Introduction
        The Tudor-Stuart colonization of Ireland was the second English attempt, the first having come under Henry II in the 12th century.  The earlier Anglo-Norman effort had succeeded for a time.  By the 14th century, however, the English colonists, later called the Old English, had largely been assimilated into Irish society and culture;  only the area around Dublin (called the Pale) was under effective English control.  Like their Anglo-Norman predecessors—and like their successors from Cromwell to William of Orange to Pitt to Lloyd George and Churchill—the Elizabethans were primarily motivated by Ireland’s strategic importance.  A Continental power (Spain, France, Germany) gaining control of Ireland would be able to catch England in a vise.
        Like other areas of Elizabethan statecraft, English policy toward Ireland tended to be fitful, constrained by shortages of manpower and especially of money.  The debate at the English court was complex and prolonged.  Was it better to attempt to govern Ireland through an alliance with its Irish and especially its Anglo-Norman leaders?  Or would the country have to be conquered piecemeal and especially the eastern portions of it populated by Englishmen?  Could Irish culture (especially stubborn Catholic religion) be largely tolerated?  Or would it have to be destroyed root and branch?  By about the 1570s hawks were on the ascendancy at court:  the results in Ireland were an assault on Catholicism and the Munster Plantation;  an Irish rebellion, brutal suppression, and further colonization.  In 1588 the Spanish Armada was defeated by a combination of the English fleet and a Protestant wind.  In the late 1590s came the rebellion of Hugh O’Neill (Earl of Tyrone) in Ulster, followed by the Flight of the Earls (1607).  The vacuum in the North was speedily filled by the Ulster Plantation—largely from Scotland.
        As in so many areas of English and British imperial history, though the Elizabethan period was important for origins and harbingers, the 17th century was the era of solid achievements (e.g. Jamestown and Mass. Bay in America).  It was the 17th century that laid the foundations of modern Ireland.  The Rebellion of 1641, when the native Irish and then the Old English joined in a united Catholic rising in support of Charles I, was unquestionably a watershed event—suppressed by “adventurers” and then with ruthless efficiency by Cromwell.  In 1689 Irish support rallied once more to a pro-Catholic monarch, James II.  Once more, this time under William of Orange, the Catholics were beaten back.  The result of the English conquest and colonization of the 16th and 17th centuries was the so-called Protestant Ascendancy:  a monopoly of political power;  85 percent of the land in alien and Protestant hands, with the Irish excluded from ownership in many areas; and the Penal Laws, which prohibited the ownership of arms or even of decent horses.

Documents
**Richard Hakluyt, “Discourse of Western Planting” (1584) [Hakluyt was a compiler of travel narratives and exploration accounts, a geographer, and a great supporter of English overseas expansion. This is a table of contents to an extended discourse on the topic of colonization.]

A particuler discourse concerninge the greate necessitie and manifolde comodyties that are like to growe to this Realme of Englande by the Westerne discoveries lately attempted, Written In the yere 1584 by Richarde Hackluyt of Oxforde at the requeste and direction of the righte worshipfull Mr. Walter Raghly [Raieigh] nowe Knight, before the comynge home of his Twoo Barkes: and is devlded into xxi chapiters, the Titles whereof followe in the nexte leafe.

1. That this westerne discoverie will be greately for the inlargement of the gospell of Christe whereunto the Princes of the refourmed relligion are chefely bounde amongest whome her Majestie is principall.

2. That all other englishe Trades are growen beggerly or daungerous, especially in all the kinge of Spaine his Domynions, where our men are dryven to flinge their Bibles and prayer Bokes into the sea, and to forsweare and renownce their relligion and conscience and consequently theyr obedience to her Majestie.

3. That this westerne voyadge will yelde unto us all the commodities of Europe, Affrica, and Asia, as far as wee were wonte to travell, and supply the wantes of all our decayed trades.

4. That this enterprise will be for the manifolde imploymente of nombers of idle men, and for bredinge of many sufficient, and for utterance of the greate quantitie of the commodities of our Realme.

5. That this voyage will be a great bridle to the Indies of the kinge of Spaine and a means that wee may arreste at our pleasure for the space of teime weekes or three monethes every yere, one or twoo hundred saile of his subjectes shippes at the fysshinge in Newfounde Iande.

6. That the rischesse that the Indian Threasure wrought in time of Charles the late Emperor father to the Spanishe kinge, is to be had in consideracion of the Q. moste excellent Majestie, leaste the contynuall commynge of the like threasure from thence to his sonne, worke the unrecoverable annoye of this Realme, whereof already wee have had very dangerous experience.

7. What speciall meanes may bringe kinge Phillippe from his high Throne, and make him equal to the Princes his neighbours, wherewithall is shewed his weakenes in the west Indies.

8. That the limites of the kinge of Spaines domynions in the west Indies be nothinge so large as is generally imagined and surmised, neither those partes which he holdeth be of any such forces as is falsely geven oute by the popishe Clergye and others his suitors, to terrffie the Princes of the Relligion and to abuse and blinde them.

9. The Names of the riche Townes lienge alonge the sea coaste on the northe side from the equinoctiall of the mayne lande of America under the kinge of Spaine.

10. A Brefe declaracion of the chefe Ilands in the Bay of Mexico beinge under the kinge of Spaine, with their havens and fortes, and what commodities they yeide.

11. That the Spaniardes have executed most outragious and more then Turkishe cruelties in all the west Indies, whereby they are every where there, become moste odious unto them, whoe woulde joyne with us or any other moste willingly to shake of their moste intollerable yoke, and have begonne to doo it already in dyvers places where they were Lordes heretofore.

12. That the passage in this voyadge is easie and shorte, that it cutteth not nere the trade of any other mightie Princes, nor nere their Contries, that it is to be perfourmed at all tymes of the yere, and nedeth but one kinde of winde, that Ireland beinge full of goodd havens on the southe and west sides, is the nerest parte of Europe to it, which by this trade shall be in more securitie, and the sooner drawen to more Civilitie.

13. That hereby the Revenewes and customes of her Majestie bothe outwardes and inwardes shall mightely be inlarged by the toll, excises, and other dueties which without oppression may be raised.

14. That this action will be greately for the increase, mayneteynaunce and safetie of our Navye, and especially of greate shippinge which is the strengthe of our Realme, and for the supportation of all those occupacions that depende upon the same.

15. That spedie plantinge in divers fitt places is moste necessarie upon these luckye westerne discoveries for feare of the daunger of being prevented by other nations which have the like intentions, with the order thereof and other reasons therewithall alleaged.

16. Meanes to kepe this enterprise from overthrowe and the enterprisers from shame and dishonor.

17. That by these Colonies the Northwest passage to Cathaio and China may easely quickly and perfectly be searched oute aswell by river and overlande, as by sea, for proofe whereof here are quoted and alleaged divers rare Testymonies oute of the three volumes of voyadges gathered by Ramusius and other grave authors.

18. That the Queene of Englande title to all the west Indies, or at the leaste to as moche as is from Florida to the Circle articke, is more lawfull and righte then the Spaniardes or any other Christian Princes.

19. An aunswer to the Bull of the Donacion of all the west Indies graunted to the kinges of Spaine by Pope Alexander the VI whoe was himselfe a Spaniarde borne.
20. A brefe collection of certaine reasons to induce her Majestie and the state to take in hande the westerne voyadge and the plantinge there.

21. A note of some thinges to be prepared for the voyadge which is sett downe rather to drawe the takers of the voyadge in hande to the presente consideracion then for any other reason for that divers thinges require preparation longe before the voyadge, without which the voyadge is maymed.

Philip O'Sullivan-Beare (c.1590-c.1660), Historiae Catholicae Hiberniae Compendium (Chapters towards a Catholic History of Ireland) (Lisbon, 1621). [This translation from the Latin text is the only near eye-witness account of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland from the Catholic perspective.]

"On the Wreck of the Spanish Fleet, Alfonsus Leiva, O'Rourke, Macsweeny Tueth and Others"

      Philip II, that most far-seeing King of the Spains, pitying the misfortune and the darkened state of England, over which, having married Queen Mary, he had reigned for a short time, got together a splendid fleet and valiant army under the command of the Duke of Mitina Sidonia, and dispatched them to that island, where undoubtedly they would have destroyed the deadly pest of heresy in its very cradle, if they had landed safely.  But our sins rising against us, in the year of our Redeemer 1588, partly by the skill of the heretics, but principally by a storm which arose, the fleet was scattered far and wide and portion of it returned to Spain; part caught by the storm between England and Belgium was carried round Scotland and Ireland; while a great part of it was wrecked.  Some ships were driven by the storm on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, and these striking on jutting rocks and sinking, had some of their men drowned, while some narrowly escaped by swimming or scrambling.  The English killed such of the strangers as they caught....

      The Spaniards who afterwards escaped from the shipwreck to the Irish coast, were sent by the Irish to Scotland, to Earl Bothwell, commander of the Scottish fleet, and by him were sent to France or Belgium.

      The Queen having ordered that O'Rourke's and Tueth's disobedience should be punished by force, Richard Bingham, an English knight, Governor of Connaught, proceeded to attack O'Rourke, and got together a few English and many Irishmen.... [Ultimately O'Rourke was defeated and fled to Scotland, where he was seized by James VI, later James I of England, and sent south to Queen Elizabeth.]

      There he was brought before the Privy Council and asked by one of the Councillors, why he did not bend the knee. 'I am not accustomed to do so,' said he.  'But,' said the Councillor, 'do you not genuflect before images'?  'Certainly,' said he.  'Why then,' said the Councillor, 'not do the same now'?  'Because,' said he, 'between God and his saints, whose images I respect, and you, I have ever thought there was a great difference.'  Shortly after he was put to death.  When this became known, his son Brian was proclaimed by O'Rourke, by the clansmen, and the war in Connaught being renewed, he endeavoured to recover this patrimony with the assistance of Tueth, in a successful campaign.

**Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596; first pub. 1631).  [Spenser is one of the most studied poets of the Renaissance period, his best-known work being the Faerie Queen.  He spent almost twenty years in Ireland as an Elizabethan official and a Munster planter.  His tract on Ireland was cast in the form of a dialogue between two Humanists:  Eudoxus, a learned inquirer, and Irenius, an Englishman with first-hand experience of the country.  The text that follows is entirely quotation, with connecting passages in square brackets.]

        Eudoxus:  But if that country of Ireland whence you lately came be so goodly and commodious a soil as you report, I wonder that no course is taken for the turning thereof to good uses, and reducing that savage nation to better government and civility.
        Irenius:  Marry, so there have been diverse good plots devised and wise counsels cast already about reformation of that realm, but they say it is the fatal destiny of that land, that no purposes whatsoever are meant for her good will prosper or take good effect; which whether it proceed from the very genius of the soil, or influence of the stars, or that Almighty God hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation, or that He reserveth her in this unquiet state still, for some secret scourge which shall by her come unto England, it is hard to be known but yet much to be feared.
        [Eudoxus and Irenius enter into a discussion of the differences between Gaelic and English law, and conclude that reforming the legal system alone will not bring the Irish to heel.  Next they turn to a commentary on the nature of the Old English and the Irish.]
        Irenius:  Before we enter into the treatise of their customs it is first needful to consider from whence they first sprung, for from the sundry manners of the nations from whence that people which are now called Irish were derived, some of the customs which now remain amongst them have been fetched.... For not of one nation was it peopled as it is, but of sundry people of different conditions and manners, but the chiefest which have first possessed and inhabited it, I suppose to be Sythians [Greek word for prototypical barbarians, in E. Europe], which at such time as the Northern nations overflowed all Christendom, came down to the sea coast, where inquiring for other countries abroad and getting intelligence of this country of Ireland, finding shipping convenient, passed over thither and arrived in the North part thereof, which is now called Ulster; which first inhabiting, and afterwards stretching themselves forth into the land as their numbers increased, named it all of themselves Scuttenland--which more briefly is called Scutlande or Scotland.... [Other peoples followed:  Gauls, ancient Britons, Saxons & then Anglo-Normans, or the Old English.]
        Eudoxus:  What is this that ye say of so many as remain English of them?  Why are not they that were once English abiding English still?
        Irenius:  No, for the most part of them are degenerated and grown almost mere Irish, yea and more malicious to the English than the very Irish themselves.
        Eudoxus:  What hear I?  And is it possible that an Englishman brought up naturally in such sweet civility as England affords could find such liking in that barbarous rudeness that he should forget his own nature and forgo his own nation?  How may this be, or what, I pray you, may be the cause hereof?... It now remaineth that you take in hand the customs of the old English, which are amongst the Irish, of which I do not think that yet shall have much to find fault with any, considering that by the English most of the old bad Irish customs were abolished, and more civil fashions brought up in their stead.
        Irenius:  You think otherwise...than I do, for the chiefest abuses which are now in that realm are grown from the English, and the English that were are now much more lawless and licentious than the very wild Irish, so that as much care as was then by them had to reform the Irish, so much and more must now be used to reform them so much time doth alter the manners of men.
        Eudoxus:  That seemeth very strange which you say, that men should so much degenerate from their first natures as to grow wild.
        Irenius:  So much can liberty and ill example do.... [Having done with the Old English, the dialogue returned to the Irish.]
        Irenius:  Now we will proceed to other like defects, among which there is one general inconvenience which reigneth almost throughout all Ireland, and that is of the lords of the lands and freeholders, who do not there us to set out their lands in farm or for term of years to their tenants, but only from year to year, and some during pleasure.... The reason hereof...is for that the landlords there use most shamefully to rack their tenants, laying upon him coignie and livery [extra charges] at pleasure.... By this mean both the landlord thinketh that he hath his tenant more at command to follow him into what action soever he will enter.  And also the tenant, being left at his liberty, is fit for every variable occasion of change that shall be offered by time..., for that he hath no such estate in any his holding, no such building upon any farm, no such costs employed in fencing and husbanding the same, as might withhold him from any such wilful course as his lord's cause and his own lewd disposition may carry him unto.....
        Eudoxus:  Indeed, meseems, it is a great wilfulness in any such landlord, to refuse to make any longer farms unto their tenants, as may besides the good of the realm, be also greatly for their own profit and avail.... [Having agreed that short leases were both economically and morally detrimental, the two men turned to religion.]
        Irenius:  The fault which I find in religion is but one, but the same universal throughout all that country, that is that they are all Papists by their profession, but in the same so blindly and brutishly informed, for the most part as that you would rather think them atheists or infidels; but not one amongst an hundred knoweth any ground of religion and article of his faith, but can perhaps say his pater noster or his Ave Maria, without any knowledge or understanding what one word meaneth.... The general fault cometh not of any late abuse either in the people or their priests, who can teach no better than they know, nor show no more light than they have seen but in that first institution and planting of religion in all that realm, which was ... in the time of Pope Celestine ...who... sent over St. Patrick, being by nation a Briton,  who converted the people, being then infidels, from paganism, and christened them; in which Pope's time and long before, it is certain that religion was generally corrupted with their Popish trumpery.  Therefore, what other could they learn than such trash as was taught them, and drink of that cup of fornication, with which the purple harlot had then made all nations drunken?
        Eudoxus:  What?  Do you then blame and find fault with so good an act in that good Pope as the reducing of such a great people to Christendom, bringing so many souls to Christ, if that were ill what is good?
        Irenius:  I do not blame the christening of them, for to be sealed with the mark of the Lamb, by what hand soever it be done rightly, I hold it a good and gracious work.... But nevertheless, since they drunk not from the pure spring of life, but only tasted of such troubled waters as were brought unto them, the dregs thereof have bred great contagion in their souls, the which daily increasing and being still augmented with their own lewd lives and filthy conversation, hath now bred in them this general disease, that cannot but only with very strong purgations be cleansed and carried away....
        Eudoxus:  I consider thus much as you have delivered touching the general fault which ye suppose in religion, to weet that it is Popish, but do you find no particular abuses therein, nor in the ministers thereof?
        Irenius:  Yes, verily, for whatever disorders ye see in the Church of England ye may find there, and many, many more, namely, gross symonie, greedy covetousness, fleshly incontinence, careless sloth, and generally all disordered life in the common clergymen, and besides all these, they have their own particular enormities, for all the Irish priests which now enjoy the church livings there, are in manner mere laymen.... They neither read scriptures nor preach to the people, nor minister the sacrament of Communion, but the Baptism they do, for they christen yet after the Popish fashion, and with the Popish Latin ministration; only they take the tithes and offerings, and gather what fruits else they may of their livings, they which they convert as badly.  And some of them, they say, pay as due tributes and shares of their livings to their Bishops, (I speak of those which are Irish) as they receive them duly....[As for English ministers]:  The most part of such English as come over thither are either unlearned or men of bad note, for which they have forsaken England.... The bishop himself is perhaps an Irishman, who...may at his own will dislike of the Englishman as unworthy in his opinion, and admit of any other Irish whom he shall think more for his turn.... And were all this redressed as happily it might be, yet what good shall any English minister do amongst them, by preaching or teaching, which either cannot understand him or will not hear him, or what comfort of life shall he have, when his parishioners are so unsociable, so intractable, so ill affected to him as they usually be to all the English?.... [Now they turned to the remedy.]
        Irenius:  The longer that government thus continueth, in the worse case will that realm be, for it is all in vain that they now strive and endeavour by fair means and peaceable plots, to redress the same, without first removing all those inconveniences.... For the Irish do strongly hate and abhor all reformation and subjection to the English, by reason that having been once subdued by them, they were thrust out of all their possessions.... Therefore the reformation must now be with the strength of a great power.... And therefore where you think that good and sound laws might amend and reform things amiss there you think surely amiss, for it is vain to prescribe laws where no man careth for keeping them, but all the realm is first to be reformed and laws are afterward to be made, for keeping and continuing it in that reformed state.
        Eudoxus:  How then do you think is the reformation thereof to be begun, if not by laws and ordinances?
        Irenius:  Even by the sword, for all those evils must first be cut away with a strong hand before any good can be planted, like as the corrupt branches and the unwholesome boughs are first to be pruned, and the foul moss cleansed or scraped away, before the tree can bring forth any good fruit....I do not mean the cutting off of all that nation with the sword, which far be it from me that ever I should think so desperately or wish so uncharitably, but...the royal power of the prince, which ought to stretch itself forth in her chief strength, to the redressing and cutting off of those evils which I before blamed, and not of the people which are evil; for evil people by good ordinance and government may be made good, but the evil that is of itself will never become good.  [Irenius thought 10,000 infantry and a thousand cavalry could do the job in a year and a half.  Indeed, the presence of a force of regular troops would so intimidate ordinary people that they would flee in panic.  All would be given a chance to surrender.  Those who would not submit] would have none received, but left to their fortune and miserable end.  My reason is, for that those which will afterwards remain without are stout and obstinate rebels, such as will never be made dutiful and obedient, nor brought to labour or civil conversation, having once tasted that licentious life, and being acquainted with spoil and outrages, will ever after be ready for the like occasions, so as there is no hope of their amendment or recovery, and therefore needful to be cut off.
        Eudoxus:  Surely of such desperate persons as wilfully follow the course of their own folly, there is no compassion to be had, and for the others ye have proposed a merciful means, much more than they have deserved.  But what then shall be the conclusion of this war, for you have prefixed a short time of his continuance?
        Irenius:  The end I assure me will be very short and much sooner than can be in so great a trouble (as it seemeth) hoped for.  Although there should none of them fall by the sword, nor be slain by the soldier, yet thus being kept from manurance, and their cattle from running abroad by this hard restraint, they would quickly consume themselves and devour one another.  The proof whereof I saw sufficiently ensampled in those late wars in Munster, for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich, and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to so wonderful wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same.  Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them.  They looked anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat of the dead carrions, happy were they could find them, yea and one another soon after in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves.  And if they found a plot of water cress or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal, that in short space there were none almost left and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.  Yet sure in all that war there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremity of famine, which they themselves had wrought.... [It turned out that the English military occupation would in fact be permanent, and the soldiers who remained would be given land seized from the rebels.]
        Irenius:  My purpose is to rate the rent of all those lands of Her Majesty in such sort unto those Englishmen as shall take them as they may be well able to live thereupon.... For these soldiers...remaining of the former garrisons, I cast to maintain upon the rent of those lands which shall be escheated [confiscated], and to have them divided through all Ireland, in such places as shall be thought most convenient, and occasion may require.  And this was the course which the Romans observed in the conquest of England, for they planted some of their legions in all places convenient.... And the want of this ordinance in the first conquest of Ireland, by Henry the Second, was the cause of the so short decay of that government, and the quick recovery again of the Irish.  And this is what I would blame (if it should not misbecome me) in the late planting of Munster, that no care was had of this ordinance, nor any strength of a garrison provided for by a certain allowance out of all the said lands, but only the present profit looked unto, and the safe continuance thereof ever hereafter neglected....
        Eudoxus:  But as for these garrisons which ye have now so strongly planted throughout Ireland, and every place swarming with soldiers; shall there be no end of them?  For now thus being, meseemeth, I do see rather a country of war than of peace and quiet which you erst pretended to work in Ireland, for if you bring all things to that quietness which ye said, what need then to maintain so great forces as ye have charged upon it?
        Irenius:  I will unto you, Eudoxus, in private, discover the drift of my purpose.  I mean...and do well hope, hereby both to settle an eternal peace in that country, and also to make it very profitable to Her Majesty, the which I see must be brought in by a strong hand, and so continued until it grow into a steadfast course of government; the which in this sort will neither be difficult nor dangerous, for the soldier, being once brought in for the service into Ulster, and having subdued it and Connaught, I will not have him to lay down his arms any more till he have effected that which I purpose.  That is first to have a general composition [a rent on all land for maintenance of government and garrisons] of these throughout the realm, in regard of the troublous times and daily danger which is threatened to this realm by the King of Spain....
 

**Hugh O'Neill's War Aims (1599)

Articles intended to be stood upon by Tyrone [endorsed by Sir Robert Cecil "Ewtopia"]
 1.  That the catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion be openly preached and taught throughout all Ireland, as well as in cities as borough towns, by bishops, seminary priests, jesuits, and all other religious men.
 2.  That the Church of Ireland be wholly governed by the pope.
 3.  That all cathedrals and parish churches, abbeys, and all other religious houses, with all tithes and church lands, now in the hands of the English, be presently restored to the catholic churchmen.
 4.  That all Irish priests and religious men, now prisoners in England or Ireland, be presently set at liberty....
 6.  That no Englishman may be a churchman in Ireland.
 7.  That there be erected an university upon the crown rents of Ireland, wherein all sciences shall be taught according to the manner of the catholic Roman church.
 8.  That the governor of Ireland shall be at least an earl, and of the privy council of England, bearing the name of viceroy.
 9.  That the lord chancellor, lord treasurer, lord admiral, the council of state, the justices of the laws...[etc] be Irishmen.
 

Francis Bacon, “Of Plantations,” Essays [Bacon was an English lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and writer who is best known for his Essays.  Editions came out in 1597, 1612, and 1625. To see the range of topics he covers, click here.]

**Aindrias Mac Marcais, "The Deserted Land" (c. 1610; translated from the Irish.)  [This poem deals with the emigration after the Flight of the Earls in 1607.]

Tonight Ireland is lonely.  The banishment of her true race causes the cheeks of her men and her fair women to be wet--it is strange that this tribe should be lonely....

Away from us the choicest of the sons of Ireland are journeying without anyone stopping them.  Though any fair, fertile land be full of people, these leave Ireland uninhabited....

There is no laughter at a child's deeds, music ceases, Irish is at chains.  Princes, unusually for them, speak not of wine-feast nor Mass.

There is no playing, feasting, nor any pastime.  There is no trading or riding horses or turning to face danger.

No praise poem is recited, no bedtime story told, no desire to see a book, no giving ear to the family pedigrees....

The captivity that was in Egypt has overtaken them, let it not be concealed, or the host that gathered about Troy, or the affliction that was in Babylon....

Seeing that the land of Ireland is surrounded by sea, how shall the oppression be lifted from the bright fair-haired race of Conn [mythical ancestor of people of Connaught], since we have no Moses in Ireland?

There is none of them who can lift her up after all the Irish who have gone.  The fact that the kingly lines are under heavy oppression is stealing our soul from us.