with the autonomous Irish Kings and lords. This took nearly a century to achieve, and the re-conquest was accompanied by a great deal of bloodshed, as it led to the assimilation – sometimes abolition – of lordships that had been independent for several hundred years.

Cahir Castle – besieged repeatedly in this period

The re-conquest was completed during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, after several bloody conflicts. The Desmond Rebellions (1569–1573 and 1579–1583) took place in the southern province of Munster, when the Fitzgerald Earl of Desmond dynasty resisted the imposition of an English governor into the province. The second of these rebellions was put down by means of a forced famine, which may have killed up to a third of Munster's population. The most serious threat to English rule in Ireland came during the Nine Years War 1594–1603, when Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell the most powerful chieftains in the northern province of Ulster rebelled against English government. This war developed into a nationwide revolt where O'Neill and O'Donnell successfully obtained military aid from Spain, which was then in conflict with England during the Anglo-Spanish War. A Spanish expeditionary force was defeated by English forces at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. O'Neill and his allies eventually surrendered to the new Stuart King, James I, in 1603. After this point, the English authorities in Dublin established real control over Ireland for the first time, bringing a centralised form of justice to the entire island, and successfully disarmed the various lordships, both Irish and Old English. O'Neill, O'Donnell and their allies subsequently fled Ireland for good in the Flight of the Earls in 1607. This removed the last major obstacle to English government in Ireland.

Colonization and the religious question

The English had little success in converting either the native elite or the Irish people to the Protestant religion. Why the Protestant reformation failed to take hold among the Irish is an enduring question. One of several answers lies in the fact that brutal methods were used by crown authority to pacify the country and exploit its resources, which heightened resentment of English rule. Additionally, a determined proselytising campaign carried out in Ireland by counter-reformation Catholic clergy, many of whom had been educated in seminaries on the continent. Irish Colleges had been established in many countries in Catholic Europe for the training of Irish Catholic priests and the education of the Irish Catholic gentry. Finally, the printing press, which had played a major role in disseminating Protestant ideas in Europe, came to Ireland very late.

From the mid-16th and into the early 17th century, crown governments carried out a policy of colonisation known as Plantations. Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists to the provinces of Munster, Ulster and the counties of Laois and Offaly (see also Plantations of Ireland). The largest of these projects, the Plantation of Ulster, had settled up to 80,000 English and Scots in the north of Ireland by 1641. The so-called Ulster Scots were predominantly Presbyterian, which distinguished them from the Anglican English colonists.

These settlers, who had a British and Protestant identity, would form the ruling class of future British administrations in Ireland. A series of Penal Laws discriminated against all Christian faiths other than the established (Anglican) Church of Ireland. The principal victims of these laws were Roman Catholics and, from the late 17th century on, adherents of Presbyterianism. From 1607, Catholics were barred from public office and from serving in the army. In 1615, the constituencies of the Irish Parliament were altered so that Protestants might form the majority of 108–102 in any given vote in the Irish House of Commons. The Catholic majority in the Irish House of Lords persisted until the Patriot Parliament of 1689, with the exception of the Commonwealth period (1650–60).

A New Order? (1607–1641)

The difficulty in controlling the extremities of Ireland from London or Dublin early in the 17th century was demonstrated by the presence of pirates on the Munster coast. In particular, the townland of Leamcon (near Schull,^[1] County Cork) became a pirate stronghold.^[2] By pleading "benefit of clergy", literate pirates in Ireland could escape secular trial (making their prosecution much more difficult) till Irish law was brought into line with English law in 1613.^[3]

In the early years of the 17th century, it looked possible for a time that, because of immigration of English and Scottish settlers, Ireland could be peacefully integrated into British society. However, this was prevented by the continued discrimination by the English authorities against Irish Catholics on religious grounds.

The pre-Elizabethan Irish population is usually divided into the "Old (or Gaelic) Irish", and the Old English, or descendants of medieval Hiberno-Norman settlers. These groups were historically antagonistic, with English settled areas such as the Pale around Dublin, south Wexford, and other walled towns being fortified against the rural Gaelic clans. However, by the 17th century, the cultural divide between these groups, especially at elite social levels, was declining. For example, most Old English lords not only spoke the Gaelic language, but extensively patronised Irish poetry and music. Intermarriage was also common. Moreover, in the wake of the Elizabethan conquest, the native population became defined by their shared religion, Roman Catholicism, in distinction to the new Protestant British settlers and the officially Protestant British government of Ireland. During the decades in between the end of the Elizabethan wars of conquest in 1603 and the outbreak of rebellion in 1641, Irish Catholics felt themselves to be increasingly threatened by and discriminated against by the English government of Ireland.

Most of the Irish upper classes, however, were not ideologically opposed to the sovereignty of the King of England over Ireland, but wanted to be full subjects of the triple Stuart monarchy and maintain their pre-eminent position in Irish society. This was prevented by their religious dissidence and the threat posed to them by the extension of the Plantations. The Protestant settler-dominated Government of Ireland tried to confiscate more land from the native landowners by questioning their medieval land titles and as punishment for non-attendance at Protestant services. In response, Irish Catholics appealed directly to the King, first to James I and then Charles I, for full rights as subjects and toleration of their religion: a programme known as The Graces. On several occasions, the Monarchs appeared to have reached an agreement with them, granting their demands in return for raising taxes. However, Irish Catholics were disappointed when, on paying the increased levies, the King postponed the implementation of their demands. What was more, by the late 1630s, Thomas Wentworth, Charles's representative in Ireland, was proposing further widespread confiscations of native land to break the power of the Irish Catholic upper classes. It is likely that this would eventually have provoked armed resistance from Irish Catholics at some point, but the actual rebellion was sparked by a political crisis in Scotland and England that led to civil war in the three Kingdoms.

Civil wars, Land confiscations and Penal Laws (1641–1691)

After Irish Catholic rebellion and civil war, Oliver Cromwell, on behalf of the English Commonwealth, re-conquered Ireland between 1649 and 1651. Under his government, landownership in Ireland passed overwhelmingly to Protestant colonists

The fifty years from 1641 to 1691 saw two catastrophic periods of civil war in Ireland 1641–53 and 1689–91, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and left others in permanent exile. The wars, which pitted Irish Catholics against British forces and Protestant settlers, ended in the almost complete dispossession of the Catholic landed elite.

Restoration

Main article: English Restoration

An uneasy peace returned with the Restoration of the monarchy in England and Charles II made some efforts to conciliate Irish Catholics with compensation and land grants. (See also Act of Settlement 1662). Most Catholics, however were disappointed that the Cromwellian land confiscations were, on the whole, allowed to stand. Protestants, on the other hand, felt that Irish Catholics had been treated far too leniently by Charles, and deserved to be punished for their massacres of Protestant civilians in 1641. In 1678, there was another brief burst of anti-Catholic repression during the Popish Plot, when it was rumoured that Irish Catholics were planning another rebellion with French help. Two Catholic Bishops, Peter Talbot and Oliver Plunkett were arrested. Talbot died in prison and Plunkett was hanged, drawn and quartered.

James VII and II
Irish Catholics, known as Jacobites, fought for James in 1689–91, but they failed to restore him to the throne of Ireland, England and Scotland

See also

• Early Modern Irish language
• Irish of Nantes

Sources

• Canny, Nicholas P (May 1976). The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established, 1565–76. Sussex: Harvester Press Ltd. ISBN 0-85527-034-9.
• Canny, Nicholas P (3 May 2001). Making Ireland British, 1580–1650. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820091-9.
• Hayes-McCoy, Gerard Anthony (June 1989). Irish Battles. Belfast: Appletree Press. ISBN 0-86281-212-7.
• Lenihan, Pádraig (2003). 1690: Battle of the Boyne. Tempus. ISBN 0-75243-304-0.
• Lenihan, Pádraig (2001). Confederate Catholics at War 1641–49. Cork University Press. ISBN 1-85918-244-5.
• Lennon, Colm (March 1995). Sixteenth Century Ireland – The Incomplete Conquest. Dublin: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-12462-7.
• Moody, T. W.; Martin, Francis X.; Byrne, F. J. (1991). A new history of Ireland: Early modern Ireland, 1534–1691. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820242-4.
•  O'Brien, Richard Barry, ed. (1903). Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 . Dublin: Browne and Nolan, Ltd. – via Wikisource.
• Ó Siochrú, Micheál (1999). Confederate Ireland 1642–49. Dublin: Four Courts Press. ISBN 1-85182-400-6.
• Kenyon, J.; Ohlmeyer, J. H. (1998). The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1638–1660. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19280-278-X.
• Senior, Clive M. (1976). A Nation of Pirates. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7264-5.
• Simms, J.G. (1969). Jacobite Ireland. Routledge & Kegan Paul, Limited. ISBN 0-71006-446-2.
• Simms, J.G. (1986). War and Politics in Ireland 1649–1730. Continuum International. ISBN 0826436099.
• Waudchope, Piers (1992). Patrick Sarsfield and the Williamite War. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 0-71652-476-7.
• Wheeler, James Scott (1999). Cromwell in Ireland. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-31222-550-4.

External links

• 16th century images of Irish people at Irish Archaeology
• Tudor and Stuart Ireland, annual academic conference focusing on Irish society in the Tudor and Stuart periods.