This book is a study of the multiple transformations that reshaped the character of early modern Ireland. It covers the extension across the whole island of English state power, a process often referred to as the Tudor conquest, as well as Ireland's early years as part of the Stuart composite monarchy. It also explores the associated shift from a society based on consumption and distribution, to a primitive but rapidly developing market economy. The arrival, as part of the process of conquest and assimilation of growing numbers of English and Scottish settlers, brought new ethnic complexity to ... More

This book is a study of the multiple transformations that reshaped the character of early modern Ireland. It covers the extension across the whole island of English state power, a process often referred to as the Tudor conquest, as well as Ireland's early years as part of the Stuart composite monarchy. It also explores the associated shift from a society based on consumption and distribution, to a primitive but rapidly developing market economy. The arrival, as part of the process of conquest and assimilation of growing numbers of English and Scottish settlers, brought new ethnic complexity to an island already divided in language and culture between the Gaelic Irish and the Old English descendants of medieval colonists. The failure of the Reformation to win significant support among either the Irish or the Old English meant that rivalries between native and newcomer were also conflicts between Catholic and Protestant. At the same time, political and personal alliances, and the interaction of languages and cultures created relationships across lines of political, ethnic, and religious division. By the end of the period, members of all three groups: New English, Old English, and Gaelic Irish, can be seen reassessing their sense of their own identity and their relationship to other groups, in an Ireland unrecognizable from that of a century earlier.