There have been many. The Anglo-Norman intervention into Irish dynastic politics and the subsequent increased English military presence in Ireland led to large areas of Ireland falling to the hands of the English barons. In 1171 King Henry II successfully asserted his lordship over his subjects who had gone to Ireland and also many of the Irish kings, thus adding Ireland to the lands of the English king. According to historian Robert Kee, eight centuries of conflict were to flow from the Anglo-Norman Invasion of 1169-73. Although subsequent expansion was achieved largely through economic colonization rather than military conquest, there was sporadic resistance from the Irish kings: Brian O'Neil was proclaimed king of Ireland in direct challenge to the colonists, but he was defeated at the battle of Down in 1260.
English power was far from uniform across Ireland and many of the Irish dynasties survived. By the end of the 15th century English lordship extended over the eastern ‘Pale’ around Dublin, east Munster, and some scattered enclaves in the north. The new English Tudor dynasty was determined to end this state of affairs and impose modern centralized government across Ireland. However the Earls of Kildare had been the cornerstone of English rule, and Henry VIII's fitful policy of reform was met by considerable indifference by Gerald, the 9th Earl. His imprisonment in 1534 provoked a rebellion led by his son Lord Offaly, ‘Silken Thomas’. Thomas besieged Dublin castle and proclaimed a Catholic crusade in an effort to exploit the resentment felt at Henry's expropriation of the Church. The revolt was put down by an English army the following year and Henry introduced direct rule through an English governor and garrison.
Although the Tudor governors tried to persuade the local lords of the advantages of administrative reform, common law, and land tenure, the standing army under their control meant they often used the military option to coerce the population. A whole series of rebellions followed. The Geraldine League demanded a restoration of the house of Kildare and rejected Henry's ecclesiastical supremacy. It was decisively beaten at Bellahoe in 1539. The Fitzgerald earldom of Desmond revolted against the Tudor demands for centralization twice from 1569-73 and 1579-83. The latter rebellion, proclaimed as a holy war, was supported by a papal invasion force and suppressed all the more brutally because of this. The Baltiglass rebellion of 1580-1 in the Pale was also aggressively crushed.
Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, although initially loyal to the crown, realized that the spread of English administration into his lands in Ulster represented a challenge to his position. He, therefore, chose to head a confederacy of Ulster chieftains against the English. O'Neil's army was well trained and equipped and therefore inflicted a number of defeats on the English forces which were surprised at the discipline of the Irish troops. O'Neil's Rising, also known as the Nine Years War, was largely defensive and the Earl of Essex's forays against him were largely ineffectual, although Lord Mountjoy brought renewed efficiency to the English campaign. When a Spanish expedition landed at Kinsale in 1601, O'Neil risked all by marching to their aid and was comprehensively defeated in open battle. O'Neil signed a generous peace treaty in 1603 but he fled Ireland four years later. The war was as costly as any of Elizabeth's continental wars but it gave England complete control of Ireland for the first time since the Anglo-Norman invasion.
As constitutional and economic crises racked Charles I's government, on the evening of 22 October 1641 a group of Ulstermen under the leadership of Sir Phelim O'Neil seized Charlemont castle. The conspirators were demanding improvements in property rights and they were probably fearful of the virulently anti-Catholic English parliament. They pushed southwards and a series of sectarian massacres followed. That these were brutal there is no doubt, but stories about them lost nothing in the telling back in horrified England, where they did much to heighten war mood. The Old English Catholic gentry sided with the rebels as the insurrection spread across Ireland. The issue was further confused by the outbreak of the English civil war (see British civil wars). The Irish insurgents took advantage of the weakened royalist position in Ireland to establish a Catholic confederacy around Kilkenny. The war rumbled on through ceasefire, truce, and sporadic outbreaks of fighting until the execution of Charles I in 1649 united the confederates and the royalist Dublin government against parliament. This provoked a parliamentary invasion and an efficient if brutal campaign by Cromwell to bring Ireland under parliament's control.
The Irish campaign in 1689-91 between the supporters of Catholic James II and William of Orange cannot really be classified as a rebellion. James fled from England to France in 1688. He landed in Ireland backed by considerable French support the following year and began a campaign against Protestant enclaves loyal to William. William was unwilling to intervene in Ireland but the presence of James and particularly French troops forced his hand and he landed in Ireland with an army. He defeated James's forces over the following year.
Although the following century appeared largely peaceful, the widespread nature of the 1798 rebellion indicated that elements of the population were highly politicized and sectarian divisions still ran deep. The United Irishmen initially campaigned for reform of the representative system but from 1795 they became increasingly revolutionary. Nationalist Wolfe Tone made considerable efforts to gain French support but their attempt to land support was disrupted by bad weather. The authorities took the opportunity to launch an aggressive campaign of disarmament, thus when the rebellion eventually broke out in 1798 they were able to suppress it with relative ease.
By the later part of the century Irish nationalism was a powerful political force, as demonstrated by the popularity of Charles Parnell's Home Rule Party. Its revolutionary strand in the shape of the Young Ireland movement attempted a half-hearted rebellion in 1848. However, the Fenian movement (see Fenian raids into Canada) and particularly their successors the Irish Republican Brothers (IRB) were of more consequence. The IRB leadership saw their opportunity for action in 1916 and launched the unsuccessful Easter Rising. The clumsy government reaction to the Rising gave momentum to the Irish Volunteers, increasingly known as the IRA, and their 1919 guerrilla campaign against British rule resulted in the Anglo-Irish war and Irish independence.
Bibliography
- Connolly, S. J. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford, 1998).
- Duffy, Sean (ed.), Atlas of Irish History (Dublin, 1997).
- Guy, John, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988).
- Kee, Robert, Ireland: A History (London, 1991)
— Chris Mann
