Introduction
The growth of central government, as a result of economic expansion and the demands of early modern warfare, created new tensions. The situation in Ireland, where England had recently completed a military conquest, was further complicated by the official policy of plantations. In the early decades of the seventeenth century, a large number of native Irish landholders (particularly in Ulster) had been replaced by New English and Scottish protestant settlers, who totally dominated the colonial administration in the kingdom. They viewed their catholic neighbours with distrust and disdain, and actively discriminated against them.
New sense of national identity
'The bulk of the original Anglo-Norman settlers, resident in Ireland since the thirteenth century, still controlled almost 50% of the land.'
The bulk of the original Anglo-Norman settlers, resident in Ireland since the thirteenth century, still controlled almost 50% of the land. However, they had remained catholic, and as such were out of favour at the protestant Stuart court. Already excluded from public office by a series of penal laws, they faced the prospect of losing their valuable estates, along with any remaining political influence, through a renewed policy of plantation. At the upper levels of society, the Old English, as they now called themselves, increasingly made common cause with their native Irish co-religionists. This alliance, cemented through inter-marriage, gradually blurred the ethnic distinctions between the two groups. By the early 1640s, the insecurity of catholic landholders combined with the common threat to their religion, helped them overcome many traditional ethnic and political boundaries, to forge a new sense of national identity.
Published: 2001-05-01
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