Ireland and the Stuart monarchy Gabriel Glickman

Restoration Ireland – key themes Relationship of Ireland with rest of British Isles. Relationship of Ireland with the crown. Relationships of communities within Ireland.

The Civil War and its legacy Crown authority collapses in Ireland in 1640s – six different armies fighting. Splits among Catholics and Protestants. European dimension – international religious conflict. Cromwellian conquest followed by major expropriations of Catholic land.

Political and economic subordination to England Parliament constrained by Poyning’s Law. Navigation Act shuts Irish out of Atlantic commercial economy and foreign trade. 1667, 1671 – laws against export of Irish cattle. Ireland has neither constitutional freedoms of Scotland nor full incorporation of Wales into England – seen as more like a colony.

The Irish Protestant elite Anglicised structure of laws, parliament, religion, education. See themselves as ‘English’ rather than ‘Irish’ or ‘British’. Trajectory of Irish elites towards building careers in England e.g. Ormond, Sir Robert Southwell. Tendency to press for closer incorporation with England, rather than greater independence.

Irish Catholicism Irish Catholics = 80 per cent of the population but only c. 25 per cent of the land after 1662 Act of Settlement. Exclusion from public office – many educated and seek careers in foreign Catholic countries. Major Catholic divisions over how far to accommodate the English crown; how far to repudiate papal power.

Irish Protestant Dissent Mainly Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster; also Baptists, Quakers and Congregationalists. Face coercion and prosecution under bishops of established Church of Ireland. Greater conflict in post-1660 Ireland = not between Catholics and Protestants, but between (Protestant) Church of Ireland and the Dissenters. Irish Protestant radicalism and conspiracy part of continuum of Dissenting unrest throughout British Isles

Programme of James II Much more authoritarian than in other parts of British Isles. No attempt to extend Dissenting freedoms as well as those of Catholics. Moves under Tyrconnell to establish Catholic monopoly over public office. Results in reawakening of sectarian tensions.

The Irish war – three interlocking conflicts Cogadh an da Ri – ‘War of the Two Kings’: dynastic conflict Struggle for European balance of power: foreign armies of William of Orange and Louis XIV entering Ireland. Clear faultline of Catholic vs Protestant, as opposed to many different political, religious and ethnic factions of 1640s Civil War. - Sectarian identities crystallised: Protestant and Catholic pamphlets understand conflict as religious war.

Legacies of conflict Crown seeks to formalise Protestant hold over Ireland by new laws – extending its authority. See Irish Protestants as now totally dependent on London. Tension between Crown and Irish Protestants who share anti-Catholic agenda but want greater freedom for Irish Parliament e.g. end to Poyning’s Law and Navigation Act.

Identity of Irish Protestants Writings of King, Molyneux etc. show they still see themselves as predominantly English. Argue that greater freedoms for Irish Parliament = granting them their full constitutional rights as Englishmen. Want Ireland to be a full kingdom ruled separately under the crown – less like a colony. Difference between ‘patriotism’ and nationalism (i.e. no demand for independence).

Opposition from the crown and from England Lord Lieutenant Sidney, English pamphleteers etc. -wars have shown Irish Protestants totally dependent on Crown: Ireland incapable of being self-governing community. Cost of protection from English state = submitting to English interest. Irish elites offered more safeguards for Protestantism, but no more independence.