IRELAND: ENGLAND’S FIRST COLONY
BRITISH ISLES
IRELANDINTRO
PROVINCESPROVINCES
COUNTIES – most were small kingdoms
CLANS IN GAELIC IRELAND
Family-based landholding - bailles and townlands
Monastic Christianity – no towns except near monasteries or where Vikings founded ports
Wealth based on cattle and land
Chiefs elected out of most important family – did not automatically inherit – ‘tanistry’
LEGAL SYSTEM
Brehon law – based on family responsibility as well as individual responsibilty; fines
Rights of women – more than other places Language – no words for “yes” “no” or personal
possessions
COTTAGES AND TURF
PRE-ENGLISH: 60-300 CHIEFDOMS AND KINGDOMS
Surnames based
on descent from an
ancestor, not occupation or place
Some of Europe’s oldest names
Tribal society
IRISH SOLDIERS – 1500s
FIRST INVASION AND ‘THE PALE’
English KingHenry II invited By MacMurroughClaims throne ofIreland.Can’t conquer but Gains foothold Around Dublin –“The Pale”Norman knights becomeIrish – Burkes, Doyles
KEEPSKEEPS
ENGLISH-IRISH RELATIONS
“Wild Irish” – English settlers and officials consider those living outside their towns as uncivilized. English become a power to be used by one
chieftain against another. Irish chieftains more concerned about
their own power and their traditional enemies than about the English threat.
TUDOR POLICIES
“Surrender and regrant” policy. Submit to the English king and the chieftain got a title. “Earl of ….”
Martial law – King can impose military control over an area in rebellion.
Rebellions by Irish lords are crushed – wars with Fitzgeralds in 1550s and ’60s. English soldiers awarded with land and estates.
“Submission and pardon”- A chieftain and his men surrender and are pardoned.
Tudor policy: Submission and regrant
Sir Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert commit first atrocity in English colonial history – massacre 600 surrendered soldiers. 1560s.
“TYRONE’S REBELLION” or Nine Years War
As time goes on, more and more English towns and settlements are established.
Strongest native area still Gaelic in both culture and politics is Ulster, in north.
Most powerful families – the O’Neills Others: O’Donnells, Maguires, McMahons,
O’Cahans In 1560s Shane O’Neill conquers and unites
Ulster, but is assassinated in 1569. Scares English.
NINE YEARS WAR
Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone
Raised in the household of an English settler
Loyal to the Queen in rebellions
Finally fed up with English treatment
INITIAL SUCCESS! Large English armies destroyed
Battle of Yellow Ford
Battle of Yellow Ford
Continued Success
Many northern chieftains ally with O’Neill
English blunders – Elizabeth sends her favorite the Earl of Essex in 1599.
He marches in wrong direction; makes a truce with O’Neill. Executed upon return to England
O’Neill looks for help
Contacts Spanish Conducts guerrilla-
style war – raids and burning of English settlements.
Pretends to ask for truces, but was probably biding his time.
SPANISH HELP!
A Spanish force lands in Southwest Ireland and digs in at Kinsale.
English lay siege. O’Neill and his allies
march the length of the island in three days to relieve the siege.
English under Mountjoy destroy the Irish forces.
AFTERMATH
English commander Mountjoy (below) burns crops, uses famine to pursue O’Neill, hem in his territory. About a
thousand people starve to death in Devlin territory alone, for hiding O’Neill.
O’Neill is forced to submit in 1602. Once he does he learns Elizabeth had died two weeks earlier.
FLIGHT OF THE EARLS
Hugh O’Neill and other leaders flee Ireland after submitting to English
Thousands are starved or killed in war Thousands of Irish leave in years following to fight in
European armies – The “Wild Geese”
WHY THEY LOST!WHY THEY LOST!WHY THEY LOST
ULSTER PLANTATION
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/companies/index.shtml
CROMWELL IN IRELAND
Catholic landowners side with the King against Parliament.
At beginning of uprising, some Protestants are killed. Rumors of massacres grow.
Cromwell leads a force against the rebels.
4,000 massacred at Drogheda.“this is a righteous judgement of god upon thesebarbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood....”
ALWAYS ON THE WRONG SIDE
PENAL LAWS
A MASS ROCK
LESSONS
“Divide and conquer” tactics Destruction of native landholding and legal
systems and attempted replacement with ‘reliable’ English colonists
Cultural genocide – outlaw native customs Failure to include colonized people so they
become resentful. Left powerless and poverty-stricken, the Irish have frequent rebellions until independence in 1922.
Patronage – “going native” – some settlers helped to preserve Irish cultural practices
LEGACIES
http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Irish_origin