Ireland in the Age of the Tudors

In the sixteenth century, many parts of Ireland were controlled by different Gaelic chiefs and their families, known as clans. In parts of Munster and Leinster, including an area stretching north and south of Dublin, known as the Pale, there were many groups who were loyal to the king of England and who followed English laws and customs. The Gaelic or Irish parts of these regions had their own laws, customs and language.  

Loyalty to King Henry VIII

In 1541, the king of England, Henry VIII, from a family called the Tudors, took the title “King of Ireland”. Some of the Gaelic chiefs, including Conn O’Neill, gained titles from King Henry in exchange for promising loyalty to him. In exchange for their loyalty and obeying to keep English laws, King Henry promised them that their direct family line would remain in power. By the time Henry died in 1547, about forty Gaelic lords had promised their loyalty to him and had been given English titles. Two of these clans were O’Neill and O’Donnell of Ulster, both of whom had became Earls.

In times of peace this arrangement worked, however if the Gaelic lords rebelled against the king, all their lands were confiscated according to English law. The reason the Gaelic chieftains sometimes rebelled was due to the greater demands the Tudor monarchs made on them.

Many Gaelic chieftains strongly resisted Henry and the other Tudor monarchs. Some chieftains also attacked people who were loyal to Henry. Many clans who were loyal to the English monarch lived in the Pale. The Pale was an area around Dublin, including parts of Kildare, Meath and Louth, which was under the direct conrtrol of the English government.

English Settlers to Ireland

Two of Henry VIII's children, Queen Mary and her half-sister Queen Elizabeth, decided that the English monarch needed to have more power in Ireland. One way of doing this involved sending more loyal subjects to Ireland and giving them confiscated lands. These lands became known as plantation land as the people were known as having been ‘planted’ on it. Queen Mary ruled between 1553 and 1558 and Queen Elizabeth ruled between 1558 and 1603.

Tudor Plantations

In 1556 and 1557, Queen Mary Tudor took the lands of the Gaelic clans the O’Mores and O’Connors and gave these lands to loyal English settlers. The arrival of these new settlers to Ireland however created a lot of unrest as the Irish clans wanted their land back and often attacked the new settlers.

The settling of English people on native Irish land was called a plantation. The new English people who arrived were called settlers or planters. The settlers got two thirds of the land and some Irish were moved to poorer quality lands near the Shannon.

Settlers had to promise to build stone houses and to have weapons in case they were attacked by Gaelic clans. They were not allowed to mix with Irish families or to marry them. They were forbidden even to have them as servants or to rent land to them. This was because the queen only wanted English speaking loyal subjects living in the plantation areas.

Any Irish who lived in the western part of the planted lands had to promise to obey English laws. The queen ordered that the confiscated lands of O’Mores and O’Connors should be divided into two counties. The area called Laois by the Irish was given the new name of Queen’s County and its main town was called Maryborough (today it is called Portlaoise). Offaly was called King’s County, after Mary’s husband King Philip II, and its main town was called Philipstown (today it is called Daingean).

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth was queen of England from 1558 to 1603. She wanted to have firm control of Ireland because she feared that her enemy, the Spanish and Catholic king, King Philip, would send forces to Ireland and would use them to attack England. She wanted Ireland to be loyal to England. To do this , she sent more English settlers to Ireland and gave them lands cheaply so that they would keep the neighbouring Gaelic clans and chiefs under control. Elizabeth also established a new religion from the protestant faith; it was called the Anglican faith.

Rebellion in 1580

Munster was ruled at the time by a powerful family led by the Earl of Desmond, who at first was on friendly terms with the queen. However, in 1580, a rebellion began in Munster against Queen Elizabeth. Many of the families who lived there, such as the Fitzmaurices, hoped to get help from the Catholic king of Spain to defeat Queen Elizabeth. The Earl of Desmond did not put down the rebellion and was called a traitor by the agents of the queen. His estate lands were burned and his tenants were killed. The Earl’s castles were also taken.

In 1580, the Queen’s new deputy, Lord Grey, led an English fleet of ships into the bay of Smerwick (Dún an Óir in Irish) and laid siege to the fort which was being defended by six hundred Irish and Spanish soldiers. After three days the soldiers and the rebels surrendered. A monument was erected in 1980 to commemorate the massacre of the whole garrison which had surrendered at the fort of the Fitzmaurices in Smerwick, Co. Kerry.

In order to force other rebels to surrender during the 1580s, the English troops under Lord Grey destroyed the lands of the rebels in five counties. This caused a famine to occur in Munster.

The Earl of Desmond was hunted down and killed in 1583. Huge areas of land in Munster were taken over by the English crown. From 1585, the plantation of Munster began and new English settlers were given land. Many of the new settlers found it difficult to find the location of their new land and the local Irish population was hostile to them. About 300,000 acres of land were confiscated in total.

Some huge estates were given to Englishmen, such as Walter Raleigh. These new settlements were often attacked by the local population and many settlers decided to return to England.