Christianity and Identity in Ireland
Ireland in the 17th Century
IV. THE END OF GAELIC IRELAND
• Suppression of Gaelic earls in Munster left Gaelic Ulster dangerously exposed
• Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone (1550-1516)
• Most powerful, and last of the great Gaelic lords
• Upbringing in England and the Pale• Loyal to the Crown• Represses Scots-Gaelic colonisation
in north Ulster• Militarises Ulster• Recognised the fragility of his
preferment by the Crown and the implications of the new ideology
• Would have to choose – am I an English earl or a Gaelic cheiftan?
• Actions of O’Donnell’s and Maguires forced his hand
• Ulster at War: 1594-1603 (Nine Year War)
• Initially successful:– Ford of Biscuits (1594)– Clontibret (1595)– Yellow Ford (1598)
• Couldn’t take towns• Emboldened by initial success• Appeals to Spain and Pope• Why might this have been a
mistake? – Spanish Armada, 1588
• 1599 – appeals to Old English: “Faith and Fatherland”
• Draws up demands• Lord Mountjoy appointed LD,
brings 20,000 men to Kinsale to meet Spanish soldiers
• Tyrone surrenders, but given generous terms
• However, the age of Gaelic rule is over
Flight of the Earls, September 1607
James I/VI• King of Scotland
from 1567• 1603, becomes
king of England and Ireland
• Plantation of Ulster began in 1608
Plantation of Ulster• Lowland vs. Highland
– 1493, James IV breaks “Lordship of the Isles
– As 16th century progresses Gaelic world seen as culturally degenerate
"void of the knawledge and feir of God" and guilty of "all kynd of barbarous and bestile cruelteis“
– 1609, Statutes of Iona• Escheated lands
presents James I/VI with opportunity drive a wedge into the Gaelic world
• Flight of Earls, 4th September 1607, Privy Council agree to plantation on 29th September
Plantation of Ulster• Unlike colonisation under
Mary and Elizabeth Ulster Plantation is privatised– County of Coleraine granted to
‘Companies of the City of London’– Private Undertakers– Servitors– Deserving Irish, 20%
• Fortified house and 24 young Protestant men per 1000 acres
• Part of a wider transatlantic colonial project (c.f. Virginia Company, 1609)
• Driven by Ideology: Providentialism
• Often investors were Puritans
Religion and Plantation
• Reformation had failed in Ireland
• Established Church was marginal
• Majority of 1.2 million population worship in underground Catholic movement
• But: New English were Puritan and more stridently anti-Catholic
• James Ussher, 1581-1656
Religion and Plantation• Calvinist 15 Articles
(1615)• Ussher brings reformed
bishops from Scotland to Ulster
• Andrew Knox, Raphoe• Robert Echlin, Down and
Connor• 1622, 64 Scots
Presbyterian ministers serving in CoI
• 1625, Ussher appointed Archbishop of Armagh
• 1000s of mostly poor Scots Presbyterians colonised Antrim and Down
• Hated official church, “raw Presbyterianism”
• 1613 Edward Brice @ Broadisland
• 1615 Robert Cunningham @ Hollywood
• 1619 John Ridge, an English dissenter, @ Antrim
• 1619 Josias Welsh, the grandson of John Knox, at Templepatrick
• 1621 Rev John Hubbard brought his congregation from London to Carrickfergus
• 1623 James Glendinning replaced Hubbard @ Carrickfergus
• 1623 Robert Blair @ Bangor
• 1625 George Dunbar a former minister at Ayr and prisoner in Blackness Castle settled in Larne
• 1625 James Hamilton, nephew of Lord Claneboye, @ Ballywalter
• 1627 Andrew Stewart @ Donegore
• 1630 John Livingston at Kilinchy
Scots Presbyterians serving in Church of Ireland
Six Mile Water Revival• James Glendinning incumbent of Carnmoney and a lecturer
at Carrickfergus—largely English.• Rev. Robert Blair invited Glendinning to move to Oldstone
(Muckamore) among Scots. • Glendinning underwent transformation
– instances of people swooning and of 'high breathing and panting'
• Welsh, Blair, Ridge, Cunningham and Hamilton joined in the revival that swept the river valley of the Six Mile Water.
• Glendinning left the district in 1630.– Ill and intending to visit the seven churches of Asia.
• In 1630s a monthly meetings sometimes with 1,500 attending• Not evangelical, linked to Presbyterian doctrines of election
and predestination• Helped to sustain a poor people in a tough pioneer
environment; gave them purpose and galvanised their identity
James I/VI Policy in Ireland• Overall, things settled.
• Of James’ overall legacy he told Lord Deputy Chichester:– ‘the settling of religion, the
introducing civility, order, and government amongst a barbarous and unsubdued people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy always of a Christian prince to endeavour.
• 1628: ‘Graces’– OE and NE to provide £120,000 over
three years and not support France and Spain
• No Oath of Supremacy
• No imposition of Recusancy fines
• Guaranteed security of titles held for more than 60 years
• Major advance for policy in Ireland
Charles I, 1625-1649• Background: 30 years war• Religious tensions in Europe at
all time high; radical Puritanism gains voice in England
• Emphasized divine right of kings
• Financially impoverished• Concentrates power in Privy
Council, refuses to call Parliament
• William Laud and “Laudianism”• To Puritans, Laudianism =
Catholicism in disguise
Charles I Policy in Ireland
• Thomas Wentworth appointed LD, 1632-1639
• Ireland is corrupt; no allies, just interests– New English: investigates
Richard Boyle and recovers money– Old English: promises to
implement “graces” in return for more money but backtracks once subsidies secured
– Gaelic Ireland: confiscated north Wicklow for himself
– Presbyterian Ulster: creates “court of high commission”, implements Laudian reform, deprives some Presbyterian CoI clergy of their living, prosecutes others
• Major improvements to infrastructure, manages to make Ireland profitable, but at huge cost
Irish Repercussions of Charles’ failed Scottish
Policy• 1637, institution of
Scottish Book of Common Prayer
• Does not go down well!
• 1638, Scottish National Covenant
• 300,000 signatures • Modelled on OT
covenants, any problem with this?
• Covenant widely subscribed to in Scots-Ulster also
• This alarms an already suspicious Dublin Castle
• Wentworth issues “Black Oath”
• Further helps to establish a distinctive Ulster-Scottish identity
• How would Gaelic and Old English Ireland have felt about the enthusiasm shown by the Ulster Presbyterians to the Covenant?
Sir George Radcliffe (1640'...many thousands in the North
never took the oath... they will shortly return, to any that dares question them, such an answer as Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, made to Sir John Comyn, who, charging him with breach of oath, taken at Westminster to King Edward, replies, with cleaving his head in two. None is so dim-sighted, but sees the general inclination of the Ulster Scots to the covenant: and God forbid they should tarry there till the Earl of Argyll brings them arms to cut our throats...'
Irish Repercussions of Charles’ failed Scottish
Policy
Charles I Policy in Ireland• British network of radical
Puritans (particularly William Pym and John Clotworthy) see the Scottish crisis as an opportunity to accomplish their long cherished aim– Arrest of Laud– Church reform– Godly Government
• True to the Covenant, Scottish mobilise an army, Bishops War, 1639-40
• Truce of Newcastle• Wentworth raises an Irish
catholic army of 9000 to support Charles
• Charles is forced to call Parliament and calls Wentworth to London to manage troublesome Puritan faction
Ulster Rising/Rebellion• Puritan “long Parliament”
after 1641• Gaelic Lords, headed by Sir
Phelim O’Neill use Wentowrth’s army to mount rebellion
• Soon deteriorates into bitter sectarian fighting– Portadown drownings– Islandmagee massacre
• Sir John Temple’s Irish Rebellion (1646) claimed 120,000 Protestants killed.– More than are actually in the
country.
• Perhaps accurate number 3-5,000
• Propaganda has enormous impact in Britian – confirms Puritans worst fears!!