Protestant Conquest

England’s break with the Catholic Church, the dissolution of the monasteries and Henry VIII’s assumption of the title King of Ireland incensed both the old Anglo-Norman dynasties and resurgent Irish clans such as the O’Neills. Resistance to foreign rule was fierce and it took over 150 years of war to establish the English Protestant Ascendancy. Tudor and Stuart monarchs adopted a policy of military persuasion, then Plantation. Oliver Cromwell was even more forceful. Irish hopes were raised when the Catholic James II ascended to the English Throne, but he was deposed and fled to Ireland, where he was defeated by William of Orange (William III) in 1690.

1500

1504 8^th Earl of Kildare become master of Ireland after victory at Knocktoe.

1525

1534 Silken Thomas rebels against Henry VIII

1539 Henry VIII dissolves monasteries

1541 Henry VIII Henry VIII declare King of Ireland by Irish Parliament

1550

1557 Mary I orders first plantations inn Offaly and Laois

1575

1582 Desmond rebellion in Munster

1585 Ireland is mapped and divided into 32 counties

1588 Spanish Armada wrecked off west coast

1592 Trinity College, Dublin founded

1600

1603 Earl of Tyrone ends eight years of war by signing the Treaty of Mellifont

1607 Flight of the Earls: old Irish leaders flee to the Continent; Plantation of Ulster

1625

1632 Important Irish History, The Annals of the Four Masters, written by four Franciscan friars from Donegal

1641 Armed rebellion in Ulster opposes Plantation

1649 Cromwell lands in Dublin; razes Drogheda and Wexford; Catholic landowners transplanted to far west

1650

1675

1688 James II, deposed Catholic king of England, flees to Ireland and raises army

1689 Siege of Derry

1690 William of Orange defeats James II at Battle of the Boyne; James’s army surrenders the following year in Limerick

1695 Penal code severely reduces rights of Roman Catholics

1700