Old English (Ireland)
Encyclopedia
The Old English were the descendants of the settlers who came to Ireland
from Wales
, Normandy
, and England
after the Norman invasion of Ireland
in 1169–71. Many of the Old English became assimilated into Irish society over the centuries. Some were dispossessed in the political and religious conflicts during and after the Tudor conquest of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely due to their continued adherence to the Roman Catholic
religion. The so-called New English
otherwise known as the settlers of the Protestant Ascendancy
had largely replaced them by 1700.
The name Old English was coined in the late sixteenth century to describe the section of the above community which lived within the heart of English-ruled Ireland, the Pale
.
By the late Middle Ages the Old English were described in Latin
as "Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis", "More Irish than the Irish themselves
".
, Welsh
, English
, Breton
and Flemish
settlers who went to Ireland
to claim territory and lands in the wake of the Norman invasion of Ireland
in 1169–72. London-based Norman-English governments expected the Old English to promote English rule in Ireland, through the use of the English language, law, trade, currency, social customs, and farming methods. The realisation of this aim was most advanced in the Pale and in Ireland's walled towns.
The Old English community in Ireland was, however, never monolithic. In some areas, especially in the Pale around Dublin, south county Wexford
, Kilkenny
, Limerick
and Cork
, the term referred to relatively urbanised communities, who often spoke the English language
(though sometimes in arcane local dialects such as Yola
), used English law, and, in some respects, lived in a manner similar to that found in England. In 1515, one Old English official lamented, however, that "all the common people of the said half counties" [of the Pale] "that obeyeth the King’s laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit, and of Irish language."
The Irish tongue was at least widely spoken in this small area where the Old English were most numerous and concentrated and it, not English, was most likely the dominant language. English administrators such as Fynes Moryson
, writing in the last years of the sixteenth century, shared the latter view of what he termed the English-Irish: "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us". Moryson's views on the cultural fluidity of the so-called English Pale were echoed by other commentators such as Richard Stanihurst who, while protesting the Englishness of the Palesmen in 1577, opined that Irish was universally gaggled in the English Pale.
Beyond the Pale, the term Old English, if and when it was applied, referred to a thin layer of landowners and nobility, who ruled over Gaelic Irish
freeholders and tenants. The division between the Pale and the rest of Ireland was therefore in reality not rigid or impermeable, but rather one of gradual cultural and economic differences across wide areas. Consequently, the English identity expressed by Old English representatives of the Pale when writing in English to the English Crown often contrasted radically with their cultural affinities and kinship ties to the Gaelic world around them, and this difference between their cultural reality and their expressed identity is a central reason for Old English support of Roman Catholicism.
In the provinces, the Old English ( meaning "foreigners"), were at times indistinguishable from the surrounding Gaelic lords and chieftains. Dynasties such as the Fitzgeralds
, Butlers, and Burkes, adopted the native language
, legal system
, and other customs such as fostering and intermarriage with the Gaelic Irish and the patronage of Irish poetry
and music. Such people became regarded as more Irish than the Irish themselves
as a result of this process (see also Norman Ireland
). The most accurate name for the community throughout the late medieval period was Hiberno-Norman
, a name which captures the distinctive blended culture which this community created and operated within. In an effort to halt the Gaelicization
of the Old English community, the Irish Parliament passed the Statutes of Kilkenny
in 1367, which among other things, banned the use of the Irish language, the wearing of Irish clothes, as well as prohibiting the Gaelic Irish from living within walled towns.
There was no religious division in medieval Ireland, beyond the requirement that English-born prelates should run the Irish church. After the Henrician Reformation of the 1530s, however, most of the pre-16th century inhabitants of Ireland continued their allegiance to Roman Catholicism, even after the establishment of the Anglican Church
in England, and its Irish counterpart, the Church of Ireland
.
. The poet Edmund Spenser
was one of the chief advocates of this view. He argued in A View on the Present State of Ireland (1595) that a failure to conquer Ireland fully in the past had led previous generations of English settlers to become corrupted by the native Irish culture. To the New English, many of the Old English were "degenerate", having adopted Irish customs as well choosing to adhere to Roman Catholicism after the Crown's official split with Rome.
For centuries, the ancestors of the Old English of the Pale had fought for and paid taxes to preserve English interests in Ireland. They now found themselves excluded from the day-to-day government of Ireland, on the grounds of their religious nonconformity
. In the course of the 16th century, this had the effect of alienating the Old English from the state, and eventually propelled them into a making cause with and deciding they shared a common identity with the Gaelic Irish as Irish papist
s. The first confrontation between the Old English and the English government in Ireland came with the cess
crisis of 1556–1583. During that period, the Pale community resisted paying for the English army sent to Ireland to put down a string of revolts which culminated in the Desmond Rebellions
(1569–73 and 1579–83). The term "Old English" was coined at this time, as the Pale community emphasised their English identity and loyalty to the Crown, while, at the same time, contradictorily they refused to cooperate with the wishes of the English Crown as represented in Ireland by the Lord Deputy of Ireland
.
Originally, the conflict was a civil issue, as the Palesmen objected to paying new taxes that had not first been approved by them in the Parliament of Ireland
. The dispute, however, also soon took on a religious dimension, especially after 1570, when Elizabeth I of England
was excommunicated by the papal bull
Regnans in Excelsis
. In response, Elizabeth banned the Jesuits from her realms as they were seen as being among the Papacy's most radical agents of the Counter Reformation which, among other aims, sought to topple her from her thrones. Rebels such as James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald
portrayed their rebellion as a "Holy War", and indeed received money and troops from the papal coffers. In the Second Desmond Rebellion
(1579–83), a prominent Pale lord, James Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass, joined the rebels from religious motivation. Before the rebellion was over, several hundred Old English Palesmen had been arrested and sentenced to death, either for outright rebellion, or because they were suspected rebels because of their religious views. Most were eventually pardoned after paying fines of up to 100 pounds, a very large sum for the time. However, twenty landed gentlemen
from some of the Pale's leading, Old English families were executed - some of them, "died in the manner of" [Roman] "Catholic martyrs, proclaiming they were suffering for their religious beliefs".
This episode marked an important break between the Pale and the English regime in Ireland, and between the Old English and the New English.
In the subsequent Nine Years' War
(1594–1603), the Pale and the Old English towns remained loyal in favour of outward loyalty to the English Crown during another rebellion.
In the end, however, it was the re-organisation of the English government's administration in Ireland along Protestant lines in the early 17th century that eventually severed the main political ties between the Old English and England itself, particularly following the Gunpowder Plot
in 1605.
First, in 1609, Roman Catholics were banned from holding public office in Ireland. Then, in 1613, the constituencies of the Irish Parliament were changed so that the New English Anglicans would have a slight majority in the Irish House of Commons
. Thirdly, in the 1630s, many members of the Old English landowning class were forced to confirm the ancient title to their land-holdings often in the absence of title deeds, which resulted in some having to pay substantial fines to retain their property, while others ended up losing some or all of their land in this complex legal process (see Plantations of Ireland
).
The political response of the Old English community was to appeal directly to the King of Ireland
in England, over the heads of his representatives in Dublin, effectively meaning that they had to appeal to their sovereign in his role as King of England, a necessity which further disgruntled them.
First from James I
, and then from his son and successor, Charles I
, they sought a package of reforms, known as The Graces
, which included provisions for religious toleration
and civil equality for Roman Catholics in return for their payment of increased taxes. On several occasions in 1620s and 1630s, however, after they had agreed to pay the higher taxes to the Crown, they found that the Monarch or his Irish viceroy chose instead to defer some concessions. This was to prove counterproductive for the cause of the English administration in Ireland as eventually, this unsatisfactory situation led some Old English writers, such as Geoffrey Keating
to write pieces in which they argued, for example, in the Irish-language Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (1634), that the true identity of the Old English was now Roman Catholic and Irish, rather than any longer English at all. Thus the policy had effectively resulted in the assimilation of the Old English with the native Irish, hitherto their traditional opponents in Ireland.
. Many factors influenced the decision of the Old English to join in the rebellion, among them fear of the rebels and fear of government reprisals against all Roman Catholics. The main long-term reason was, however, a desire to reverse the anti-Roman Catholic policies that had been pursued by the English authorities over the previous 40 years in carrying out their administration of Ireland. Nevertheless, despite their formation of an Irish government in Confederate Ireland
, the Old English identity was still an important division within the Irish Roman Catholic community. During the Irish Confederate Wars
(1641–53), the Old English were often accused by the Gaelic Irish of being too ready to sign a treaty with Charles I of England
at the expense of the interests of Irish landowners and the Roman Catholic religion. The ensuing Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
(1649–53), saw the ultimate defeat of the Roman Catholic cause and the almost wholesale dispossession of the Old English nobility. While this cause was briefly revived before the Williamite war in Ireland
(1689–91), by 1700, the Anglican descendants of the New English had become the dominant class in the country, along with the Old English families (and men of Gaelic origin such as William Conolly
) who chose to comply with the new realities by conforming to the Established Church.
In the course of the eighteenth century, the old distinction between Old English and Gaelic Irish Roman Catholics gradually faded away, as more of the country became Anglicized and social divisions were defined, against the backdrop of the Penal Laws (Ireland)
almost solely in sectarian terms of Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant Nonconformist, rather than ethnic ones.
Changing religion, or rather conforming to the State Church
, was always an option for any of the King of Ireland's subjects, and an open avenue to inclusion in the officially recognised "body politic", and, indeed, many Old English such as Edmund Burke
were newly-conforming Anglicans who retained a certain sympathy and understanding for the difficult position of Roman Catholics, as Burke did in his parliamentary career. Others in the gentry
such as the Viscounts Dillon
and the Lords Dunsany belonged to Old English families who had originally undergone a religious conversion from Rome to Canterbury in order to save their lands and titles. Some members of the Old English who had thus gained membership in the Irish Ascendancy
even became adherents of the cause of Irish independence. Whereas the Old English FitzGerald Dukes of Leinster
held the premier title in the Irish House of Lords
when it was abolished in 1800, a scion of that Ascendancy family, the Irish republican Lord Edward Fitzgerald
was a brother of the second duke.
Irish historian Edward MacLysaght
makes the distinction in his book, Surnames of Ireland, between Hiberno-Norman
and Anglo-Norman
surnames. This sums up the fundamental difference between "Queen's English Rebels" and the Loyal Lieges. The Geraldines of Desmond
or the Burkes of Connacht
, for instance, could not accurately be described as Old English as that was not their political and cultural world. The Butlers of Ormond
, on the other hand, could not accurately be described as Hiberno-Norman in their political outlook and alliances, especially after they married into the Royal Family.
Some historians now refer to them as Cambro-Norman
s, and Seán Duffy of Trinity College, Dublin
invariably uses that term rather than the misleading Anglo-Norman (most Normans came via Wales, not England), but after many centuries in Ireland and just a century in Wales or England it appears odd that their entire history since 1169 is known by the description Old English, which only came into use in the late sixteenth century.
The earliest known reference to the term, Old English community is in the 1580s (Nicholas Canny, Ireland, from Reformation to Restoration). The community of Norman descent prior to then used numerous epithets to describe themselves but it was only as a result of the political crisis of the 1580s that a group identifying itself as the Old English community actually emerged. Some contend it is ahistorical to trace a single Old English community back to 1169 as the real Old English community was a product of the late sixteenth century in the Pale. Up to that time, the identity of such people had been much more fluid; it was the administration's policies which created an oppositional and clearly defined Old English community.
Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late sixteenth century Tír Chónaill, points out that in the Irish the Normans were not called Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") there but rather they were called Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill. He argued in a lecture to the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh
Institute in University College, Dublin that the poets referred to those of Norman stock who were completely hibernicised thus with the purpose of granting them a longer vintage in Ireland that they had (Fionnghaill meaning "fair-haired Foreigners", i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meanng "black-haired Foreigners", i.e. Danish Vikings). This follows on from his earlier arguments that the term Éireannaigh as we currently know it also emerged during this period in the poetry books of the Uí Bhroin of Wicklow as a sign of unity between Gaeil and Gaill; he viewed it as a sign of an emerging Irish nationalism
. Breandán Ó Buachalla essentially agreed with him, Tom Dunne and Tom Bartlett were less sure.
It was noted in 2011 that Irish nationalist politicians elected between 1918 and 2011 could often be distinguished by surname. Fine Gael
parliamentarians were more likely to bear surnames of Norman origin than those from Fianna Fáil
, who had a higher concentration of Gaelic surnames.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
from Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
after the Norman invasion of Ireland
Norman Invasion of Ireland
The Norman invasion of Ireland was a two-stage process, which began on 1 May 1169 when a force of loosely associated Norman knights landed near Bannow, County Wexford...
in 1169–71. Many of the Old English became assimilated into Irish society over the centuries. Some were dispossessed in the political and religious conflicts during and after the Tudor conquest of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely due to their continued adherence to the Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
religion. The so-called New English
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
otherwise known as the settlers of the Protestant Ascendancy
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
had largely replaced them by 1700.
The name Old English was coined in the late sixteenth century to describe the section of the above community which lived within the heart of English-ruled Ireland, the Pale
The Pale
The Pale or the English Pale , was the part of Ireland that was directly under the control of the English government in the late Middle Ages. It had reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast stretching from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk...
.
By the late Middle Ages the Old English were described in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as "Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis", "More Irish than the Irish themselves
More Irish than the Irish themselves
"More Irish than the Irish themselves" is a phrase used in Irish historiography to describe a phenomenon of cultural assimilation in late medieval Norman Ireland....
".
In medieval Ireland
Old English was the term applied from the 1580s to those Irish descended on the patrilineal side from a wave of medieval Norman, FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Breton
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
settlers who went to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
to claim territory and lands in the wake of the Norman invasion of Ireland
Norman Invasion of Ireland
The Norman invasion of Ireland was a two-stage process, which began on 1 May 1169 when a force of loosely associated Norman knights landed near Bannow, County Wexford...
in 1169–72. London-based Norman-English governments expected the Old English to promote English rule in Ireland, through the use of the English language, law, trade, currency, social customs, and farming methods. The realisation of this aim was most advanced in the Pale and in Ireland's walled towns.
The Old English community in Ireland was, however, never monolithic. In some areas, especially in the Pale around Dublin, south county Wexford
County Wexford
County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...
, Kilkenny
County Kilkenny
County Kilkenny is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Kilkenny. The territory of the county was the core part of the ancient Irish Kingdom of Osraige which in turn was the core of the Diocese of...
, Limerick
County Limerick
It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...
and Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, the term referred to relatively urbanised communities, who often spoke the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(though sometimes in arcane local dialects such as Yola
Yola language
Yola is an extinct West Germanic language formerly spoken in Ireland. A branch of Middle English, it evolved separately among the English who followed the Norman barons Strongbow and Robert Fitzstephen to eastern Ireland in 1169....
), used English law, and, in some respects, lived in a manner similar to that found in England. In 1515, one Old English official lamented, however, that "all the common people of the said half counties" [of the Pale] "that obeyeth the King’s laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit, and of Irish language."
The Irish tongue was at least widely spoken in this small area where the Old English were most numerous and concentrated and it, not English, was most likely the dominant language. English administrators such as Fynes Moryson
Fynes Moryson
Fynes Moryson spent most of the decade of the 1590s travelling on the European continent and the eastern Mediterranean lands...
, writing in the last years of the sixteenth century, shared the latter view of what he termed the English-Irish: "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us". Moryson's views on the cultural fluidity of the so-called English Pale were echoed by other commentators such as Richard Stanihurst who, while protesting the Englishness of the Palesmen in 1577, opined that Irish was universally gaggled in the English Pale.
Beyond the Pale, the term Old English, if and when it was applied, referred to a thin layer of landowners and nobility, who ruled over Gaelic Irish
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
freeholders and tenants. The division between the Pale and the rest of Ireland was therefore in reality not rigid or impermeable, but rather one of gradual cultural and economic differences across wide areas. Consequently, the English identity expressed by Old English representatives of the Pale when writing in English to the English Crown often contrasted radically with their cultural affinities and kinship ties to the Gaelic world around them, and this difference between their cultural reality and their expressed identity is a central reason for Old English support of Roman Catholicism.
In the provinces, the Old English ( meaning "foreigners"), were at times indistinguishable from the surrounding Gaelic lords and chieftains. Dynasties such as the Fitzgeralds
Knight of Glin
The Knight of Glin, also called the Black Knight, was a hereditary title in the Fitzgeralds of Limerick, Ireland since the early 14th century. The family was a branch of the FitzGerald dynasty or Geraldines, related to the Earls of Desmond , who were granted extensive lands in County Limerick by...
, Butlers, and Burkes, adopted the native language
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
, legal system
Brehon Laws
Early Irish law refers to the statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwent a resurgence in the 13th century, and survived into Early Modern Ireland in parallel with English law over the...
, and other customs such as fostering and intermarriage with the Gaelic Irish and the patronage of Irish poetry
Irish poetry
The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...
and music. Such people became regarded as more Irish than the Irish themselves
More Irish than the Irish themselves
"More Irish than the Irish themselves" is a phrase used in Irish historiography to describe a phenomenon of cultural assimilation in late medieval Norman Ireland....
as a result of this process (see also Norman Ireland
Norman Ireland
The History of Ireland 1169–1536 covers the period from the arrival of the Cambro-Normans to the reign of Henry VIII of England, who made himself King of Ireland. After the Norman invasion of 1171, Ireland was under an alternating level of control from Norman lords and the King of England...
). The most accurate name for the community throughout the late medieval period was Hiberno-Norman
Hiberno-Norman
The Hiberno-Normans are those Norman lords who settled in Ireland who admitted little if any real fealty to the Anglo-Norman settlers in England, and who soon began to interact and intermarry with the Gaelic nobility of Ireland. The term embraces both their origins as a distinct community with...
, a name which captures the distinctive blended culture which this community created and operated within. In an effort to halt the Gaelicization
Gaelicization
Gaelicization or Gaelicisation is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group who are traditionally viewed as having spread from Ireland to Scotland and the Isle of Man."Gaelic" as a linguistic term, refers to the...
of the Old English community, the Irish Parliament passed the Statutes of Kilkenny
Statutes of Kilkenny
The Statutes of Kilkenny were a series of thirty-five acts passed at Kilkenny in 1366, aiming to curb the decline of the Hiberno-Norman Lordship of Ireland.-Background to the Statutes:...
in 1367, which among other things, banned the use of the Irish language, the wearing of Irish clothes, as well as prohibiting the Gaelic Irish from living within walled towns.
There was no religious division in medieval Ireland, beyond the requirement that English-born prelates should run the Irish church. After the Henrician Reformation of the 1530s, however, most of the pre-16th century inhabitants of Ireland continued their allegiance to Roman Catholicism, even after the establishment of the Anglican Church
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
in England, and its Irish counterpart, the Church of Ireland
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
.
Tudor conquest
In contrast, the New English, that wave of settlers who came to Ireland from England during the Elizabethan era onwards as a result of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, kept their English identity, as well as their English religious, social, and cultural traditions, and, unlike the Normans and the Old English, remained distinct from the native Irish and Old English, at least for the first few generations. The new settlers were more self-consciously English, and were largely (though not entirely) Protestant, and most looked on Ireland as a conquered country that needed to be "civilised" and converted to AnglicanismAnglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
. The poet Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
was one of the chief advocates of this view. He argued in A View on the Present State of Ireland (1595) that a failure to conquer Ireland fully in the past had led previous generations of English settlers to become corrupted by the native Irish culture. To the New English, many of the Old English were "degenerate", having adopted Irish customs as well choosing to adhere to Roman Catholicism after the Crown's official split with Rome.
For centuries, the ancestors of the Old English of the Pale had fought for and paid taxes to preserve English interests in Ireland. They now found themselves excluded from the day-to-day government of Ireland, on the grounds of their religious nonconformity
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
. In the course of the 16th century, this had the effect of alienating the Old English from the state, and eventually propelled them into a making cause with and deciding they shared a common identity with the Gaelic Irish as Irish papist
Papist
Papist is a term or an anti-Catholic slur, referring to the Roman Catholic Church, its teachings, practices, or adherents. The term was coined during the English Reformation to denote a person whose loyalties were to the Pope, rather than to the Church of England...
s. The first confrontation between the Old English and the English government in Ireland came with the cess
Cess
The term cess generally means a tax. It is a term formerly more particularly applied to local taxation, and was the official term used in Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; otherwise, it has been superseded by "rate"...
crisis of 1556–1583. During that period, the Pale community resisted paying for the English army sent to Ireland to put down a string of revolts which culminated in the Desmond Rebellions
Desmond Rebellions
The Desmond Rebellions occurred in 1569-1573 and 1579-1583 in the Irish province of Munster.They were rebellions by the Earl of Desmond – head of the FitzGerald dynasty in Munster – and his followers, the Geraldines and their allies against the threat of the extension of Elizabethan English...
(1569–73 and 1579–83). The term "Old English" was coined at this time, as the Pale community emphasised their English identity and loyalty to the Crown, while, at the same time, contradictorily they refused to cooperate with the wishes of the English Crown as represented in Ireland by the Lord Deputy of Ireland
Lord Deputy of Ireland
The Lord Deputy was the King's representative and head of the Irish executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and later the Kingdom of Ireland...
.
Originally, the conflict was a civil issue, as the Palesmen objected to paying new taxes that had not first been approved by them in the Parliament of Ireland
Parliament of Ireland
The Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...
. The dispute, however, also soon took on a religious dimension, especially after 1570, when Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
was excommunicated by the papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
Regnans in Excelsis
Regnans in Excelsis
Regnans in Excelsis was a papal bull issued on 25 February 1570 by Pope Pius V declaring "Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime" to be a heretic and releasing all her subjects from any allegiance to her and excommunicating any that obeyed her orders.The bull, written in...
. In response, Elizabeth banned the Jesuits from her realms as they were seen as being among the Papacy's most radical agents of the Counter Reformation which, among other aims, sought to topple her from her thrones. Rebels such as James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald
James FitzMaurice FitzGerald
James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald was a member of the 16th century ruling Geraldine dynasty in the province of Munster in Ireland. He rebelled against the crown authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England in response to the onset of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and was deemed an archtraitor...
portrayed their rebellion as a "Holy War", and indeed received money and troops from the papal coffers. In the Second Desmond Rebellion
Second Desmond Rebellion
The Second Desmond rebellion was the more widespread and bloody of the two Desmond Rebellions launched by the FitzGerald dynasty of Desmond in Munster, Ireland, against English rule in Ireland...
(1579–83), a prominent Pale lord, James Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass, joined the rebels from religious motivation. Before the rebellion was over, several hundred Old English Palesmen had been arrested and sentenced to death, either for outright rebellion, or because they were suspected rebels because of their religious views. Most were eventually pardoned after paying fines of up to 100 pounds, a very large sum for the time. However, twenty landed gentlemen
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
from some of the Pale's leading, Old English families were executed - some of them, "died in the manner of" [Roman] "Catholic martyrs, proclaiming they were suffering for their religious beliefs".
This episode marked an important break between the Pale and the English regime in Ireland, and between the Old English and the New English.
In the subsequent Nine Years' War
Nine Years' War (Ireland)
The Nine Years' War or Tyrone's Rebellion took place in Ireland from 1594 to 1603. It was fought between the forces of Gaelic Irish chieftains Hugh O'Neill of Tír Eoghain, Hugh Roe O'Donnell of Tír Chonaill and their allies, against English rule in Ireland. The war was fought in all parts of the...
(1594–1603), the Pale and the Old English towns remained loyal in favour of outward loyalty to the English Crown during another rebellion.
In the end, however, it was the re-organisation of the English government's administration in Ireland along Protestant lines in the early 17th century that eventually severed the main political ties between the Old English and England itself, particularly following the Gunpowder Plot
Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.The plan was to blow up the House of...
in 1605.
First, in 1609, Roman Catholics were banned from holding public office in Ireland. Then, in 1613, the constituencies of the Irish Parliament were changed so that the New English Anglicans would have a slight majority in the Irish House of Commons
Irish House of Commons
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...
. Thirdly, in the 1630s, many members of the Old English landowning class were forced to confirm the ancient title to their land-holdings often in the absence of title deeds, which resulted in some having to pay substantial fines to retain their property, while others ended up losing some or all of their land in this complex legal process (see Plantations of Ireland
Plantations of Ireland
Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands....
).
The political response of the Old English community was to appeal directly to the King of Ireland
King of Ireland
A monarchical polity has existed in Ireland during three periods of its history, finally ending in 1801. The designation King of Ireland and Queen of Ireland was used during these periods...
in England, over the heads of his representatives in Dublin, effectively meaning that they had to appeal to their sovereign in his role as King of England, a necessity which further disgruntled them.
First from James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, and then from his son and successor, Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
, they sought a package of reforms, known as The Graces
The Graces (Ireland)
The Graces were a proposed series of reforms sought by Roman Catholics in Ireland in 1628-1634.-Background:From 1570 to 1625 most people in the Kingdom of Ireland had remained Roman Catholic despite legislation that was increasingly excluding them from the political and official worlds...
, which included provisions for religious toleration
Religious toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
and civil equality for Roman Catholics in return for their payment of increased taxes. On several occasions in 1620s and 1630s, however, after they had agreed to pay the higher taxes to the Crown, they found that the Monarch or his Irish viceroy chose instead to defer some concessions. This was to prove counterproductive for the cause of the English administration in Ireland as eventually, this unsatisfactory situation led some Old English writers, such as Geoffrey Keating
Geoffrey Keating
Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, was a 17th century Irish Roman Catholic priest, poet and historian. He was born in County Tipperary c. 1569, and died c. 1644...
to write pieces in which they argued, for example, in the Irish-language Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (1634), that the true identity of the Old English was now Roman Catholic and Irish, rather than any longer English at all. Thus the policy had effectively resulted in the assimilation of the Old English with the native Irish, hitherto their traditional opponents in Ireland.
Dispossession and defeat
In 1641, many of the Old English community made a decisive break with their past as loyal subjects by joining the Irish Rebellion of 1641Irish Rebellion of 1641
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...
. Many factors influenced the decision of the Old English to join in the rebellion, among them fear of the rebels and fear of government reprisals against all Roman Catholics. The main long-term reason was, however, a desire to reverse the anti-Roman Catholic policies that had been pursued by the English authorities over the previous 40 years in carrying out their administration of Ireland. Nevertheless, despite their formation of an Irish government in Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
, the Old English identity was still an important division within the Irish Roman Catholic community. During the Irish Confederate Wars
Irish Confederate Wars
This article is concerned with the military history of Ireland from 1641-53. For the political context of this conflict, see Confederate Ireland....
(1641–53), the Old English were often accused by the Gaelic Irish of being too ready to sign a treaty with Charles I of England
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
at the expense of the interests of Irish landowners and the Roman Catholic religion. The ensuing Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...
(1649–53), saw the ultimate defeat of the Roman Catholic cause and the almost wholesale dispossession of the Old English nobility. While this cause was briefly revived before the Williamite war in Ireland
Williamite war in Ireland
The Williamite War in Ireland—also called the Jacobite War in Ireland, the Williamite-Jacobite War in Ireland and in Irish as Cogadh an Dá Rí —was a conflict between Catholic King James II and Protestant King William of Orange over who would be King of England, Scotland and Ireland...
(1689–91), by 1700, the Anglican descendants of the New English had become the dominant class in the country, along with the Old English families (and men of Gaelic origin such as William Conolly
William Conolly
William Conolly , also known as Speaker Conolly, was an Irish politician, Commissioner of Revenue, lawyer and landowner.-Career:...
) who chose to comply with the new realities by conforming to the Established Church.
In the course of the eighteenth century, the old distinction between Old English and Gaelic Irish Roman Catholics gradually faded away, as more of the country became Anglicized and social divisions were defined, against the backdrop of the Penal Laws (Ireland)
Penal Laws (Ireland)
The term Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed under English and later British rule that sought to discriminate against Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters in favour of members of the established Church of Ireland....
almost solely in sectarian terms of Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant Nonconformist, rather than ethnic ones.
Changing religion, or rather conforming to the State Church
State church
State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state...
, was always an option for any of the King of Ireland's subjects, and an open avenue to inclusion in the officially recognised "body politic", and, indeed, many Old English such as Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
were newly-conforming Anglicans who retained a certain sympathy and understanding for the difficult position of Roman Catholics, as Burke did in his parliamentary career. Others in the gentry
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
such as the Viscounts Dillon
Viscount Dillon
Viscount Dillon, of Costello-Gallen in the County of Mayo, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1622 for Theobald Dillon, Lord President of Connaught. The Dillons were an Hiberno-Norman landlord family from the 13th century in a part of County Westmeath was called 'Dillon's...
and the Lords Dunsany belonged to Old English families who had originally undergone a religious conversion from Rome to Canterbury in order to save their lands and titles. Some members of the Old English who had thus gained membership in the Irish Ascendancy
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
even became adherents of the cause of Irish independence. Whereas the Old English FitzGerald Dukes of Leinster
Duke of Leinster
Duke of Leinster is a title in the Peerage of Ireland and the premier dukedom in that peerage. The title refers to Leinster, but unlike the province the title is pronounced "Lin-ster"...
held the premier title in the Irish House of Lords
Irish House of Lords
The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from mediaeval times until 1800. It was abolished along with the Irish House of Commons by the Act of Union.-Function:...
when it was abolished in 1800, a scion of that Ascendancy family, the Irish republican Lord Edward Fitzgerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary. He was the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster , he was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and died of wounds received in resisting arrest on charge of treason.-Early years:FitzGerald spent most of his...
was a brother of the second duke.
Collective identity of the Old English
Historians disagree about what to call the Old English community at different times in its existence, and in how to define this community's sense of collective identity.Irish historian Edward MacLysaght
Edward MacLysaght
Edward MacLysaght was one of the foremost genealogists of twentieth century Ireland. His numerous books on Irish surnames built upon the work of Patrick Woulfe's Irish Names and Surnames and made him well known to all those researching their family past.-Early life:Edward was born in Flax Bourton...
makes the distinction in his book, Surnames of Ireland, between Hiberno-Norman
Hiberno-Norman
The Hiberno-Normans are those Norman lords who settled in Ireland who admitted little if any real fealty to the Anglo-Norman settlers in England, and who soon began to interact and intermarry with the Gaelic nobility of Ireland. The term embraces both their origins as a distinct community with...
and Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
surnames. This sums up the fundamental difference between "Queen's English Rebels" and the Loyal Lieges. The Geraldines of Desmond
County Desmond
The Kingdom of Desmond was an historic kingdom located on the southwestern coast of Ireland. The name is Gaelic in origin - Deas-Mhumhain - which means South Munster...
or the Burkes of Connacht
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...
, for instance, could not accurately be described as Old English as that was not their political and cultural world. The Butlers of Ormond
Butler dynasty
Butler dynasty refers to the several branches of the Butler family that has its origins in the Cambro-Norman family that participated in the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Variant spellings include le Boteler and le Botiller. The surname has its origins in the hereditary office of...
, on the other hand, could not accurately be described as Hiberno-Norman in their political outlook and alliances, especially after they married into the Royal Family.
Some historians now refer to them as Cambro-Norman
Cambro-Norman
Cambro-Norman is a term used for Norman knights who settled in southern Wales after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Some historians suggest that the term is to be preferred to Anglo-Norman for the Normans who invaded Ireland after 1170 — many of whom originated in Wales. However, the term...
s, and Seán Duffy of Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
invariably uses that term rather than the misleading Anglo-Norman (most Normans came via Wales, not England), but after many centuries in Ireland and just a century in Wales or England it appears odd that their entire history since 1169 is known by the description Old English, which only came into use in the late sixteenth century.
The earliest known reference to the term, Old English community is in the 1580s (Nicholas Canny, Ireland, from Reformation to Restoration). The community of Norman descent prior to then used numerous epithets to describe themselves but it was only as a result of the political crisis of the 1580s that a group identifying itself as the Old English community actually emerged. Some contend it is ahistorical to trace a single Old English community back to 1169 as the real Old English community was a product of the late sixteenth century in the Pale. Up to that time, the identity of such people had been much more fluid; it was the administration's policies which created an oppositional and clearly defined Old English community.
Brendan Bradshaw, in his study of the poetry of late sixteenth century Tír Chónaill, points out that in the Irish the Normans were not called Seanghaill ("Old Foreigners") there but rather they were called Fionnghaill and Dubhghaill. He argued in a lecture to the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh
Mícheál Ó Cléirigh
Mícheál Ó Cléirigh , sometimes known as Michael O'Clery, was an Irish chronicler, scribe and antiquary and chief author of the Annals of the Four Masters, assisted by Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, Fearfeasa Ó Maol Chonaire, and Peregrinus Ó Duibhgeannain.-Background and early life:Grandson of Tuathal...
Institute in University College, Dublin that the poets referred to those of Norman stock who were completely hibernicised thus with the purpose of granting them a longer vintage in Ireland that they had (Fionnghaill meaning "fair-haired Foreigners", i.e. Norwegian Vikings; Dubhghaill meanng "black-haired Foreigners", i.e. Danish Vikings). This follows on from his earlier arguments that the term Éireannaigh as we currently know it also emerged during this period in the poetry books of the Uí Bhroin of Wicklow as a sign of unity between Gaeil and Gaill; he viewed it as a sign of an emerging Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
. Breandán Ó Buachalla essentially agreed with him, Tom Dunne and Tom Bartlett were less sure.
It was noted in 2011 that Irish nationalist politicians elected between 1918 and 2011 could often be distinguished by surname. Fine Gael
Fine Gael
Fine Gael is a centre-right to centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland. It is the single largest party in Ireland in the Oireachtas, in local government, and in terms of Members of the European Parliament. The party has a membership of over 35,000...
parliamentarians were more likely to bear surnames of Norman origin than those from Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
, who had a higher concentration of Gaelic surnames.
See also
- Irish nobilityIrish nobilityThis article concerns the Gaelic nobility of Ireland from ancient to modern times. It only partly overlaps with Chiefs of the Name because it excludes Scotland and other discussion...
- Dubgaill and FinngaillDubgaill and FinngaillDubgaill and Finngaill, or Dubgenti and Finngenti, are Middle Irish terms used to denote different rival groups of Vikings in Ireland and Britain. Literally, Dub-/Finngaill is translated as "dark and fair foreigners" or "black and white foreigners", and similarly, Dub-/Finngenti as "dark/black" and...
- The Deeds of the Normans in IrelandThe Deeds of the Normans in IrelandThe Song of Dermot and the Earl is an anonymous Norman verse chronicle written in the early 13th century. It tells of the arrival of Strongbow in Ireland in 1170 , and of the subsequent arrival of Henry II of England....
- The Tribes of Galway