Provided by the author(s) and NUI Galway in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Title Negotiating colonialism: Gaelic reaction to English expansion in early modern Ireland, c.1541–1641 Author(s) Morrissey, John Publication Date 2003 Publication Morrissey, John. (2003) Negotiating Colonialism. London: Information Historical Geography Research Group, Royal Geographical Society. Publisher Historical Geography Research Group, Royal Geographical Society Link to publisher's https://web.archive.org/web/20170227070928/https:/hgrg.org.u version k/research-series/ Item record http://hdl.handle.net/10379/15132 Downloaded 2021-09-27T00:17:44Z Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. Negotiating Colonialism Negotiating Colonialism Gaelic-Irish Reaction to New English Expansion in Early Modern Tipperary, c.1541-1641 John Morrissey In memory of my mother Contents Figures ............................................................................................................................. ix Preface ............................................................................................................................. xi Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... xiii Abbreviations and Conventions .................................................................................. xv Frontispiece .................................................................................................................. xix 1 Cultural Interaction in Early Modern Ireland Themes of Contestation ........................................................................................... 1 Irish Historical Geography of the Early Modern Period ......................................... 3 Narrating Early Modern Ireland .............................................................................. 5 Theorising the Local ................................................................................................ 8 (Re)presenting Gaelic Kilnamanagh ..................................................................... 11 The Challenge of the Sources ................................................................................ 13 2 Kilnamanagh and the Advent of New English Order Kilnamanagh and the Frontier in Medieval Ireland .............................................. 23 A New Contact Zone / A New English World ...................................................... 30 Resistance and Conformity in the Late Sixteenth Century ................................... 43 The Exclusiveness of New English Government .................................................. 47 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 54 3 The Quest for Survival in the Early Seventeenth Century Securing Landownership in the Early 1600s ......................................................... 61 Redefining Landholdings in the Context of the Crown ......................................... 64 The Opening of a Market in Land ......................................................................... 70 The Entry of the New English Adventurer Class .................................................. 73 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 79 vii 4 Geographies of Identity and Resistance A Level of Integration in Pre-1641 Society .......................................................... 85 Negotiating Identity in a Colonial Context ........................................................... 90 The Complexities of the Gaelic-Irish Response .................................................... 94 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 99 5 The 1641 Rebellion: Defining the ‘Coloniser’ and the ‘Colonised’ A Sense of Difference ......................................................................................... 105 The Breakdown of Order ..................................................................................... 111 Exclusion and Rebellion: Delimiting Irish Society ............................................. 117 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 121 6 Conclusion: Locating Early Modern Irish Society ......................................... 127 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 132 viii Figures 1.1 The Barony of Kilnamanagh, County Tipperary ..................................................... 9 2.1 The Down Survey Barony Map of Kilnamanagh, c.1654 ..................................... 32 2.2 Hibernia, 1573 ....................................................................................................... 33 2.3 The Demonisation of the Gaelic-Irish ................................................................... 34 2.4 The Civilised Order of the English Pale ................................................................ 35 2.5 Marching to the Frontier ........................................................................................ 36 2.6 The Defeat of the Gaels ......................................................................................... 37 2.7 The Submission of the Gaelic Chiefs .................................................................... 38 ix x Preface Gaelic resistance to English colonialism and the emergence of Irish nationalism have come under renewed academic scrutiny in recent years. A series of complexities and ambiguities inherent in both the British colonial project and Irish reactions to its various manifestations has been shown to underline a whole set of tensions within Ireland’s colonial past. As part of this growing discourse, this work explores the contradictory notions of accommodation and resistance in the early modern period by examining one Gaelic-Irish family’s encounters in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the experiences of the O’Dwyers of Kilnamanagh, in west County Tipperary in south-western Ireland, and set against the backdrop of the emergence of nascent forms of Irish nationalism, the work interrogates the intricate and intriguing Gaelic/English relations of the early modern period. The work seeks to sift out the contested spaces of early modern Irish society in an effort to underline the fluidity and inherent contradictions of practices of domination and resistance in the formation and interaction of Ireland’s cultural identities; identities whose intricacies and conflicts are so revealing and consequential for the understanding of the present. In locating the historical geographies of early modern Ireland, the central focus has been the explication of the complexities of both the practices of New English colonialism and subsequent Gaelic-Irish responses. A key challenge has been the conceptualisation of the emergence of contemporary society’s intrinsic ambiguities, which mirror the contradictory essence of both the shared and bounded, political, economic and cultural spaces of Ireland’s past. John Morrissey Galway May 2003 xi xii Acknowledgements In researching and writing this book I have built up a lengthy list of personal and intellectual debts that I now take pleasure in acknowledging. There are always, of course, so many colleagues, friends and family that support and influence one’s thinking and writing that it is difficult to adequately and gracefully remember them. However, I’ve endeavoured to record sincerely below my thanks to a number of important people in my life, social, academic and otherwise, and my apologies to anyone I’ve unintentionally neglected to mention. My thanks go first to Alan Lester for his discerning advice as editor of the HGRG research series, and for the affable and enjoyable learning experience of working with him. Thanks also for the comments of two anonymous referees whose input was most valuable. There are others, too, whose observations were challenging, constructive and ever encouraging at different stages of the production of this work. These include: Catherine Brace; Alex Gibson; David Harvey; Mark Hennessy; Gerry Kearns; Matthew Kurtz; Mike Leyshon; Denis Linehan; Catherine Nash; Simon Potter; Lindsay Proudfoot; and Ulf Strohmayer – thanks for all your ideas, energy and joy of conversation. I’d like to show my appreciation, too, to the Publications Fund of National University of Ireland, Galway for subventing the publication costs of this work, and I’d like to also acknowledge the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Department of Geography at the University of Exeter for the two scholarships that allowed me to do the doctoral research upon which the work is based. Finally, thanks to my family and friends who have supported me in so many respects over the years and challenged and taught me in ways that perhaps they never even knew! Thank you. John Morrissey xiii xiv Abbreviations and Conventions Primary sources are referred to in the footnotes in abbreviated form, full details being presented in the bibliography. The following abbreviations are employed throughout: A.F.M. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters (7 vols.) Cal. Carew MSS Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts, Lambeth, 1515-74 [etc.] (6 vols.. Vol. 5, Books of Howth, Miscellaneous,