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The Battle of Kinsale was faught in 1601 between the remnants of Gaelic Irish
aristocracy and the English Monarchy who saught complete overlordship of the island.
The Irish, along with their Spanish allies, were defeated due to some fortune and
good planning on the side of the English, and some poor tactics and disunity on the
side of the Irish and Spanish.
The fallout from this defeat was the utter ruination of Mumhan followed by the departure of the vast majority of remaining Gaelic lords, who had not sided with the English, to the relative comfort of Spain.
Some may argue that the Gaelic culture in Ireland started to die long before Kinsale, what with the gradual adoption of European style clothing, fortification and the use of the English language by the aristocracy, but not all Irish lords and certainly the majority of common people followed such trends and remained rooted to their traditions.
It should be noted that such foreign influences have been present in Ireland since pre-history and while they were adopted they merely coloured the already existing culture. Many of the ideas were ''gaelicised'' making the transition from foreign to familiar and thus enabling the Gaels to enrich rather than abandon their culture. After Kinsale all this began to change.
The Battle, or its aftermath, resulted in the weakening of the most prominent Ulster clanns, namely the Ó Domhnaills of Tír Conaill and the Ó Néills of Tír Eoghan, who''s leaders left in 1607 for the Roman Catholic Kingdoms of continental Europe in what became known as the Flight of Earls. This resulted in the large-scale plantation of Ulster (traditionally seen as the most Gaelic part of Ireland) by the King of England and Scotland, James I, thus turning the province into the most loyal to the English crown.
The overall effect that this had on the Gaelic way of life was the eliminating of some of the most important patrons of Gaelic artists and demonstrating to those who remained what awaited them if went against the English crown.
With the increase of English influence in Ireland the remaining Gaelic aristocracy began to become familiar with and adopt their customs, law, religion and language so much so that by the time of the English civil war between 1642-51 many of them rose in rebellion in support of the English King Charles I.
On Charles'' execution by the English Parliamentarians in was decided by them to quell any remaining rebellion in Ireland and so did arrive England''s Lord Lieutenant, Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell succeeded in subduing the whole country within four years thus striking a further blow to the psyche of the Gaels (or at that point the Sean Ghaels (Old Gaels) as they were known). The whole country was planted English settlers and Protestantism became the established religion.
The Gaelic Irish leaders were either executed, moved west of the river Shannon or deported to the West Indie sugar plantations.
It should be pointed out that most Gaels at this time were Roman Catholic and so as a result of Kinsale they had lost their Lords (either physically or spiritually) and now they had lost their religion and lands.
The English monarchy was restored in 1660 with the return of the exiled Charles II but little changed in Ireland until his brother James II became king in 1685. James, a Roman Catholic, immediately set about restoring the rights of Catholics (and thus Gaelic Catholics), much to the alarm of his Protestant subjects. Matters came to a head for him when he produced a male heir in 1688. He was forced to flee England when his nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange invaded at the "invitation" of some English Protestant nobles who felt the threat of a Catholic Stuart dynasty was not in their best interests. The English parliament deemed James to have abdicated and thus crowned William king.
The Irish parliament did not.
As a result James arrived in Ireland with a large army of Frenchmen who were then joined by large numbers of Irish including the remnants of the old Gaelic aristocracy. William arrived in 1690 with a large army of European Protestants who were subsequently joined by Ulster Scots and English. The two armies met at the Boyne River (not far from Mellifont) where James'' Roman Catholic army was defeated. He fled (earning him the name Seamus an Cháca - James the Shit). The Irish and Gaelic soldiers faught for another fifteen months before signing the Treaty of Limerick on the 3rd of October 1691, when 15,000 Irish soldiers left for the battlefields of Europe taking what leaders the Irish and Irish Gaels had left. This event became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese.
One of the main aspects agreed in the Treaty of Limerick was the freedom of a Catholic to practice his religion. This was overruled and by 1695 a number of laws were introduced or re-introduced forbidding Catholics (of whom most Gaelic Irish were) from not only practicing their religion but also:
Bearing arms,
Owning a horse worth more than £5,
Sending their children abroad to be educated,
Teaching,
Buying land under lease of more than thirty-one years,
From entering the legal professions,
Acquiring land from Protestants,
Making a will (thus requiring the equal splitting up of the land reducing the wealth of the deceased''s descendants. This could be overturned if one of the beneficiaries became Protestant thus claiming the entire inheritance),
maintaining schools,
Attending parliament (unless taking an anti-Papal oath),
Taking custody of orphans,
Priests from preaching,
Voting.
One million acres of land was confiscated from Catholic landowners after the Treaty of Limerick thus reducing the total land owned by Irish (either Gael or Old English) to 1/7th of the country. Before the English Civil-War, 60% of the land was owned by Catholics. Just one hundred and thirty years later this had dropped to 5%
By this time the parliament decided that Catholic/Gaelic Ireland no longer posed them a threat and so began to relax some of these laws. As trade became common in Ireland a middle-class started to develop. Amongst this class was included many Catholics who, still unable to acquire land, exploited this one profession still open to them and indeed the main purpose for Ireland’s existence at that time, in the eyes of the English government seemed to be the supplying of it’s country and particular its army with food, wool and timber.
The majority of Gaelic society, however, had been reduced to a landless, agrarian society paying rents in the form of food to agents working on behalf of English absentee landlords with an ever increasing dependency on one crop to feed their families - the potato. This remained the case for the rest of the 18th century and 19th century and provides the backdrop to some of the most dramatic of events to take place in Irish history.
The first of these being the famine of 1740-41 (with 1741 being known as “The Year of Slaughter” or “Bliain an Áir” due to the large numbers of people who died due to starvation and starvation related diseases.
January of 1740 was very harsh with temperature below freezing for many weeks killing many people and animals and damaging crops stored for winter. As a result of the cold the majority of the seeds for that year’s crops were destroyed. This, coupled with a much wetter summer, further weakened a struggling populous who, when faced with another freezing winter, perished.
It is estimated that 400,000 people died over that year and a half out of an estimated population of 3.5 to 4 million making it, per head of population, the worst humanitarian disaster to hit Ireland in modern history.
The Anglo-Irish and English authorities had no programme in place to deal with such a disaster and were overwhelmed by it’s scale. Basic lessons were learned by the country as a whole from the disaster and as a result crops were stored in more protected structures so as to survive severe frost. Workhouses and Poor Laws were established.
Agrarian problems developed into agrarian politics and thus into secret societies in the 18th century. These societies, prominent amongst them The Whiteboys, used terror tactics against the Anglo-Irish settlers and those working for them in protest at the enclosing and partitioning of commonage and the paying of tithes by Catholics to the Church of Ireland. The tactics of the secret societies paled in comparison to what came after the French Revolution.
The French Republic was declared in 1789 and their message of Libertée, Egalitée et Fraternitée was not lost on the Irish, predominantly middle classes - but including some from the upper classes too.
The main item of note about the French message is that it crossed all the divides of Ireland, Gael, Old English, English, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter and inspired the founding of the Society of United Irishmen in 1791 in Dublin and Belfast.
The United Irishmen initially called for democratic reform but after the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1793 they decided that democratic reform could only come, with French assistance, by breaking the ties with Britain.
After one failed landing of 15,000 French troops at Bantry Bay the British Government deemed the organisation to be a threat to their security and so began to dismantle them thus forcing them into open rebellion in the spring of 1798 with main risings in the North-East and South-East of the country while a small force of French landing in Killala in Co. Mayo in August of that year sparked a rebellion in that part of the country too.
By late autumn of that year the rebellions had been crushed. Although the United Irishmen had been formed mainly by middle class Protestants the rebellion largely focussed on the Anglo-Irish Settlers (most of them Protestant also) with great atrocities being committed on both sides.
The ideals of modern Irish Republicanism can be traced back to the United Irishmen and to the rebellion of 1798. It is at this point in Irish history that the ethnic and religious lines blurred as the focal point of an Irish republic came to the fore as opposed to previous rebellions which were polarised around the old Catholic (usually either Gaelic or Old English) aristocracy.
It is not true to say that (unlike modern Ireland) most republicans were Catholic and most loyalists were Protestant at this time as the split was more along class lines (newly formed middle class against the aristocracy).
The greatest fear of the British government at the time leading up to the 1798 Rebellion was the uniting of Catholics and Dissenters both of whom were being persecuted.
In order to prevent the majority of the working classes from uniting or from joining the United Irishmen certain radical groups of Presbyterians were culled, the Orange Order was allowed to flourish and a general nurturing of sectarian fears ensured a conservative pro-government stance by a large number of the Protestant working class.
On the Catholic side, the granting of permission the hierarchy for the building of a college in Maynooth in 1795 helped to guarantee the loyalty of the Catholic church while the relaxing of some laws against Catholic landowners brought them on the side of the church as opposed to the side of the masses.
The immediate end result of the rebellion was the creating of the Act of Union in 1801 from which time the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established and from which time the affairs of Ireland were solely decided by the parliament which sat at Westminster in London.
This action was supported by the Catholic hierarchy who felt this was a further step towards the emancipation of their religion. It was abhorred by the Anglo-Irish whose power in Ireland would now be severely eroded by this new central government.
The fallout from this defeat was the utter ruination of Mumhan followed by the departure of the vast majority of remaining Gaelic lords, who had not sided with the English, to the relative comfort of Spain.
Some may argue that the Gaelic culture in Ireland started to die long before Kinsale, what with the gradual adoption of European style clothing, fortification and the use of the English language by the aristocracy, but not all Irish lords and certainly the majority of common people followed such trends and remained rooted to their traditions.
It should be noted that such foreign influences have been present in Ireland since pre-history and while they were adopted they merely coloured the already existing culture. Many of the ideas were ''gaelicised'' making the transition from foreign to familiar and thus enabling the Gaels to enrich rather than abandon their culture. After Kinsale all this began to change.
The Battle, or its aftermath, resulted in the weakening of the most prominent Ulster clanns, namely the Ó Domhnaills of Tír Conaill and the Ó Néills of Tír Eoghan, who''s leaders left in 1607 for the Roman Catholic Kingdoms of continental Europe in what became known as the Flight of Earls. This resulted in the large-scale plantation of Ulster (traditionally seen as the most Gaelic part of Ireland) by the King of England and Scotland, James I, thus turning the province into the most loyal to the English crown.
The overall effect that this had on the Gaelic way of life was the eliminating of some of the most important patrons of Gaelic artists and demonstrating to those who remained what awaited them if went against the English crown.
With the increase of English influence in Ireland the remaining Gaelic aristocracy began to become familiar with and adopt their customs, law, religion and language so much so that by the time of the English civil war between 1642-51 many of them rose in rebellion in support of the English King Charles I.
On Charles'' execution by the English Parliamentarians in was decided by them to quell any remaining rebellion in Ireland and so did arrive England''s Lord Lieutenant, Oliver Cromwell.
Cromwell succeeded in subduing the whole country within four years thus striking a further blow to the psyche of the Gaels (or at that point the Sean Ghaels (Old Gaels) as they were known). The whole country was planted English settlers and Protestantism became the established religion.
The Gaelic Irish leaders were either executed, moved west of the river Shannon or deported to the West Indie sugar plantations.
It should be pointed out that most Gaels at this time were Roman Catholic and so as a result of Kinsale they had lost their Lords (either physically or spiritually) and now they had lost their religion and lands.
The English monarchy was restored in 1660 with the return of the exiled Charles II but little changed in Ireland until his brother James II became king in 1685. James, a Roman Catholic, immediately set about restoring the rights of Catholics (and thus Gaelic Catholics), much to the alarm of his Protestant subjects. Matters came to a head for him when he produced a male heir in 1688. He was forced to flee England when his nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange invaded at the "invitation" of some English Protestant nobles who felt the threat of a Catholic Stuart dynasty was not in their best interests. The English parliament deemed James to have abdicated and thus crowned William king.
The Irish parliament did not.
As a result James arrived in Ireland with a large army of Frenchmen who were then joined by large numbers of Irish including the remnants of the old Gaelic aristocracy. William arrived in 1690 with a large army of European Protestants who were subsequently joined by Ulster Scots and English. The two armies met at the Boyne River (not far from Mellifont) where James'' Roman Catholic army was defeated. He fled (earning him the name Seamus an Cháca - James the Shit). The Irish and Gaelic soldiers faught for another fifteen months before signing the Treaty of Limerick on the 3rd of October 1691, when 15,000 Irish soldiers left for the battlefields of Europe taking what leaders the Irish and Irish Gaels had left. This event became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese.
One of the main aspects agreed in the Treaty of Limerick was the freedom of a Catholic to practice his religion. This was overruled and by 1695 a number of laws were introduced or re-introduced forbidding Catholics (of whom most Gaelic Irish were) from not only practicing their religion but also:
Bearing arms,
Owning a horse worth more than £5,
Sending their children abroad to be educated,
Teaching,
Buying land under lease of more than thirty-one years,
From entering the legal professions,
Acquiring land from Protestants,
Making a will (thus requiring the equal splitting up of the land reducing the wealth of the deceased''s descendants. This could be overturned if one of the beneficiaries became Protestant thus claiming the entire inheritance),
maintaining schools,
Attending parliament (unless taking an anti-Papal oath),
Taking custody of orphans,
Priests from preaching,
Voting.
One million acres of land was confiscated from Catholic landowners after the Treaty of Limerick thus reducing the total land owned by Irish (either Gael or Old English) to 1/7th of the country. Before the English Civil-War, 60% of the land was owned by Catholics. Just one hundred and thirty years later this had dropped to 5%
By this time the parliament decided that Catholic/Gaelic Ireland no longer posed them a threat and so began to relax some of these laws. As trade became common in Ireland a middle-class started to develop. Amongst this class was included many Catholics who, still unable to acquire land, exploited this one profession still open to them and indeed the main purpose for Ireland’s existence at that time, in the eyes of the English government seemed to be the supplying of it’s country and particular its army with food, wool and timber.
The majority of Gaelic society, however, had been reduced to a landless, agrarian society paying rents in the form of food to agents working on behalf of English absentee landlords with an ever increasing dependency on one crop to feed their families - the potato. This remained the case for the rest of the 18th century and 19th century and provides the backdrop to some of the most dramatic of events to take place in Irish history.
The first of these being the famine of 1740-41 (with 1741 being known as “The Year of Slaughter” or “Bliain an Áir” due to the large numbers of people who died due to starvation and starvation related diseases.
January of 1740 was very harsh with temperature below freezing for many weeks killing many people and animals and damaging crops stored for winter. As a result of the cold the majority of the seeds for that year’s crops were destroyed. This, coupled with a much wetter summer, further weakened a struggling populous who, when faced with another freezing winter, perished.
It is estimated that 400,000 people died over that year and a half out of an estimated population of 3.5 to 4 million making it, per head of population, the worst humanitarian disaster to hit Ireland in modern history.
The Anglo-Irish and English authorities had no programme in place to deal with such a disaster and were overwhelmed by it’s scale. Basic lessons were learned by the country as a whole from the disaster and as a result crops were stored in more protected structures so as to survive severe frost. Workhouses and Poor Laws were established.
Agrarian problems developed into agrarian politics and thus into secret societies in the 18th century. These societies, prominent amongst them The Whiteboys, used terror tactics against the Anglo-Irish settlers and those working for them in protest at the enclosing and partitioning of commonage and the paying of tithes by Catholics to the Church of Ireland. The tactics of the secret societies paled in comparison to what came after the French Revolution.
The French Republic was declared in 1789 and their message of Libertée, Egalitée et Fraternitée was not lost on the Irish, predominantly middle classes - but including some from the upper classes too.
The main item of note about the French message is that it crossed all the divides of Ireland, Gael, Old English, English, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter and inspired the founding of the Society of United Irishmen in 1791 in Dublin and Belfast.
The United Irishmen initially called for democratic reform but after the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1793 they decided that democratic reform could only come, with French assistance, by breaking the ties with Britain.
After one failed landing of 15,000 French troops at Bantry Bay the British Government deemed the organisation to be a threat to their security and so began to dismantle them thus forcing them into open rebellion in the spring of 1798 with main risings in the North-East and South-East of the country while a small force of French landing in Killala in Co. Mayo in August of that year sparked a rebellion in that part of the country too.
By late autumn of that year the rebellions had been crushed. Although the United Irishmen had been formed mainly by middle class Protestants the rebellion largely focussed on the Anglo-Irish Settlers (most of them Protestant also) with great atrocities being committed on both sides.
The ideals of modern Irish Republicanism can be traced back to the United Irishmen and to the rebellion of 1798. It is at this point in Irish history that the ethnic and religious lines blurred as the focal point of an Irish republic came to the fore as opposed to previous rebellions which were polarised around the old Catholic (usually either Gaelic or Old English) aristocracy.
It is not true to say that (unlike modern Ireland) most republicans were Catholic and most loyalists were Protestant at this time as the split was more along class lines (newly formed middle class against the aristocracy).
The greatest fear of the British government at the time leading up to the 1798 Rebellion was the uniting of Catholics and Dissenters both of whom were being persecuted.
In order to prevent the majority of the working classes from uniting or from joining the United Irishmen certain radical groups of Presbyterians were culled, the Orange Order was allowed to flourish and a general nurturing of sectarian fears ensured a conservative pro-government stance by a large number of the Protestant working class.
On the Catholic side, the granting of permission the hierarchy for the building of a college in Maynooth in 1795 helped to guarantee the loyalty of the Catholic church while the relaxing of some laws against Catholic landowners brought them on the side of the church as opposed to the side of the masses.
The immediate end result of the rebellion was the creating of the Act of Union in 1801 from which time the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established and from which time the affairs of Ireland were solely decided by the parliament which sat at Westminster in London.
This action was supported by the Catholic hierarchy who felt this was a further step towards the emancipation of their religion. It was abhorred by the Anglo-Irish whose power in Ireland would now be severely eroded by this new central government.