Studies in Irish History, 1603-1775
Being a Course of Lectures Delivered before the Irish Literary Society of London
9781465642844
279 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“The truth is, they that gape after poor Irishmen’s lands do what they can to have a colour to beg them”—(State Papers, Ireland, 1610, p. 415). These words were written in an appeal for justice, or even the formality of a trial, by one who was betrayed by the English whom he had served. Sir Donnell O’Cahan had left his own people to seek an English alliance, and was rewarded by an imprisonment of nineteen years, without ever being brought up for trial. He was goaded into a just indignation by rumours that reached him in the early days of his imprisonment in Dublin, of Lady O’Cahan’s destitution and insanity, but after a couple of years he was moved to the Tower of London, where he, and other noblemen who were confined because men hungered after their lands, languished away till death gave them release. It will not surprise most of our readers to know that his letters were intercepted and carefully studied with a view to finding something treasonable in them. Truly Ireland’s share in the privileges of Magna Carta has been a small one. The opening of James I’s reign in Ireland was auspicious enough. The battle of Kinsale was an effort of an United Ireland, aided by Spanish troops, to meet and expel the English in the battle-field: it failed, and with it came to an end the hopes of the great Irish lords to do anything by open warfare. James found Ireland decimated by war and famine: some parts like the Ards in the County Down had been literally cleared of their inhabitants. The chiefs were willing enough to submit, if submission meant that they were to become great Palatine lords, with no interference from the Crown in their relations with their vassals, or in the exercise of their religion. The once turbulent Anglo-Irish lords had nearly all conformed to the Protestant religion, and become loyal. The people, with the gaunt figures of famine and desolation that they remembered so well, would have been glad to have peace, if not “at any price,” at any rate at any price that might allow them to remain in their own land and worship as their fathers had done. By his descent James had claims upon the loyalty of the Irish that could not have been urged for the Tudor line. And it looked at first as if a new era of prosperity was dawning upon Ireland. James began by a policy of conciliation and toleration. He actually appointed a man as a bishop in 1603, because of his knowledge of the Irish language (this was Robert Draper, Rector of Trim, who was made Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh). He accepted Tyrone’s homage, and created Rory O’Donnell Earl of Tyrconnell. The public worship of the national religion, if not legalized, was at least tolerated: and the people hoped that his mother’s son would continue to pursue a friendly policy. But a few short years showed how vain this idea was. Perhaps the king was really in terror from the Guy Fawkes conspiracy; perhaps he did really believe that Spain was still intriguing against England’s power; perhaps he was in hopes that somehow the acquisition of Irish land might help him to make money to meet his financial needs. Whatever the real cause may have been, a wretched anonymous charge was levelled against the two Northern Earls, and they fled for their lives. This may look like weakness, but the memory of the sufferings endured by Tyrconnell’s brother, Hugh Roe, in his imprisonment and his assassination in exile, would naturally make Irish leaders of that time very shy in placing themselves in English hands when a serious charge was made against them.
