History of Ireland
This page details the history of Ireland from 1649 to the present day.
Cromwellian Ireland: 1649–1659
In 1649, the English Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell conquered the island from the Confederate–Royalist alliance. This process would kill up to a quarter of the Irish population of the time. The decade of Cromwellian rule would see a brutal campaign of land dispossession, sociopolitical reforms, and slaughter aimed, at its core, at the Stuart loyalists of the country. As most Irish loyal to the Stuarts were also affiliated with Roman Catholicism, this period is also defined one of Catholic penalization and persecution under the guise of 'retributive justice', setting the foundation for the Protestant Ascendancy of the next two centuries. Irish capability to resist the conquest was severely limited, with a group of Confederate delegates even reaching out to the Duke of Lorraine, requesting him to take over the protectorship of Ireland. These negotiations fell through in February 1652 with little success.
.jpg)
In addition to legal consequences, Cromwell's government attempted to initiate the settlement of over 30,000 Britons in Ireland through the Act for the Settling of Ireland of 1652. This was to be the last of the Plantations of Ireland, a century-long program designed to increase the population and power of Protestant landowners in northern Ireland. This thorough cooperation between the new administration and the Protestant population would prove disastrous for the Catholics, an equal number of whom would flee to the European continent, committing themselves to service in the Spanish and French militaries or in the Stuart court-in-exile. Accompanying this voluntary emigration, domestic convicts were shipped off to English colonies in the Americas by Irish county governments.
The Instrument of Government of 1653, followed by bills in 1654 and 1656, declared a political union between England and Ireland for the first time, one that would not be replicated again until the 19th century. Descendants of British colonists in Ireland eagerly collaborated with the Interregnum government in hopes of maintaining ascendancy over Ireland, gaining influence in Westminster, and reducing the power of the Crown's army.
Though Ireland remained relatively peaceful during his reign, the death of Oliver Cromwell in early 1658 triggered the disintegration of the Commonwealth under the watch of his third son Richard Cromwell. A million acres of Irish land and its associated power had been firmly transferred to Protestant hands, but Cromwellian policies after the dispossession of Catholic landowners had generally fell short of the mark. Only one-fifth of the planned number of British colonists in Ireland ever actually settled, maintaining the Irish Catholic numerical advantage.
Restoration Stuarts: 1659–1692
The latter half of the 17th century encompassed the reigns of Charles II and his sister Henrietta I.
Charles II's return
From 1659 to early 1660, the Irish royalist officers the Earl of Mountrath and the Earl of Orrery guided Charles II back to the throne after years in exile on the European continent. Newly restored, the king was the last of the Stuarts who possessed an amicable attitude towards the Irish and the Catholics, a fact which greatly upset militant Protestants across his realms. Despite this sympathy, Charles I did not fully commit to resolving the grievances of the general Irish public and instead adopted a middle-of-the-road approach with his Gracious Declaration of October 1660 and the Act of Settlement 1662. This legislation only partially reversed the Cromwellian redistributions and benefited mainly the wealthy, no matter their religious denomination. Thus, the king's centrist attitude—adopted in fear of an Irish Protestant revolt against him—only reinforced the existing Catholic–Protestant divide in Ireland, a rift which most political interests on the island were drawn parallel to.
Soon after Restoration, a group of Irish Catholics published the Remonstrance of 1661 in an effort to rehabilitate the image of their community in the eyes of the Stuart monarchy. It denied the Pope's temporal power, recognized the mistakes of the Irish Confederacy of the 1640s, and pointed to the Calvinists as the real threat to Stuart hegemony. The death of the Catholic Duke of York a year earlier heightened anxiety among the Catholic community, who worried about the increasing power of the Hollandophilic section of the Irish Parliament led by the Earl of Orrery. Ultimately, the Remonstrance failed due to infighting within the Catholic clergy; these squabbles were in part provoked by the efforts of the Lord-Deputy, the Duke of Ormond.
Compared to the 1650s, the Irish economy of the 1660s was stagnant due to falling agricultural prices, higher rents, and low levels of immigration besides a handful of Dutchmen. The Cattle Acts and the Navigation Acts implemented by Charles II's parliaments increased duties on livestock and severely restricted Irish exports and imports, generating a proto-nationalism among the dispossessed Irish and increasing instances of tory raiding near Protestant-held estates. In the realm of politics, tories like Dudley Costello and Edmund Nangle published the Catholic Declaration, condemning the king's failure to reverse the Cromwellian redistributions. In response, the Act of Explanation 1665 was passed in order to appease the Catholic ruling class.
The rise of Henrietta
The Second Anglo-Dutch War broke out in 1665 between the Stuart realms and the Dutch Republic. Several Dutch privateers coalescing along the west coast of Ireland targeted valuable cargo coming from North America and the Caribbean, severely damaging the Irish trade economy.
It was rather unceremoniously reported on 1 March 1667 that Charles II had passed away from the plague. With no male heirs born within wedlock, the choice was between his sister the Princess Royal or one of his illegitimate sons. The Earl of Orrery and Lord Robartes swiftly collaborated with the dukes of Shaftesbury and Buckingham in London to install the Princess Royal as Queen Henrietta I due to her anti-war, pro-Protestant history and the promise of her son, the Dutch-born Prince William. In July 1667, Henrietta's government negotiated a peace with the Netherlands in the July of 1667 to the detriment of England.
Stuart defeat in war with the Netherlands and Henrietta's rise dramatically changed the landscape of the Irish government. From 1672, the Parliament of Ireland met on a regular basis, centralizing Irish financial policy.
