Tudor conquest of Ireland

The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the English Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. Following a failed rebellion against the crown by the Geraldines in the 1530s, Henry VIII was declared King of Ireland by statute of the Irish parliament, with the aim of restoring such central authority as had been lost throughout the country during the previous two hundred years.

By conciliation and repression the conquest continued for sixty years, until 1603, when the entire country came under the nominal control of James I, exercised through his privy council at Dublin. This control was perfected upon the Flight of the Earls in 1607.

The conquest was complicated by the imposition of English law, language and culture, as well as by the extension of the English Protestant Reformation. The Spanish Empire intervened several times at the height of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604), and the Irish found themselves caught between their widespread acceptance of the Pope's authority and the requirements of allegiance to the monarch of England and Ireland.

Upon completion of the conquest, the polity of Gaelic Ireland had been largely destroyed and the Spanish were no longer willing to intervene directly. This left the way clear for extensive settlement of the country by English, Scots, and Welsh colonists, which culminated in the Plantation of Ulster.

Ireland in 1500

Ireland in 1500 was shaped by the unfinished Norman conquest, initiated by Norman barons from Wales in the 12th century and carried on under the authority of Henry II, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and King of England (1154–1189). Many of the native Gaelic Irish had been expelled from various parts of the country, (mainly the east and south-east) and replaced with English peasants and labourers. The area on the east coast, extending from the Wicklow Mountains in the south to Dundalk in the north (covering parts of modern counties Dublin, Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Offaly, Laois and Kilkenny), became known as the Pale. Protected by a ditch and rampart, the Pale was a defended area in which English language and culture predominated and where English law was enforced by a government established in the old Norse city of Dublin.

Beyond the Pale, the authority of the Dublin government was tenuous. The Hiberno-Norman barons had been able to carve out fiefdoms for themselves but not to settle them with English tenants. As a result, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the wake of Irish rebellion, Scottish invasion, the Black Death and a lack of interest on the part of the London government, many of the outlying English territories returned to the control of Irish lords; in others, such as those controlled by the great dynasties of Butler, Fitzgerald and Burke, the rulers achieved effective independence, raising their own armed forces, enforcing their own law and adopting Gaelic-Irish language and culture.

Having been displaced in the early decades of the conquest the native Irish enjoyed something of a renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries. Considerable areas of land previously held by the English were either abandoned to or overrun by the Gaelic Irish, particularly in the north and midlands. In the myriad Irish dynasties, the most important included the O’Neills (Uí Néill) in central Ulster (Tir Eoghain) — flanked to their west by the O’Donnells — the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles in County Wicklow, the Kavanaghs in County Wexford, the MacCarthys and O’Sullivans in County Cork and County Kerry and the Ó Briain lordship of Thomond in County Clare.

The Gaelic-Irish were, for the most part, outside English jurisdiction, maintaining their own language, social system, customs and laws. The English referred to them as "His Majesty’s Irish enemies". In legal terms, they had never been admitted as subjects of the Crown, although Ireland was not formally a realm, but rather a lordship, the title to which was assumed by the English monarch upon coronation. The rise of Gaelic influence resulted in the passing in 1366 of the Statutes of Kilkenny, which, in vain, outlawed many social practices that had been developing apace (eg. intermarriage, use of the Irish language and of Irish dress). In the 15th century the Dublin government remained weak, owing principally to the Wars of the Roses.

Henry VIII

By 1500, English monarchs had delegated government of Ireland to the most powerful of the Hiberno-Norman dynasties (the Fitzgeralds of Kildare) in order to keep the costs of running Ireland down and to protect the Pale. The King's Lord Deputy of Ireland was chief of the administration, based in Dublin Castle, but maintained no formal court and had a limited privy purse. In 1495 laws were passed during Poynings' parliament that imposed English statute law wholesale upon the lordship and compromised the independence of the Irish parliament.

The head of the Kildare Fitzgeralds held the position of lord deputy until 1531. The problem was that the House of Kildare had become traitorous, scheming with Yorkist pretenders to the English throne, signing private treaties with foreign powers, and finally rebelling after the head of its hereditary rivals, the Butlers of Ormonde, was awarded the position of Lord Deputy. Henry put down the rebellion by executing the leader ("Silken Thomas" Fitzgerald), along with several of his uncles, and imprisoned Gearoid Og, the head of the family. But now the king had to find a replacement for the Fitzgeralds to keep Ireland quiet. What was needed was a cost-effective new policy that protected the Pale and guaranteed the safety of England’s vulnerable west flank from foreign invasion.

With the assistance of Thomas Cromwell, the king implemented the policy of surrender and regrant. This extended Royal protection to all of Ireland’s elite without regard to ethnicity; in return the whole country was expected to obey the law of the central government; and all Irish lords were to officially surrender to the Crown, and to receive in return by Royal Charter, the title to their lands. The keystone to the reform was in a statute passed by the Irish parliament in 1541, whereby the lordship was converted to a kingdom. Overall, the intention was to assimilate the Gaelic and Gaelicised upper classes and develop a loyalty on their part to the new crown; to this end, they were granted English titles and for the first time admitted to the Irish parliament. In a felicitous phrase, the king summed up his efforts at reform as, "politic drifts and amiable persuasions".

In practice, lords around Ireland accepted their new privileges but carried on as they had before. For the Irish Lordships the English monarch was but another over lord similar to that found in the gaelic system. It was however the Tudors increasing encroachment upon their local autonomy by the development of a centralised state that was to bring the English system into direct conflict with the Gaelic Irish one. Henry’s religious Reformation — although not as thorough as in England — caused disquiet; his Lord Deputy, Anthony St Leger was largely able to buy off opposition by granting lands confiscated from the monasteries to Irish nobles.

Difficulties

After the king's death, successive lord deputies of Ireland found that actually establishing the rule of the central government was far more difficult than merely securing the lords' pledges of allegiance. Successive rebellions broke out, the first in Leinster in the 1550s, when the O’Moore and O’Connor clans were displaced to make way for the Plantation of Queen's County and King's County (named for Mary I of England and Philip II of Spain; modern counties Laois and Offaly). In the 1560s, English attempts to interfere in a succession dispute within the O’Neill sept, or clan, sparked a long war between Lord Deputy Sussex, and Shane O'Neill. Irish lordships continued to fight private wars against each other, ignoring the government in Dublin and its laws. Two examples of this are the Battle of Affane in 1565, fought between the Ormonde and Desmond dynasties, and the Battle of Farsetmore in 1567, fought between the O'Donnells and O'Neills. Elsewhere, clans such as the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles, continued raiding the Pale as they had always done. The most serious violence of all occurred in Munster in the 1560s ‘70s and ‘80s, when the Fitzgeralds of Desmond launched the Desmond Rebellions to prevent direct English influence into their territory. After a particularly brutal campaign in which up to a third of the population of the province was reported to have died, the rebellion was finally ended when the Earl of Desmond was killed in 1583.

There were two main reasons for the chronic violence that dogged the central government in Ireland. The first was some of the aggressive acts of the English administrators and soldiers. In many instances, garrisons or "seneschals" disregarded the law and killed local chiefs and lords. In other cases, it was the seizure of native owned land that provoked rebellions.

The second cause of violence was the incompatibility of Gaelic Irish society with English law central government. In Irish custom, the chief of a "sept" or clan was elected from a noble lineage called a fine. This often caused violence between rival candidates. However, under Henry VIII's settlement, succession was, as was the English custom, by inheritance of the first born son, or primogeniture, which meant there would be fewer disputes. Imposing this law forced the English to take sides in violent disputes within Irish lordships. Finally, important sections of Irish society had a vested interest in opposing the English presence. These included the mercenary class or gallowglass and Irish poets or file - both of whom faced having their source of income and status abolished in an English-ruled Ireland.

Solutions

Under Queens Mary and Elizabeth, the English in Ireland tried a number of solutions to pacify the country. The first such initiative used martial government, whereby violent areas such as the Wicklow Mountains were garrisoned by small numbers of English troops under commanders called seneschals. The seneschal was given powers of martial law, which allowed execution without trial by jury. Every person within the seneschal's area of authority had to be vouched for by the local lord - "masterless men" were liable to be killed. In this way, it was hoped that the Irish lords would prevent raiding by their own followers. However, in practice, this simply antagonised the native chieftains.

The failure of this policy prompted the English to come up with more long term solutions to pacify and Anglicise Ireland. One was composition – where private armed forces were abolished, and provinces were occupied by English troops under the command of governors, titled Lords President. In return, the pre-eminent septs and lords were exempted from taxation and had their entitlements to rents from subordinate families and their tenants put on a statutory basis. The imposition of this settlement was marked by bitter violence, particularly in Connacht, where the MacWilliam Burkes fought a local war against the English Provincial President, Sir Richard Bingham, and his subordinate, Nicholas Malby. The interference of the Lord President of Munster was one of the major causes of the Desmond Rebellions. However, this method was successful in some areas, notably in Thomond, where it was supported by the ruling O'Brien dynasty.

The second long term solution was Plantations, in which areas of the country were to be settled with people from England, who would bring in English language and culture while remaining loyal to the crown. Plantation had been tried in the 1550s in Laois and Offaly, the former being shired by Queen Mary as "Queen's County", and again in the 1570s in Antrim, both times with limited success. But in the wake of the Desmond Rebellions, large swathes of land in Munster were repopulated with the English in the Munster Plantation; the largest grant of lands was made to Sir Walter Raleigh, but he never really made a go of it and sold out to Sir Richard Boyle, who later became Earl of Cork and the wealthiest subject of the early Stuart monarchs.

After a neutral period in 1558-70, the Papacy declared Elizabeth to be a heretic in 1570 by the bull "Regnans in Excelsis". This complicated the conquest further, as her authority to rule was denied and her officials were considered by observant Roman Catholics to be acting unlawfully. Most Irish people of all ranks remained Catholic and the bull gave Protestant administrators a new reason to expedite the conquest. The Second Desmond Rebellion in 1579-83 was assisted by hundreds of Papal troops. Hearing of the Catholic Counter-reformation and the Inquisition, religion became a new marker of loyalty to the administration.

Naturally, the prospect of land confiscation alienated the Irish further. But the alienation wasn't confined to the Gaelic Irish: those who claimed descent from the original conquerors under Henry II were increasingly referred to as the Old English, to distinguish them from the many administrators, captains and planters (the New English) who were arriving in Ireland. And it was mostly amongst this Old English community that fervent commitment to Catholicism was gaining ground.

Crisis

The crisis point of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland came when the English authorities tried to extend their authority over Ulster and Hugh O'Neill, the most powerful Irish lord in Ireland. In 1595 O’Neill joined the rebel side in the Nine Years War, which was in reality a nationwide war rather than a rebellion; instead of seeking to bring English authority to terms was actually determined on replacing it altogether. O’Neill enlisted the help of many lords throughout Ireland, but his most significant support came from the Spanish, whose king, Philip III of Spain, sent an invasion force only to see its surrender after a winter siege at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. In 1603 the war ended, and thereafter crown authority was gradually established throughout Ireland. O’Neill and his allies left Ireland in 1607 in the Flight of the Earls, their lands in Ulster were confiscated and the English were encouraged to live there in the Plantation of Ulster.

Results

The first and most important result of the conquest was the disarmament of the native Irish lordships and the establishment of central government control for the first time over the whole island; Irish culture, law and language were replaced; and many Irish lords lost their lands and hereditary authority. Thousands of English, Scottish and Welsh settlers were introduced into the country and the administration of justice was enforced according to English common law and statutes of the Irish parliament.

As the 16th century progressed, the religious question grew in significance. Rebels such as James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald and Hugh O'Neill sought and received help from Catholic powers in Europe, justifying their actions on religious grounds. However, the Pale community and many Irish lords did not consider them to be genuinely religiously motivated. In the new century, the country would become polarised between Catholics and Protestants, especially after the planting of a large population of English into Ireland and Scots Presbyterians in Ulster (See Plantation of Ulster).

Under James I, Catholics were barred from all public office after the gunpowder plot was discovered in 1605; the Gaelic Irish and Old English increasingly defined themselves as Catholic in opposition to the Protestant New English. However the native Irish (both Gaelic and Old English) remained the majority landowners in the country until after the Irish Rebellion of 1641. By the end of the resulting Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the 1650s, the "New English" Protestants dominated the country, and after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 their descendants went on to form the Protestant Ascendancy.

References

Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors 3 vols. (London, 1885–1890)
John O'Donovan (ed.) Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (1851).
Calendar of State Papers: Carew MSS. 6 vols (London, 1867-1873).
Calendar of State Papers: Ireland (London)
Nicholas Canny The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland (Dublin, 1976); Kingdom and Colony (2002).
Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British
Steven G. Ellis Tudor Ireland (London, 1985) ISBN 0-582-49341-2.
Hiram Morgan Tyrone's Rebellion (1995).
Standish O'Grady (ed.) "Pacata Hibernia" 2 vols. (London, 1896).
Cyril Falls Elizabeth's Irish Wars (1950; reprint London, 1996) ISBN 0-09-477220-7.
Colm Lennon Sixteenth century Ireland