Ireland History - Northern Irish History Belfast Dublin

All Irish, but Culturally Feudal

The period may, therefore, be roughly described as one of ” unchecked feudalism.” Ireland was a country with no central Government, each territory ruled by its own petty lord or chief. All were Irish, but they were also feudal.

In most cases there was not even the control of a superior great lord. Desmond, Ormonde and Kildare might, to some extent, act as petty Kings ; O’Neill and O’Donnell, O’Brien and Mac Carthy might control their own immediate sub-chiefs ; but the general tendency was in favour of purely local independence.

 As the lords had thrown off the dominion of the King, so the clans had lost much of the old tradition of acknowledged supremacy. The Kings of Aileach, of Tara, of Laighin, and of Caiseal still succeed one another, but their power is only nominal.

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Lambert Simnel and the Retention of Kildare

Henry found that the Yorkist Geraldines were too powerful to interfere with for the present. He did, indeed, summon Kildare to London, but the Earl evaded the call by getting a Parliament to declare that his presence in Ireland was essential. Kildare was continued as Deputy, his brother Thomas as Chancellor, and Portlester as Treasurer.

But they, and nearly all the Anglo-Irish, were still Yorkist, and they soon had an opportunity of displaying their sympathies. The last male representative of the House of York, Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, a boy of twelve, was a prisoner in the Tower of London. Some Yorkist adherents got a youth named Lambert Simnel to personate him, and brought him to Ireland, where he was received with open arms by the leading officials. Kildare held aloof for some time, but when Warwick’s aunt, the Duchess of Burgundy, sent an army of Germans to support the pretender, the Earl declared in his favour. Simnel was crowned in Christ Church as Edward VI, and was accepted by many of the Anglo-Irish and by many towns, but not by the Butlers or the city of Waterford. At the head of an army of Germans and Anglo-Irish Simnel landed in England, but was defeated and captured at Stoke (H87)-Even this did not disturb Kildare’s position.

Next year Henry sent a Commissioner to take the homage of those who had sided with the Pretender, and to lay down the conditions upon which they would be pardoned. Kildare kept out of the Commissioner’s way for some time, and when he and the Council heard the conditions, they declared that sooner than accept them they woidd one and all “become Irish.” At length the conditions were withdrawn, and Kildare and the other officials were pardoned and retained in office upon taking an oath of allegiance to Henry.

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The Fenian Brotherhood

Above : Photo Of John O’Mahony

The idea of engineering an Irish evolution by means of American help was too promising to be easily abandoned.In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ireland had oked to Spain. In the eighteenth she turned to France. Now she held out her supplicating hands to America, but with a surer hope, for those whose aid she sought were not strangers, but her own exiled sons.
The actual originator of ” The Irish Republican Brotherhood,” founded in New York in 1858, was John O’Mahony, who, like Stephens, had joined in the ‘48 rising, and had been obliged, in consequence, to fly from Ireland. He was the first ” Head Centre ” or chief. A translation which he had once made of Geoffrey Keating’s History had interested him in the Fianna, the militia of ancient Ireland, and he adopted as a title for the new society that of the ” Fenian Brotherhood,” by which it is still generally known and remembered.

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Tide of Emigration

Above : The Emigrant Prepare To Leave

By the closing months of 1847 the distress had greatly lessened. The harvest was a very good one, and, before the end of the year, the famine might be regarded as over. Its effects, however, long remained. Results of the Famine.—The classes which had been the employers of labour had been greatly impoverished. The smaller farmers h id been obliged to sell their live-stock, their implements, often even their seed-corn.

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A Cessation Agreed On

Above : Belfast Castle

Meanwhile the negotiations were being carried on between Ormond and the Confederates. The former had been directed by the King to agree to a cessation of hostilities for a year, during which arrangements for a permanent peace might be made. The old Irish, like the Parliamentarians, though, of course, for widely different reasons, disapproved of the proposed cessation, and indeed held that an attempt to treat with any English party at this juncture was a mistake, ff they continued to press their conquests, they would be in a position to force good terms from whichever side should be victorious in England ; whereas the cessation would give their enemies time to sow dissensions amongst them; moreover, the loss of 10,000 men whom they were to send to the King’s aid would seriously diminish their military power, and consequently their chances of a successful resistance, should the negotiations end unsatisfactorily, or the terms granted them not be observed. The Anglo-Irish party, however, were the stronger in the Supreme Council and also apparently in the General Assembly.

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The Grandeur of Ireland

Above : Picture Of Wentworth

The prosperity of Ireland was, however, to be sought—such was the Deputy’s view—not for her own sake, but that she might minister to the prosperity of England and the power of the English Crown. There¬fore, any branch of Irish industry which seemed to threaten to rival or interfere with a similar industry in England must be at once repressed.

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Constitution of the Parliament

Above : St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Since 1585 no Parliament had sat in Ireland : now it appeared expedient that one should be summoned ; not only because the King was in urgent need of money, but also in order to legalise the confiscation of the Ulster lands by the attainder of their former possessors. So far, Irish Parliaments had been representative only of a part, and that by no means a large part, of the country; the districts namely which were really under the authority of the English Crown, and sometimes of some of the southern towns. Now members would be returned from each of the counties and boroughs in the four provinces. The Catholics were almost everywhere in a great majority. To counteract their influence, forty new boroughs were created, of which nineteen were in the newly-planted lands of Ulster, while all were carefully selected as likely to return Protestant representatives. It was hoped that, by this means, a majority would always be secured for the Reformers, who were deemed to be the Government party.

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Burning Sense of Injustice of the Plantation

Above : Map Of Ireland, Purple Color = Ulster Plantation

Of a lower class than the tenant farmers were the Irish labourers, and it was evident from the first that all of these could not be expelled. It was arranged that a quarter of the labourers on each estate should be allowed to remain, on condition that they taught their children English and brought them up as Protestants. This regulation was, however, not enforced. The planters showed themselves quite indifferent as to the creed professed or the language spoken by those who ploughed their fields and reaped their corn. Instead of the children of the labourers learning English, the children of the newcomers learned Irish, and what changes of religion took place were generally in the same direction.

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Policy of Mountjoy and of Chichester

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Above : Picture Of Sir Arthur Chichester, Replace MountjoyÂ

The nine years’ war which he had waged against the power of England had won for Hugh O’Neill a great reputation, not only throughout the British Isles, but also on the Continent of Europe. Henry IV of France, no mean judge of military ability, counted him as ranking third amongst the famous soldiers of his age. Even in defeat, he was certainly the most important man in Ireland, and this Mountjoy realised. ” On my Lord Tyrone all the tranquillity of this Kingdom doth depend,” he declared.

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The Battle of the Curlew Hills

Above : Picture Of Richard Burke

Clifford assembled his men at Boyle. Besides the English troops, there were bands of Irish under O’Connor Don, Richard Burke, Baron of Dunkellin, and Maelmuire Mac Swiney ; in all about 3,000 men.

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