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Ireland

England's involvement in Ireland began several centuries before the Renaissance. The English controlled a small region of the country known as the Pale, which was home to most of Ireland's population. The lords who ruled the Pale, the "Old English," traced their ancestry back to English invaders of the 1100s. They generally supported the policies of the English crown as long as those policies did not conflict with their own interests. During the 1400s and 1500s, Ireland was culturally divided. The Pale was strongly English, but the areas outside the Pale were split between the English and the Gaelic (old Irish) worlds.

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

The Pale, which consisted of the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, and Louth, was the most fertile and prosperous region of Ireland. The aristocrats and gentry*, who owned most of the land, made money from it in two ways. They collected rents from their tenants, and they employed a system called "coyne and livery" that allowed them to demand food and lodging from tenants to support private armies. Although agriculture was the main source of wealth, a primitive trading economy was emerging in Dublin. Merchants exported farm products such as hides, tallow*, and yarn, and imported wine, salt, coal, and manufactured goods.

Renaissance Ireland lacked any kind of centralized power. Individual lords maintained control over their own lands. England entrusted the responsibilities of government to Old English lords, asking only that they maintain order, collect taxes, and raise troops in case of an emergency. Although this policy was the simplest and least expensive way for the English to handle Ireland, it also posed political risks. Any lord powerful enough to govern effectively might well use his power against the English crown.

The most powerful lords in the Pale were the Fitzgeralds of Kildare, who also had extensive holdings in Gaelic areas. During the late 1400s and early 1500s, the Kildare lords represented the English crown as chief governors of Ireland. Despite outbreaks of local violence, English government under the Kildares was generally effective, and the revenue received by the crown actually increased.

IRELAND AND ENGLAND

England's relations with Ireland began to change during the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485), a time when two major families in England struggled for control of the throne. Twice during this period, forces based in Ireland attempted to invade England and overthrow its king. One of the invasions was supported by the Irish Parliament and the earl of Kildare. In 1494 England sent a royal deputy to Ireland to punish the lords who had backed the invasion and to place the Irish Parliament under English authority.

Fears of Rebellion. In 1533 the English king HENRY VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established the Protestant Church of England. As a Protestant nation, England faced new complications in its foreign policy. Hostile Catholic powers threatened to invade the country to restore the old religion. Ireland presented a weak point in the English defenses. Its large coastline and rugged terrain made it a perfect base of operations for a foreign power interested in invading England. Moreover, the English had little authority over the regions outside the Pale. A rebellion in Ireland would be difficult and costly to crush.

Henry VIII tried to gain more control over the government in Dublin and to reduce the influence of local lords. His adviser, Thomas CROMWELL, asked the ninth earl of Kildare to end the coyne and livery system and to appoint English officials to Irish government offices. When Kildare protested, the English arrested him. His son Thomas then rose up in rebellion against the English king. It took more than 2,000 troops to crush the uprising. England responded to the Kildare rebellion by appointing an English-born deputy to rule Ireland instead of a lord of the Pale.

English Domination. After Henry VIII failed in an attempt to invade France in 1543, the French sent agents to Ireland to stir up trouble. The English responded with more aggressive policies in Ireland. They planned to increase the number of troops in the country, extend English control into Gaelic territories, and seize Irish lands for new English settlers. These policies met with fierce resistance. To carry them out, English agents burned Irish villages and threatened the local population. English writers justified the attacks against the Irish by labeling them as barbarians, naturally inferior to the English.

By the 1550s English settlers were streaming into Ireland. Many of them were courtiers or gentlemen seeking government posts. Unlike the Old English, the newcomers had no ties to the land. They viewed Ireland as a colony and saw no need to share wealth or power with the local population. At the same time, the English imposed a new tax called the cess on the Irish population. This tax was used to maintain the English troops in Ireland, which grew in number from 2,000 men in the 1560s to 6,000 in the 1580s.

Beginning in the 1540s, the English crown took direct control of Irish policy. The old leaders of the Pale, stripped of most of their power, rebelled and sought assistance from Catholic nations in Europe. Three Irish families once loyal to England led uprisings between 1569 and 1579. Tension over Ireland continued throughout the 1580s, and the English continued to seek more control in Gaelic regions. In 1595 another rebellion broke out when England tried to seize the lands of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, a previously loyal Gaelic lord. Aided by the Spanish, O'Neill fought a guerrilla* war, avoiding direct clashes with English forces. The English spent huge amounts of money before O'Neill surrendered in 1603.

Ireland After 1600. In 1604 England made peace with Spain, and for the next several years Ireland played a smaller role in English politics. English officials focused on building up settlements in the Gaelic areas. Many Scots settled in Ulster, in the north of Ireland. In the 1620s Ireland took on renewed importance during the THIRTY YEARS' WAR (1618–1648), as England considered entering the conflict among several states in central Europe. England feared that if it supported Protestant states in the war, Catholic powers might once again try to attack England through Ireland.

Changes within England also had a negative impact on Ireland. In 1629 the English king CHARLES I dismissed Parliament. He then faced the problem of finding new sources of funds because only Parliament could raise taxes. One possible source was Ireland, where his deputy seized Irish lands—which had minor irregularities in property titles—for the English crown. This policy triggered another rebellion in Ireland in 1641. The king's efforts to end the uprising would eventually cost him the throne.

The Renaissance in Ireland. Culture did not blossom in Ireland during the Renaissance as it did in the rest of Europe. Humanist* learning had little impact on the island, where educational opportunities were limited. Until the 1540s the Catholic Church had dominated Irish learning, aided by poets, lawyers, and other educated individuals. In their efforts to control Ireland, English officials frequently clashed with the church, damaging the school system. Education suffered further when Henry VIII closed all the Catholic monasteries in his realm.

In the 1540s English leaders sought to impose English culture on Ireland and establish Protestantism as the official religion. To further this plan, the English crown took control of education in the 1560s and established several Latin grammar schools. In 1594 Ireland gained a Protestant university, known today as Trinity College in Dublin.

Despite English efforts, poets remained important figures in Irish society during the Renaissance. Powerful Irish lords often employed poets to write verses for various occasions. Because the poets depended on the lord's patronage*, their works reflected the lord's point of view. The English saw these poets as a possible threat and tried to reduce their influence. The work of some of the poets reflected a growing sense of national identity. When the earl of Tyrone fled Ireland in 1607, one Irish poet called for him to return and restore Ireland's rightful rulers to power.

(See also England; Spenser, Edmund.)

* gentry

people of high birth or social status

* tallow

processed animal fat used in candles and soap

* guerrilla

type of warfare involving sudden raids by small groups of warriors

A Harsh View

Many English writers of the late 1500s argued that England should take control of Ireland by force. They portrayed the Irish as a backward and inferior people. The most famous such argument was Sir Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596). Spenser proposed that the English should seize the land and starve the native Irish to death. He argued that the Irish deserved such harsh treatment because they had abused the privileges England had granted them. However, Spenser's work never appeared in print and may not have had any influence on English policy.

* humanist

referring to a Renaissance cultural movement promoting the study of the humanities (the languages, literature, and history of ancient Greece and Rome) as a guide to living

* patronage

support or financial sponsorship