British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland

In this book leading historians challenge traditional views about the British conquest and colonization of Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They reveal the contradictions, disappointments and failures, which attended the efforts of English and Scottish colonists. Notably, the British became increasingly aware of the need not to destroy the resources they originally sought to exploit.

This book offers a perspective on Irish History from the late sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Many of the chapters address, from national, regional and individual perspectives, the key events, institutions and processes that transformed the history of early modern Ireland. Others probe the nature of Anglo-Irish relations, Ireland's ambiguous constitutional position during these years and the problems inherent in running a multiple monarchy. Where appropriate, the volume adopts a wider comparative approach and casts fresh light on a range of historiographical debates, including the 'New British Histories', the nature of the 'General Crisis' and the question of Irish exceptionalism. Collectively, these essays challenge and complicate traditional paradigms of conquest and colonization. By examining the inconclusive and contradictory manner in which English and Scottish colonists established themselves in the island, it casts further light on all of its inhabitants during the early modern period.

1. New perspectives on the English in early modern Ireland Ciaran Brady and Jane Ohlmeyer; 2. The attainder of Shane O'Neill, Sir Henry Sidney and the problems of Tudor state-building in Ireland Ciaran Brady; 3. Dynamics of regional dvelopment: processes of assimilation and division in the marchland of South-East Ulster in late medieval and early modern Ireland Harold O'Sullivan; 4. The 'common good' and the university in an age of confessional conflict Helga Robinson-Hammerstein; 5. The construction of argument: Henry Fitzsimon, John Rider and religious controversy in Dublin, 1599–1614 Brian Jackson; 6. The bible and the bawn: an Ulster planter inventorised R. J. Hunter; 7. 'That bugbear Armenianism': Archbishop Laud and Trinity College, Dublin Alan Ford; 8. The Irish peers, political power and parliament, 1640-1 Jane Ohlmeyer; 9. The Irish elections of 1640–1 Brid McGrath; 10. Catholic confederates and the constitutional relationship between Ireland and England, 1641–9 Micheal O. Siochru; 11. Protestant churchmen and the confederate wars Robert Armstrong; 12. The crisis of the Spanish and the Stuart monarchies in the mid-seventeenth century: local problems or global problems? Geoffrey Parker; 13. Settlement, transplantation and expulsion: a comparative study of the placement of peoples Sarah Barber; 14. Interests in Ireland: the 'fanatic zeal and the irregular ambition' of Richard Lawrence Toby Barnard; 15. Temple's fate: reading the Irish Rebellion in late seventeenth-century Ireland Raymond Gillespie; 16. Conquest versus consent as the basis of the English title to Ireland in William Molyneaux's Case of Ireland … Stated (1698) Patrick Kelly.

This book offers a fundamental perspective on Ireland and Britain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It challenges traditional views about the nature of British conquest and colonisation and it reveals the contradictions, disappointments and failures, which attended the efforts of English and Scottish colonists.