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