Abstract
The sixteenth century in Ireland witnessed great turmoil and uncertainty. Throughout the century English monarchs sought to increase control over their Irish colonies, and in the process exported to Ireland many of the same problems that existed in Tudor England — problems of constitutionalism, of the relationship between the crown and local government, and above all, the problem of religious conformity.1 Just as the changing religious climate brought about by the turbulence of the Tudor succession affected political alignments in England, so also was the case in Ireland.2 Issues of political, cultural, social, and religious identity became increasingly confused, as elements from each area became entangled in a great morass of shifting definitions. Did being English necessarily mean being Protestant? Was there a difference between those who spoke Gaelic in the towns as opposed to those in the rural hinterlands? Was someone who spoke English but who was born in Ireland more politically suspect than a transplanted settler who was born in England? It would take over a century before popular rhetoric had produced some sort of consensus on these questions. During the sixteenth century, however, both government policy and popular attitudes appear confused, inconsistent, and subject to extreme variation in interpretation. To simplify discussion, the terms that would come to be used in the seventeenth century will be used here: ‘Old Irish’ or ‘Gaelic-Irish;’ ‘Old English;’ and ‘New English.’ It must be noted, though, that these specific terms were not used in any systematic sense during the sixteenth century.3
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Notes
Standard works on the English Reformation include A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York: Schocken Books, 1964);
G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509–1558 (London: Arnold, 1977);
J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984),
and more recently, Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
Rosemary O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation (London and New York: Methuen, 1986)
and Christopher Haigh, The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) both offer lucid discussions of traditional historiography on the subject, and emphasize the need for further revision.
The work of Robert Whiting, ‘The Blind Devotion of the People’: Popular Religion and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)
and Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992) has certainly called into question many of the traditional assumptions concerning the English Reformation.
The best recent survey of Ireland during this period is Colm Lennon, Sixteenth-Century Ireland: The Incomplete Conquest (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995).
Other good accounts of the political history of Tudor Ireland include Nicholas Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1976);
Ciaran Brady, ‘Court, Castle and Country: The Framework of Government in Tudor Ireland,’ in Natives and Newcomers: Essays on the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534–1641, ed. Ciaran Brady and Raymond Gillespie (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1986), 22–49;
Steven Ellis, Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures, 1470–1603 (London: Longman, 1985)
and Ciaran Brady, The Chief Governors: The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland, 1536–1588 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
An excellent discussion of changes in terminology and political constructs in early modern Ireland can be found in two seminal studies by Nicholas Canny, The Formation of the Old English Elite in Ireland, (Dublin: National University of Ireland, 1975) and ‘Identity Formation in Ireland: The Emergence of the Anglo-Irish,’ in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 159–212. Attention should also be drawn to Nicholas Canny’s work on the changing political milieu of the Gaelic Irish, especially his articles ‘Changing Views on Gaelic Ireland,’ Topic 24 (1972): 19–28, and ‘The Formation of the Irish Mind: Religion, Politics and Gaelic Irish Literature 1580–1750, Past and Present 95 (1981): 91–116.
Lord Chancellor Gerrard commented in a report to the Crown in 1578 that ‘all English, and for the most part with delight, even in Dublin, speak Irish.’ Hans Claude Hamilton, ed., Calendar of State Papers for Ireland, 1574–85, (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1860), 130.
See especially the comments by the Tudor writer John Dymmok in A Treatise of Ireland, ed. Richard Butler (Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1842).
B. MacCarthy, trans. and ed., Annala Uladh — Annals of Ulster, otherwise Annala Senait, Annals of Senat; A Chronicle of Irish Affairs, A.D. 431–1131; 1155–1541 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1895), 3: 625.
Martin Freeman, trans. and ed., The Annals of Connaught (A.D. 1224–1544) (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1944), 709.
Ibid., 717. The Irish chroniclers had as much trouble with English names as the English did with the Gaelic ones. Besides this quaint rendition of St Leger, one finds other almost incomprehensible spellings such as ‘Iarla o bhfeauig’ for the Earl of Essex and ‘Duice o Cuibes’ for the Duke of Guise. See William M. Hennessy, trans. and ed., The Annals of Loch Cé: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from A.D. 1014 to A.D. 1590 (London, Longman & Co., 1871), 500, 501.
This is a much debated subject among Irish historians. A general sense of the problem and of the evidence can be found in Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Native Reaction to the Westward Enterprise: A Case-Study in Gaelic Ideology,’ in The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America 1480–1650, ed. K. R. Andrews, Nicholas Canny and P. E. H. Hair (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1978), 65–80;
T.J. Dunne, ‘The Gaelic Response to Conquest and Colonisation: The Evidence of the Poetry,’ Studia Hibernica 20 (1980): 7–30;
Michelle O’Riordan, The Gaelic Mind and the Collapse of the Gaelic World (Cork: Cork University Press, 1990); and Nicholas Canny, ‘The Formation of the Irish Mind.’
Translated by Canice Mooney, ‘The Irish Church in the Sixteenth Century,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record 99 (January–June 1963): 111.
For example, see the poem ‘Do fríth monuar, an uain sí ar Eirinn,’ in Cecile O’Rahilly, ed., Five Seventeenth-Century Political Poems (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977), 1–11. Nicholas Canny also discusses this development in ‘The Formation of the Irish Mind,’ 108–9.
Cuthbert Mhág Craith, trans. and ed., Dán na mBráthar Mionúr (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1980), 2: 59. (Poem 27, st. 7.)
Lambert McKenna, Dánta do chum Aonghus Fionn Ó Dálaigh (Dublin and London: Maunsel and Company Ltd., 1919).
St Michael appears to have been one of the most popular saints in medieval Ireland. For an interesting discussion of this see Helen M. Roe, ‘The Cult of St Michael in Ireland,’ in Folk & Farm: Essays in Honour of A. T. Lucas, ed. Kevin O’Danaher (Dublin: Royal Society of Antiquaries, 1976): 251–64.
John O’Donovan, trans. and ed., Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1616 (Dublin: Hodges, Smith and Co., 1854), 5: 1467.
Other learned elites were occasionally affected by the Reformation, as in the case of conforming erenach families. The Sheridan family, which had provided clerics to the diocese of Kilmore throughout the medieval period, conformed to the Protestant church and continued to practice their hereditary clerical profession, with one member of the family, William Sheridan, eventually becoming the Protestant Bishop of Kilmore in 1681. A related example is that of the brehon sept of Geoghegan who switched from the practice of Gaelic law to become High Court Judges during the seventeenth century. For an analysis of this combination of traditionalism and innovation, see John Barry, ‘The Status of Coarbs and Erenaghs,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record 94 (1960): 151–2.
For a clear discussion of the ramifications of this scheme see Nicholas Canny, From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland, 1534–1660 (Dublin: Helicon, 1987), particularly chapter 4.
For the best account of this see Brendan Bradshaw, The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland Under Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
Aubrey Gwynn and R. Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (London: Longman, 1970) is also useful in tracing many instances where the supposedly ‘dissolved’ houses continued to flourish well into the seventeenth century.
Arthur C. Champneys, Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1970, 1st ed., 1910), 201.
Some interesting facts about the Franciscan house at Multyfarnam can be found in Cathaldus Giblin, ‘Franciscan Gleanings,’ Assisi: Irish Franciscan Monthly 23, no. 1 (January 1950): 16–18 and in Franciscan Library at Killiney (F.L.K.) ‘Canice Mooney Index Cards’ under the title ‘Multyfarnam.’ I am grateful to Father Ignatius Fennessy for sharing these references with me as well as some of his personal recollections of the Franciscans at Multyfarnam.
A very interesting discussion of the effect of the socio-economic setting of urban life on the Irish response to the Reformation can be found in Brendan Bradshaw, ‘The Reformation in the Cities: Cork, Limerick and Galway, 1534–1603,’ in Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland, Studies Presented to F. X. Martin, ed. John Bradley (Kilkenny: Boethius, 1988), 445–76.
Bradshaw’s discussion derives from Continental historiography, particularly the classic studies of Bernd Moeller, Imperial Cities and the Reformation, ed. and trans. H. C. Erik Midelfort and Mark U. Edwards, Jr. (Durham: The Labyrinth Press, 1982),
and Steven Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975).
From the Original Galway Corporation Book, cited by James Hardiman in his notes to A Chorographical Description of West or h-lar Connaught Written A. D. 1684 by Roderic O’Flaherty (Dublin: Irish Archaeological Society, 1846), 34, n. ‘p.’
Edmund Campion, Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland, compiled by Edmunde Campion, ed. A. F. Vossen (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963), 20.
A good overview of this type of source material can be found in John P. Harrington, ed., The English Traveller in Ireland (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1991).
This argument is one aspect of Reformation historiography that is largely accepted by most modern scholars, including Nicholas Canny, Patrick Corish, Alan Ford, Colm Lennon and others. For excellent discussions of the process through which English politics and ideology changed and left the Old English in Ireland behind see Canny, ‘The Formation of the Old English Elite,’ and Aidan Clarke, The Old English in Ireland, 1625–42 (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1966).
As Patrick Corish has observed, it was not until after the systematic introduction of catechesis that the ‘old, easy-fitting “civic religion” was displaced’ and ‘now to know the faith you had to know why you were a Catholic and not a Protestant.’ Patrick Corish, The Catholic Community in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Dublin: Helicon, 1981), 16. Arguably, it was not until the seventeenth century that the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ began to have real meaning for the Irish population.
For the Edwardian period see Brendan Bradshaw, ‘The Edwardian Reformation in Ireland,’ Archivium Hibernicum 34 (1976): 83–99. To date very little has been done on religious changes in Ireland during the reign of Mary Tudor.
Patrick F. Moran, History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin Since the Reformation (Dublin: James Duffy, 1864), 40.
Compare John Bossy, The English Catholic Community (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1975) and Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars for discussions on the evolution of English recusant communities.
For an excellent discussion of Ireland’s role in the development of English colonial policies see Nicholas Canny, ‘The Marginal Kingdom: Ireland as a Problem in the First British Empire,’ in Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire, ed. Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 35–66.
Moran, Catholic Archbishops, 61. It is interesting to note that in spite of Elizabeth’s efforts to set up a printing press in Ireland and to secure the translation of devotional materials, the Book of Common Prayer was not translated into Gaelic until 1608. The first New Testament in Gaelic appeared in 1603, and it was not until the publication of ‘Bedell’s Bible’ in 1685 that there was a complete Gaelic version of both the Old and New Testaments. For a very interesting account of the crucially important issue of the translation of Protestant religious materials into Gaelic see Nicholas Williams, I bPrionta I Leabhar (Dublin: An Clóchomhar Tta, 1986).
A much less complete, but still useful, English-language overview can be found in Edward W. Lynam, The Irish Character in Print, 1571–1923 (London: Oxford University Press, 1924).
For an overview of this information, see the index of names in Michael O’Riordan, ed., ‘Beatification and Canonisation of the Irish Martyrs: The Articles of the Apostolic Process,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record 5th ser., 7 (March–April 1916): 287–413. Of the 171 identifiable names for the period 1537–1600 given in this index, it is interesting to note that among the martyrs there were eight bishops; eighteen secular clergy; 119 regular clergy; twenty-five laymen; and one laywoman. More detailed information about the Elizabethan martyrs can be found in John Howlin, ‘Perbreve Compendium,’ written in 1590.
The original is among the Salamanca Papers at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, but an edited version can be found in Patrick F. Moran, ed., Spicilegium Ossoriense (Dublin: W.B.Kelly, 1874), 1: 82–108.
Philip Ó Sullivan Beare, Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium, ed. Matthew Kelly (Dublin: John Daly, 1850), 135–6. Cited in translation by Moran, Catholic Archbishops, 147–8.
The best survey of the Jesuits in Ireland can be found in Louis MacRedmond, To the Greater Glory: A History of the Irish Jesuits (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1991).
Edmund Hogan, ed., Ibernia Ignatiana: seu Ibernorum Societates Iesu Patrum Monumenta (Dublin: Typographical Society, 1880), iii.
For a brief account of his life see Edmund Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century (London: Burns and Oates, 1894), 1–15.
For an interesting account of this archbishop see Benignus Millett, ‘The Pastoral Zeal of Robert Wauchope,’ Seanchas Ardmhaca 2, no. 1 (1956): 32–60.
John Brady, ‘Ireland and the Council of Trent,’ Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 68 (1946): 189–90.
Edward Rogan, Synods and Catechesis in Ireland, c. 445–1962 (Rome: Pontificia Universitate Gregoriana, 1987), 27.
The decree ‘Tametsi’ was promulgated in Cashel only in 1775, and not until 1827 in Dublin. For a discussion of the implications of this delay see J. M. Harty, ‘Clandestinity and Mixed Marriages in Ireland,’ Irish Theological Quarterly 3 (October 1908): 466–80.
Similarly no Calendar Act was passed for Ireland until 1781, although official documents changed to the new form in 1752. See Máire McNeill, The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 19.
The exact date at which specific Tridentine reforms were introduced into Ireland can be exceedingly difficult to determine. Because of the proscriptions surrounding the Catholic Church in Ireland, records documenting the promulgation of specific decrees were sometimes never filed. Although his conclusions are questionable in some areas, John Bossy’s article ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Ireland’ Historical Studies 8 (1971): 155–69 is still probably the best introduction to Irish synodal legislation after the Council of Trent.
For detailed acccounts of the legislation produced by the Council of Trent and its impact on Catholic ideology see Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, trans. Ernest Graf (London and New York: T. Nelson, 1957–61);
H. Outram Evennett, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968);
and A. D. Wright, The Counter-Reformation (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1982).
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© 1997 Samantha A. Meigs
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Meigs, S.A. (1997). The Rise and Fall of Protestantism in Ireland, 1534–1603. In: The Reformations in Ireland. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25710-2_6
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