This tightly written study examines all aspects of Fingal (north Dublin) in a period that saw its transformation in every sphere - the beliefs, values and norms of the community, religion, marriage and the family, education, literature, the legal profession, work, crime, and leisure pursuits. The result is a fascinating case study of the social and cultural realities of early modern Ireland.
The eleven years of conflict that engulfed Ireland (1641-53) can be seen as a drama in three acts, each of which drew Ireland into progressively closer alignment with the Civil Wars (1642-52) in the other two Stuart kingdoms, Scotland and England. The first act in the Wars of Religion in Ireland (1641-53) began in October 1641 with a rising in Ulster and shuddered to a halt in September 1643 when the insurgents, now embodied as the Confederate Catholics, agreed a ceasefire with Charles I’s representative in Ireland. This study is confined to Act One to manage its sheer scope and scale. Not a single county in Ireland was unscathed by war and in summer 1642 there were more men under arms than there ever had been or would be again. Moreover, Act One was singularly nasty. Insurgent slaughter of Protestant settlers in the winter of 1641-42 quickly gained canonical status. English and Scots armies routinely massacred natives in the spring and summer that followed. After their uprising failed, the Irish in 1642 were attacked by English and Scottish armies that were bigger, in aggregate, than any before or since. And that includes the armies of Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange. Lacking munitions, forced to disperse their strength, and usually outfought in open battle, the Confederate Catholics pushed back in war-as-process and food-fights in which castles dominating a chequerboard of hinterlands jostled with hostile neighbors. The Catholics were winning this small war when the music stopped in 1643. This is a study of the Catholic armies in Act One through a succinct narrative which reveals underlying pattern and purpose in what would otherwise be one apparently random battle, siege, skirmish, massacre, and cattle raid after another, devoid of form or meaning. The narrative focuses in and out, from the strategic through the operational down to the tactical and what happened in a particular place on a given day. The narrative also shifts from the southern or Leinster/Munster theater to the northern or Connacht/Ulster theater. Meaning is disclosed through narrative in which the strengths and shortcomings of the Irish armies become clearer. The quotation in the title sets up two such shortcomings, of leaders and led. One reason why the Catholics lost so many battles may be that their generals fought battles when they needn’t have, showed a fatal preference for the all-out attack, and did not always deploy in a manner that let their army’s components, pike, shot and horse act in mutual support. Another reason may be that the rankers were less invested in the Catholic cause than their officers. But the establishing quotation is followed by a question mark. Perhaps the real question to be asked is how the Catholic armies achieved so much rather than why they failed.
Dublin has experienced great—and often astonishing—change in its 1,400 year history. It has been the largest urban center on a deeply contested island since towns first appeared west of the Irish Sea. There have been other contested cities in the European and Mediterranean world, but almost no European capital city, David Dickson maintains, has seen sharper discontinuities and reversals in its history—and these have left their mark on Dublin and its inhabitants. Dublin occupies a unique place in Irish history and the Irish imagination. To chronicle its vast and varied history is to tell the story of Ireland. David Dickson’s magisterial history brings Dublin vividly to life beginning with its medieval incarnation and progressing through the neoclassical eighteenth century, when for some it was the “Naples of the North,” to the Easter Rising that convulsed a war-weary city in 1916, to the bloody civil war that followed the handover of power by Britain, to the urban renewal efforts at the end of the millennium. He illuminates the fate of Dubliners through the centuries—clergymen and officials, merchants and land speculators, publishers and writers, and countless others—who have been shaped by, and who have helped to shape, their city. He reassesses 120 years of Anglo-Irish Union, during which Dublin remained a place where rival creeds and politics struggled for supremacy. A book as rich and diverse as its subject, Dublin reveals the intriguing story behind the making of a capital city.
Ireland was England's oldest colony. Making Empire revisits the history of empire in IrelandEDin a time of Brexit, 'the culture wars', and the campaigns around 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Statues must fall'EDto better understand how it has formed the present, and how it might shape the future. Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history ofthe world for the last two millennia. It is nation states that are the blip on the historical horizon. Making Empire re-examines empire as processEDand Ireland's role in itEDthrough the lens of early modernity. It covers the two hundred years, between themid-sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century, that equate roughly to the timespan of the First English Empire (c.1550-c.1770s). Ireland was England's oldest colony. How then did the English empire actually function in early modern Ireland and how did this change over time? What did access to European empires mean for people living in Ireland? This book answers these questions by interrogating four interconnected themes. First, that Ireland formed an integral partof the English imperial system, Second, that the Irish operated as agents of empire(s). Third, Ireland served as laboratory in and for the English empire. Finally, it examines the impact that empire(s)had on people living in early modern Ireland. Even though the book's focus will be on Ireland and the English empire, the Irish were trans-imperial and engaged with all of the early modern imperial powers. It is therefore critical, where possible and appropriate, to look to other European and global empires for meaningful comparisons and connections in this era of expansionism. What becomes clear is that colonisation was not a single occurrence but an iterative anddurable process that impacted different parts of Ireland at different times and in different ways. That imperialism was about the exercise of power, violence, coercion and expropriation. Strategies about howbest to turn conquest into profit, to mobilise and control Ireland's natural resources, especially land and labour, varied but the reality of everyday life did not change and provoked a wide variety of responses ranging from acceptance and assimilation to resistance. This book, based on the 2021 James Ford Lectures, Oxford University, suggests that the moment has come revisit the history of empire, if only to better understand how it has formed the present, and how thismight shape the future.
Edward Rutherfurd’s stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Beginning where the first volume, The Princes of Ireland, left off, The Rebels of Ireland takes us into a world transformed by the English practice of “plantation,” which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland. Once again Rutherfurd takes us inside the process of history by tracing the lives of several Dublin families from all strata of society – Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic. From the time of the plantations and Elizabeth’s ascendancy Rutherfurd moves into the grand moments of Irish history: the early-17th-century “Flight of the Earls,” when the last of the Irish aristocracy fled the island; Oliver Cromwell’s brutal oppression and confiscation of lands a half-century later; the romantic, doomed effort of “The Wild Geese” to throw off Protestant oppression at the Battle of the Boyne. The reader sees through the eyes of the victims and the perpetrators alike the painful realities of the anti-Catholic penal laws, the catastrophic famine and the massive migration to North America, the rise of the great nationalists O’Connell and the tragic Parnell, the glorious Irish cultural renaissance of Joyce and Yeats, and finally, the triumphant founding of the Irish Republic in 1922. Written with all the drama and sweep that has made Rutherfurd the bestselling historical novelist of his generation, The Rebels of Ireland is both a necessary companion to The Princes of Ireland and a magnificent achievement in its own right.
This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive study of the remaking of Ireland's aristocracy during the seventeenth century. It is a study of the Irish peerage and its role in the establishment of English control over Ireland. Jane Ohlmeyer's research in the archives of the era yields a major new understanding of early Irish and British elite, and it offers fresh perspectives on the experiences of the Irish, English, and Scottish lords in wider British and continental contexts. The book examines the resident peerage as an aggregate of 91 families, not simply 311 individuals, and demonstrates how a reconstituted peerage of mixed faith and ethnicity assimilated the established Catholic aristocracy. Tracking the impact of colonization, civil war, and other significant factors on the fortunes of the peerage in Ireland, Ohlmeyer arrives at a fresh assessment of the key accomplishment of the new Irish elite: making Ireland English.
An accessible and innovative look at Irish history by some of today's most exciting historians of Ireland This book brings together some of today's most exciting scholars of Irish history to chart the pivotal events in the history of modern Ireland while providing fresh perspectives on topics ranging from colonialism and nationalism to political violence, famine, emigration, and feminism. The Princeton History of Modern Ireland takes readers from the Tudor conquest in the sixteenth century to the contemporary boom and bust of the Celtic Tiger, exploring key political developments as well as major social and cultural movements. Contributors describe how the experiences of empire and diaspora have determined Ireland’s position in the wider world and analyze them alongside domestic changes ranging from the Irish language to the economy. They trace the literary and intellectual history of Ireland from Jonathan Swift to Seamus Heaney and look at important shifts in ideology and belief, delving into subjects such as religion, gender, and Fenianism. Presenting the latest cutting-edge scholarship by a new generation of historians of Ireland, The Princeton History of Modern Ireland features narrative chapters on Irish history followed by thematic chapters on key topics. The book highlights the global reach of the Irish experience as well as commonalities shared across Europe, and brings vividly to life an Irish past shaped by conquest, plantation, assimilation, revolution, and partition.
How did the Protestants gain a monopoly over the running of Ireland and replace the Catholics as rulers and landowners? To answer this question, Toby Barnard: - Examines the Catholics' attempt to regain control over their own affairs, first in the 1640s and then between 1689 and 1691 - Outlines how military defeats doomed the Catholics to subjection, allowing Protestants to tighten their grip over the government - Studies in detail the mechanisms - both national and local - through which Protestant control was exercised Focusing on the provinces as well as Dublin, and on the subjects as well as the rulers, Barnard draws on an abundance of unfamiliar evidence to offer unparalleled insights into Irish lives during a troubled period.
The study of Irish history, once riven and constricted, has recently enjoyed a resurgence, with new practitioners, new approaches, and new methods of investigation. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History represents the diversity of this emerging talent and achievement by bringing together 36 leading scholars of modern Ireland and embracing 400 years of Irish history, uniting early and late modernists as well as contemporary historians. The Handbook offers a set of scholarly perspectives drawn from numerous disciplines, including history, political science, literature, geography, and the Irish language. It looks at the Irish at home as well as in their migrant and diasporic communities. The Handbook combines sets of wide thematic and interpretative essays, with more detailed investigations of particular periods. Each of the contributors offers a summation of the state of scholarship within their subject area, linking their own research insights with assessments of future directions within the discipline. In its breadth and depth and diversity, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History offers an authoritative and vibrant portrayal of the history of modern Ireland.
This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political, military, religious, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts. The opening chapters focus on 'Politics' and 'Religion and War' and offer a chronological narrative, informed by the re-interpretation of new archives. The remaining chapters are more thematic, with chapters on 'Society', 'Culture', and 'Economy and Environment', and often respond to wider methodologies and historiographical debates. Interdisciplinary cross-pollination - between, on the one hand, history and, on the other, disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, geography, computer science, literature and gender and environmental studies - informs many of the chapters. The volume offers a range of new departures by a generation of scholars who explain in a refreshing and accessible manner how and why people acted as they did in the transformative and tumultuous years between 1550 and 1730.
