The history of the island of Ireland in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was one of profound political, social and religious upheaval. With the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation, the relationship between Ireland and England was changed forever, and the repercussions of a new kind of English interest in Ireland were felt keenly for the next two hundred years. This period witnessed the evolution of different kinds of communities within Ireland, amidst the shifting contours of identity politics predicated on different forms of religious faith and different ideas about nationhood: Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian; English, Irish, British. This course will explore how these groups interacted in a period defined by attempts to create and resist ‘Protestant Ireland’ and consider the extent to which this might be deemed a success or a failure, in a series of lectures and seminar discussions of contemporary source material.
This course offers a survey of Irish history beginning with the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1540. This constitutional innovation was fundamentally connected to the advent of the Protestant Reformation, and the connections between royal authority and religious interventions are the key themes of the first classes in this course. We will explore how Catholic Ireland responded to English attempts to establish Protestantism, and how Catholics and Protestants came to respond to monarchical claims to govern the whole island. The inter-relationships between the Gaelic Irish, the Old English and the New English emerge as key to an understanding of the complex political dynamics which developed in this period. Particular attention in earlier sessions will be paid to the English establishment of plantations in Ireland, and we will consider the short- and longer-term consequences of these settlements. We will also explore the reasons for Irish rebellion in the Tudor period, challenging some of the pre-conceptions which result from legacies of later
historical developments.
The Stuart period of rule witnessed a more consolidated effort to plant Ireland as the island found itself part of the ‘three kingdoms’ dynastic framework established by James VI &I. The second and third classes will consider the legacies of Tudor activity in this period, as well as Irish involvement in the civil wars of the 1640s and the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9. Particular emphasis will be paid to Oliver Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland, and to the significant demographic shifts to which the century as a whole bore witness. This period of long, drawn-out conquest marked the final collapse of Gaelic Irish society, brief resurgences of Catholic government, and the establishment of the foundations of ‘Protestant ascendancy’.
The final classes in this course will explore a century of peace and relative prosperity as the Protestant minority consolidated their status of political dominance. But far from re-affirming and securing the relationship between Britain and Ireland, this period witnessed the evolution of a new kind of Irish Protestant identity which challenged the premises upon which the Anglo-Irish relationship developed. Considering the evolution of the Irish parliament amidst the context of economic and social change, the imperial crisis of the American Revolution and the European crisis posed by the threat of French radicalism, Protestant Ireland challenged – rather than reinforced – the assumptions which had grounded earlier decades and paved the way towards its own contested future
