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MAP OF IRELAND CIRCA 1900
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The independent nature of the Anglo-Irish lords and parliament, as well as the Gaelic chieftains, were a problem for late 15th century England. The power of local lords was the dominant political influence in Ireland, and most of the country was under the rule of Gaelic or Gaelicized lords. The real political clout in Ireland was in the hands of the Earls of Kildare ever since the Ormonds backed the losing Lancastrian side of England's War of Roses, and after the rebellion of the Desmonds around 1468. In 1494 king Henry VII sent Sir Edward Poyning to help bring the settlers more into step and legislation was passed at Drogheda which restated categorically the subordinate position of the Irish parliament to the English parliament. In 1534, Henry VIII tried to regain England's influence in Ireland. He took all power away from the 'rebelling' Earls of Kildare, Norman-Irish noblemen who had long controlled English interests in Ireland, and Henry set up more direct control. In 1541, Henry succeeded in having Ireland's Parliament declare him king of Ireland. He established English laws in Ireland and tried, with little success, to introduce Protestantism in the country. When Henry broke with the Catholic Church, he instigated the Protestant Reformation which would eventually set the deeply Catholic Irish on a collision course with the zealously Protestant English. What followed was, at first, a gradual replacement of Anglo-Irish politicians, landowners and clergy with those more 'sympathetic' to the Crown. In 1536-37 Irish monastic property was declared confiscate to the Crown and the Anglicized Church of Ireland became the sole legal religion in the lordship of Ireland. In 1553 to 1558, the plantation of English and Scottish settlers began in counties Antrim, Monaghan, Limerick, and in Queen's county. Plantations were soon started in portions of central Kerry, eastern King's county, northest Down, western Waterford and sections of counties Cork and Tipperary. The introduction of plantations was to dominate Irish politics down to 1641. |
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When Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth became Queen in 1558 England's control over Ireland was at low ebb. Just the year before, the first in a long series of rebellions against English rule had broken out in Ulster. Although not successful, this rebellion confirmed for Elizabeth that more stringent measures would have to be taken to stabilize English domination in Ireland once and for all. First she imposed the Anglican faith upon the hostile Catholic populace and then she began steadily expanding the previously unsuccessful plantation system (as shown on the map above). As the Irish responded in 1593, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, took the 'illegal' Gaelic title of "The O'Neill" and prepared to lead the Ulster chiefs in defence of territory and religion. Seeing their days numbered by forces destined to completely erode their power, the Irish continued the struggle in 1594, spearheaded by Red Hugh O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, who defeated an English army at the 'Ford of the Biscuits'. The Irish in Ulster, led by Hugh O'Neill, Ulster's "principle chieftain," succeeded among other places, at the Battle of Yellow Ford, County Armagh, in 1598. With the arrival and successes of Lord Mountjoy as English governor in 1600, the Irish campaign appeared to be undermined. In 1601 a Spanish fleet, backed by King Philip III, arrived at Kinsale with 3,800 troops to assist the Irish. The rebellion however suffered a crushing blow at the seige and Battle of Kinsale of December 1601, ending in an English victory. O'Neill later signed a peace treaty at Mellifont in March, 1603, retaining his lands and earldom. Thus ended the Nine Year's War in Ireland lasting from 1594 to 1603. When James I succeeded Queen Elizabeth in 1603, he resumed the plantation of English and Scottish settlers with a vengeance, especially in the part of Ireland which had been the center of the uprising: Ulster. Threatened by all the newcomers, O'Neill and about one hundred of the most important people in Ulster fled the country from Rathmullan, County Donegal in 1607. This 'flight of the earls' is generally agreed by historians to be the real end of the Gaelic civilization as a political entity in Ireland. Following this event dramatic changes were in store for the Irish. In 1610, the settlement in County Coleraine (Derry) by a group of London livery companies caused the name of the county to be changed to Londonderry. In 1622 little more than 13,000 Protestants lived in Ulster, yet by 1641 their population was over 100,000. Within 30 years of the arrival of James’ first settlers, only slightly more than 10 per cent of Ulster still belonged to the Catholic native Irish. In a generation the social structure of Ulster had been re-engineered in a fashion that would have painful consequences for both the newly installed, privileged Protestant majority and the disenfranchised, soon to be impoverished Catholic minority. During Plantation most of the Irish remained on their lands because the planters needed their labor, but they remained as tenants rather than owners of their own land. By 1641, the Irish revolted again, establishing a national parliament in Kilkenny which stood not only for independence but for full liberty of religion and conscience. When Oliver Cromwell landed with his zealously Protestant troops at Dublin on August 15, 1649, the fate of the Catholic Irish was sealed. This national revolt of the Irish people was brutally crushed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649-1650, its people murdered by the tens of thousands, the Catholic religion outlawed, and the rights of its native people reduced to little more than livestock. By 1653 the English had completely subjugated the entire island, by the combination of massacres, pestilence, and starvation which was estimated to have killed between half and two-thirds of the Irish people; while untold thousands of others were shipped off into slavery in the American colonies and the West Indies. Those who could began to flee to the European Continent, reminiscent of the flight of the earls earlier in the century. Worse followed when the English Parliament declared that after May 1, 1654, under penalty of death, no Irish could live east of the River Shannon and only those who could prove they had not been rebels could own land west of the Shannon. All the land east of the Shannon was divided among Protestant settlers. In 1641 when The Rising began, nearly eighty percent of the land in Ireland belonged to Catholics. By the year 1665 only 20 percent remained in Catholic hands. By 1703, less than 5 per cent of the land of Ulster was still in the hands of the Catholic Irish. Extinction of the Geraldine Earldoms John Fitzthomas, Lord of Offaly, who was created Earl of Kildare in 1316, received a grant of land and established Maynooth as a family seat. The Fitzgeralds steadily increased their wealth and influence with a combination of political cunning and expedient marriages. The power of the House of Kildare reached its zenith during the time of Garret Mór, the 8th Earl, henceforth known as the "Great Earl". He established a sovereignty which lasted until 1534 and the rebellion of his grandson, Silken Thomas, 10th (and last) Earl of Kildare. Thomas, along with his five uncles, was executed in London, at Tyburn Hill in 1537. Thus ended the power of the House of Kildare, never again to recover its former eminence and influence. The Tudor monarchs in England, wishing to centralize all power in their own hands, sought to curb the power of the Desmond Geraldines. They also sought to promote the tenets of the Reformation on Geraldine lands and to establish colonies of English on them. In 1571, the Geraldines, under their leader, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, revolted against English rule. The uprising sparked off a savage war in Munster, during which the province was laid waste. It ended with the destruction of the house of Desmond in 1583 and the confiscation of the vast Geraldine estates. |
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Following the massacres and confiscations of property by Cromwell in 1653, the landed gentry of Ireland had rapidly converted from that of the Irish and Old English (Anglo-Irish) to that of the Protestant New English. Lands in the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster were given to veterans of the Parliamentary Army and adventurers under Cromwell and Ireton. For those who would accept transplantation, Irish lands were reserved in the province of Connacht, excluding coastal lands and most of County Sligo and Leitrim. Following the collapse of the Cromwellian regime in December 1659, Charles II was proclaimed King after restoration of the Monarchy in England. His policies in Ireland resulted in further land settlement during the 1660's. By 1685 James II ascended the throne. James was a Roman Catholic and during his reign, a more pro-Catholic policy was enacted in Ireland. As a result of Protestant nervousness, the English removed James from the throne in 1688. The Irish prepared to rebel and invited the ousted King James to lead them. James borrowed troops from France and landed in Ireland in 1689, the year that William (III) and Mary ascend to the throne in England. The Catholic Irish, comprising the vast majority of the population, had supported the Jacobite (King James) cause. In June, 1690 William III of England landed at Carrickfergus to face the Jacobite forces under James II and the Irish. The English defeated James on the banks of the Boyne on July 11, 1690, and he fled to France to his benefactor, Louis XIV of France. James's forces suffered further defeat the following year at the Battle of Aughrim. The war ended with the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. The terms of the Treaty were satisfactory to the Irish, but were subsequently dishonoured and Limerick became known as the city of the violated treaty. The Treaty of Limerick was not ungenerous to the defeated Catholics, but they were soon to suffer from penal laws designed to reinforce Protestant ascendancy throughout Irish life. The Battle of the Boyne marked the beginning of Protestant control over Catholics in Ireland. Its anniversary is celebrated by Protestants in Northern Ireland. The Treaty of Limerick marked the "flight of the Wild Geese" where many of the old Irish and Old English military and gentry seek their fortune in other European countries. In 1695 the beginning of penal legislation is enacted against the Irish Catholics and Dissenters in Ireland. Between 1695 and 1728 a series of acts is passed which forbade Irish Catholics from practicing their faith and the vast majority of wealthy Catholics were stripped of their wealth, their positions, their estates and their homes, leaving them virtually paupers. The penal acts prevent Catholics from bearing arms and owning horses worth more than £5. They restricted their rights to education, stop them from buying land, and on death, Catholic property must be divided among all sons. Catholics are banned from serving in the army, holding public office, entering the legal profession, becoming MPs or voting. In 1720 an Act declared the right of the British Parliament to pass laws for Ireland. As a little known event to add to the troubles in Ireland in the middle of the eighteenth century, a famine occured in 1739-40 which was said to have caused nearly 400,000 deaths to occur in Ireland. Later in the century revolutionary fervor, ignited by rebellions in France and the newly formed United States of America, spurred new rebellions in the 1790s aimed at undermining the Protestant conquest of Ireland.
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The influence of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland reached its peak in the 18th century, politically due to the loss of voting and office-holding privileges of the Catholic majority. By 1778 the continued persecution of native Catholics resulted in their ownership of a meager 5% of Irish land. All was not negative during for Ireland during the 18th century because there were dramatic improvements to Ireland's infrastructure including the construction of road and canal networks to help facilitate a growing agricultural economy. In the latter part of 18th century Ireland, rural protest movements were a common reaction to laws imposing new taxes, payment of tithes, enclosure of lands, high rents, etc. These movements became the precursors of more organized political movements in later years. In 1761 the Whiteboy movement began in the south. The Oakboys started in the north in 1763. In 1769 the Steelboy disturbances began in Antrim, and in 1785 the Rightboy movement started in Munster. After France declared war on England in 1778, a Volunteer corps was set up to help defend Ireland (and ulitmately England) from possible invasion. The 'Volunteers' soon began to wield their organized military power to win political and economic concessions from England. The extra-parliamentary lobbying of the 'Volunteers' was instrumental in securing Free Trade for Ireland in 1780 and legislative independence in 1782. As the political climate changed in the 1780's more political factions came on the scene with the emergence of the Catholic 'Defenders' in Armagh, formed to resist disarming raids carried on by Protestant groups such as the Peep O’Day Boys (making their raids in early morning). The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 encouraged the Protestant and Presbyterian middle-class to campaign for reform of the representative system under the banner of the 'United Irishmen' in the mid 1790's. Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of its notable leaders, publishes a pamphlet entitled "An argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland". The United Irishmen tried to unite Dissenters and Catholics, as well as all Irishmen, against Anglican rule. As a result of fears of revolution sweeping Europe (and having lost America), the Act for the Relief of 1793 was passed in an effort to appease the large Irish population persecuted by the earlier Penal Laws; mainly Catholics, Presbyterians and Dissenters. Although not granting full civil rights, the Act lifted restrictions on Catholics to buy and sell land, and to educate their children. It also allowed the right to practice at the bar, to marry Protestants, and the right to vote for the 'forty-shilling freeholder cottiers'. They could vote only for Protestant candidates. As a reaction to movements such as the United Irishmen and the Catholic Defenders, the Protestent-based Orange Boys formed in 1795. They became the Orange Order, named for the victor at the Battle of the Boyne, William of Orange. The alliance of the Catholic 'Defenders' and 'United Irishmen' along revolutionary lines, as well as the new-found alliance with France, resulted in attempted invasion. In 1796 the French under Admiral Hoche, persuaded by Wolfe Tone, sailed to Bantry Bay only to be turned back by bad weather. As troubles continued to brew the English, fearing an Irish uprising, had many of the leaders of the United Irishmen arrested in March, 1798. A valiant yet poorly coordinated uprising soon followed. The Rising of 1798 Rebellion begins in Co. Wexford - May 23, 1798 The rebellion had failed due to a lack of participation, coordination, and because of superior English firepower (e.g. cannons). Support from the French was too little, too late and in the wrong place. Perhaps 25,000 rebels and civilians died in the fighting, with far fewer casualties on the side of the Irish Loyalists. As a consequence of the 1798 rebellion the British passed the Act of Union in 1800, which abolished the Irish Parliament and laid the foundations for Anglo-Irish relations for the next century. ‘A United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ became official in 1801. With efforts at Catholic reform continuing, the Catholic Association was founded by Daniel O'Connell in 1823. Their efforts resulted in 1829 in the granting of Catholic rights to hold office in parliament. Population growth in the latter 18th and early 19th century had expanded the population of Ireland to nearly 7 million by 1820. With a down-turn in the economy large-scale emigration began, which resulted in an estimated one million people emigrating from Ireland to North America between 1815 and 1845. Another 500,000 moved to Britain in the early 19th century. The growing dependence on a single agricultural crop, to largely meet economic and nutritional needs of the Irish, sets the stage for a calamity beyond all expectations beginning in the mid-1840's. |
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The map above represents pre-famine percentages of literacy and poor (4th class) housing in Ireland circa 1841. This helps set the stage for a short description of 'The Great Hunger' which began in Ireland around the Fall of 1845, continued up to 1851, and ended in the deaths of an estimated one million Irish (or one out of every nine inhabitants). To understand the Great Famine, one must realize the expanding population of early 1800's Ireland and the growing dependency on a single crop - the Potato. To realize why it lasted for five years one must understand the politics, culture and economics of the time, since full crop failures did not occur every year between 1845 and 1850. In 1800, some four and one-half million people lived in Ireland. By the autumn of 1845, when the Great Famine struck Ireland, there were more than eight million. This was the largest increase in the population of Ireland in its history, an increase estimated at 172%. By the time of the Famine Ireland's population of poor was very high, and its population of landlords was very low (est. 5000). The "white" potato, known today as the Irish potato, originated in the Andean Mountains. In 1532 the Spanish arrived in north Peru and it is speculated that they brought the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. By 1800, the potato had taken root and ninety percent of the Irish population was dependent on the potato as their primary means of caloric intake and as an export. In September of 1845, a fungus called Phytophthora infestans was infecting Ireland's potato crops, devastating the potato population. About half the Irish potato crop failed in 1845. This event is what began The Great Famine in Ireland. The next year, 1846, the crop was destroyed again. By 1847 (Black '47) the impact of the famine spelled doom for Ireland. A large proportion of the population died from disease or starvation, while a great number of the people fled the country, largely occuring in a five year period between 1846 to 1851. This event is well noted as one of the greatest catastrophes of the 19th century. While the blight provided the catalyst for the famine, the calamity was essentially man-made, a poison of blind politics, scientific ignorance, rural suppression, and enforced poverty. Many Irish landlords sent badly needed grain to England for profit, instead of retaining it for the poorer classes (cottiers and labourers). Without crops or employment the tenants could no longer pay rent, so many lost the lands they may have rented while their landlords exported grain ans cattle to offset their losses. The effect of this was multiplied by the fact that the English parliament was reluctant to send any food to Ireland. One official declared in 1846, "It is not the intention at all to import food for the use of the people of Ireland." Although the net export of food out of Ireland actually decreased over the Famine period, shipping records indicate that 9,992 Irish calves were exported to England during Black '47, a 33 percent increase from the previous year. Irish grain was exported, while cheap Indian meal was (sometimes) imported to feed the poor population. What was not known at the time, however, was the Indian meal contained little or no nutrients and only contributed further to the spread of disease. A majority of Famine victims died from malnutrition-related diseases such as dropsy, dysentery, typhus, scurvy and cholera, rather than directly from starvation. For many the only alternative to disease and starvation, and the only option to eviction from their tenant lands, was emigration. The Passenger Act of 1847 was passed and it granted each [eligible] emigrant 10 cubic feet and a supply of food and water. Realistically captains didn't obey this act and many people starved or died of disease in cramped quarters aboard the emigrant ships. An estimated one and one-half million Irish emigrated from 1845 to 1851, upwards of 20-45% dying in the "coffin ships" on their journey or shortly after their arrival in their new home. The overall impacts of the Famine included: * the decline of the Irish language and customs (in 1835, the number of native Irish speakers was estimated at four million -- in 1851, only 2 million spoke Irish as their first language) Today there are over 5 million people in Ireland, while it is estimated there are upwards of 70 million people of Irish descent throughout the world. In a statement by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the eve of the 150th Famine commemoration in 1997, he said, "The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and of Britain. It has left deep scars. That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today. Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy. We must not forget such a dreadful event. Britain in particular has benefited immeasurably from the skills and talents of Irish people, not only in areas such as music, the arts and the caring professions, but across the whole spectrum of our political, economic and social life." The famine is still a highly sensitive issue in Ireland and has left a bitter legacy in Anglo-Irish relations. Historians agree that the British Government could not be held solely responsible for the calamity. When the potato crop failed through blight every year between 1845 and 1850, food was shipped to Ireland by the Government and charities but the profitable export of grain and cattle was allowed to continue. As wealthy farmers and landowners profited, their tenants starved to death and London was widely accused of doing too little too late by way of relief. Ireland lost a quarter of its eight million population in six years. In addition to those who perished in Ireland, a million fled abroad to North America, Australia and New Zealand. Thousands died in horrific conditions on the Famine Ships. It is almost certain that, owing to geographical difficulties and the unwillingness of the people to be registered, the census of 1841 gave a total smaller than the population in fact was. Officers engaged in relief work put the population as much as 25 percent higher. Perhaps similar comments may be applied to the 1851 census. |
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LOWER INCE CEMETERY, WIGAN |
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