Gaelic Response to British Colonization: The Arguments A conquered people leave behind little in records. This statement is certainly true of the Irish after the Elizabethan and Cromwellian conquest of Britain. Historians must then search for a reliable source for the history of those conquered.. Luckily, Ireland has a long legacy of bardic poetry. In the four papers we read in this class, four authors, Brendan Bradshaw, Nicholas Canny, T.J. Dunne and Bernadette Cunningham, already analyzed these poems. Each has come to different, separate conclusions, about how the conquest effected the native Irish. The opinions vary. Brenden Bradshaw sees a new nationalism arise. The others disagree. T.J. Dunne …show more content…
Dunne’s work, Tom Dunne, `The Gaelic Response to Conquest and Colonisation: the Evidence of the Poetry’ in Studia Hibernica 1980, does a good job of explaining the inherent problems in attempting to ascribe cause to the Gaelic reaction. As he aptly points out, the conquered rarely write their own history. The Gaelic, as victims of colonization had very little voice. Dunne attempts to give the Gaelic a voice by analyzing poetry from the later decadedsof the seventeenth century, through to 1729. He attempts to discuss the effects of conquest and colonization on the Gaelic population. I response to Branden Bradshaw’s argument that the Leabhar Branuch shows the development of Irish Nationalism, Dunne, rebuts this stating “ Neither the evidence of the Leabhar Branuch itself, or of gaelic poetry as a whole, in this time or later periods, allows this interpretation”. …show more content…
However, Canny believe that both the Irish Catholic and The Irish Protestants had mirror image reaction. Both suffered from conquest and colonization, and therefore, both faced the same fears and issues. Each one developed an attitude best described as a siege mentality [] 92 which was fueled by religious beliefs, that caused them to see conquest coming from divine intervention. Canny criticized these two groups, as he believes they should have united against a common enemy. Canny also believed that the local elite had inferior ability and discipline when compared to the English.[] 106 The poets also criticized the Lowly Gaelic peasants for seizing confiscated land, of for beginning to speak in broken English. In short Cannys theory is that the poor Irish had squandered their chance to make a stand against The English and the new Protestant church, and instead seemed focused on obtaining worldly goods
Friel examines this issue by describing the effects that certain changes have on individual characters; Irish and English. One may think a play with this issue could not help being biased towards the Irish. However, Friel ‘did not wish to write a play about Irish peasants being suppressed by English sappers.’ In order to ascertain whether he achieves this, we should look to his often complex characters and how they develop throughout the play. and so we must look at individual characters, as Friel does, to see whether this play is pro-Irish or not.
Hyde delivered a speech before the Irish National Literary Society on the 25th of November, 1892 entitled “The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland.” W.B. Yeats responded to this speech la...
English persecution of the Irish people is one cause of the tensions in Northern Ireland. Before 1793 Irish Catholics were persecuted by British law. Catholics were not allowed to buy and sell land, get proper education, marry Protestants or vote. This fueled problems in Ireland. After 1793 Britain was afraid, after loosing America, that a revolution would happen in Ireland. So the restrictions on the Irish Catholics were done away with. This however angered the protestants who formed the Orange Order, who was against the Catholics. This all came to a head when in 1798 when a small rebellion broke out.
Westerkamp, Marilyn. Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.
Over time, England progressively gained full authority over Ireland. In 1541 the parliament in Dublin recognised a Protestant Englishman Henry VIII as the king of Ireland, despite the fact that the majority of the population were Roman Catholics. Many uprisings took place in Ireland over the centuries with little affect. The country of Ire...
When the Scots-Irish first settled in the colonies, they were met with hostility from the English colonists who considered themselves better
The ancient mythology of Ireland is one of its’ greatest assets. The glorious, poetic tales of battles, super humans, demigods and heroes ranks among the best of ancient literature. The book of the Dun Cow, (Lebor na huidre), was written around 1100 and contains stories from the eighth and ninth centuries. The Book of Invasions, (Lebor Gabala), tells how the mythical ancestors of the Irish, the God-like Tuatha Dé Danann, wrestled Ireland (or Erin) from misshapen Fir Bolg in fantastic battles. The Fir Bolg were traditionally linked to Gaul and Britain so the analogy between them and the invading English was complete.
Gray, Peter. Famine, Land, and Politics: British Government and Irish Society. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1999.
There is a long history of opposition to British colonialism in Northern Ireland and historically, colonialism creates a special case which carries characteristic cultural effects in the opposition. Colonialism, as Begona Aretxaga (223) points out, “not only exploits and despoils, it also creates meanings and shapes feelings.”. He further suggests that it is this creation of meanings and shaping of feeling that sets colonialism apart from other forms of political opposition. It is this effect which has laid the cultural framework for the political defiances of the Irish.
Kiberd, Declan, Inventing Ireland: the Literature of the Modern Nation, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996.
On the 14th of September in the year 1607 the Earl of Tyrone Hugh O’Neill and the Earl of Tyrconnel Rory O’Donnell fled Ireland alongside officials, their families and numerous Gaelic chieftains. They left Ireland from Rathmullen in County Donegal. This flee was to become known as the flight of the Earls. They arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and then eventually made their way to Rome. The Flight of the Earls led to the most drastic form of the British government’s policy of plantation in Ireland. The Flight of the Earls has remained as one of the most memorable events in the history of Ireland. But what exactly were the reasons for the Flight of the Earls? The causes have been debated by historians with different interpretations as to why they fled but it is clear that the influence of the Earls in Ireland have been diminished greatly in the years prior to the Flight of the Earls. This essay seeks to clarify the reasons for the decline in power of the Earls in Ireland through exploration of the solidification of British rule in Ireland, along with key events in the years prior to the Flight of the Earls such as Hugh O’Neill’s campaign and onto the nine years war and the Battle of Kinsale and the Treaty of Mellifont after the Battle of Kinsale.
The contribution that Emyr Estyn Evans (E.E Evans) has made to Irish studies is not just realised in his works and academic achievements, it is also realised in the present and it will continue to be recognised in the future. As we all share in one way or another, the same proud feeling for our Irish heritage in all its forms from historical, geographically, orally and traditionally. The author will seek to discuss this in this essay; it is in large, partly attributed to the foundations laid and explorations undertaken by E. E Evans. Although a lot of Evans life and achievements were lived and realised in Ulster and Belfast his lasting legacy is felt as a whole on the island of Ireland. He believed in the nine counties of Ulster being just that rather than making aware or highlighting the divide that is North and South of the border. He once recalled how he saw the Irish heritage as a single theme with many variations (Hamlin, A, 1989).
This paper will investigate the culture of Ireland by taking a look at the five characteristics. Each characteristic will be allotted its own subsections. The first section will encompass the history to illuminate the connection of a country’s struggle and their learned culture. I will communicate the key aspects that connect an individual culture to the region of the world it inhabits in the second section. In the third section, the language and art of the land are discussed to draw lines to the symbols a culture is founded upon. The fourth section of the essay is dedicated to the characteristic of culture being made up of many components. This is illustrated by the ethnicity/racial, weather, terrain, and military breakdown of the island. The final section is commentary on the dynamic characteristic that interacting cultures learn, develop, and transform due to their shared contact and friction.
To undertake a full thematic investigation of this period would be very much beyond the scope of this paper. Thus, the essay will embark on a high level chronological interpretation of some of the defining events and protagonists, which influenced the early modernization of Ireland during the period 1534-1750. The main focus of the paper will concentrating on the impact and supervision of the Tudor dynasty. Firstly, the essay will endeavour to gain an understanding as to what contemporary historians accept as being the concept of modernization during this time period. The paper will then continue by examine the incumbent societal and political structure of Ireland prior to the Tudor conquests. This will have the impact of highlight the modernising effects produced by the subsequent attempts by the Tudors to consolidate and centralise power in the hands of the State. Once more, due to the vast nature of the time period, not every modernizing effect can be examined. Therefore, the paper will concentrate on the modernization of the political landscape, land ownership and the impact this had on the geographic construct of the island.
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).