Colonialism and imperialism were the policies of many Europeans rulers and merchants in the 15th and 16th centuries who aimed to increase their power and wealth by exploiting and taking over by force those lands that were discovered by European explorers. The native inhabitants were overpowered and treated as slaves. Slavery and the slave trade were introduced as part of this strategy. The rulers in England were among the first to see the opportunity to enhance their power and wealth.
These colonial policies resulted in millions of people being killed and injured and many being imprisoned in cruel sub-human conditions.
The colonisation of Ireland by the English Tudor monarchy began in earnest under Henry VIII (1509-1547). The enslavement of the native Irish became official policy. Many Irish were expelled to other British colonies in the Caribbean.
Henry VIII was born in 1491 and was seventeen when he succeeded his father Henry VII in 1509. Henry it was who, for his own personal reasons, decided that England and the Catholic Church in England should break with Rome when the Vatican refused him permission to divorce the first of his six wives Catherine of Aragon. The King became the head of the newly formed English/Anglican church. Henry divorced another of his wives and beheaded two other wives. Nice
guy!
The takeover of Ireland over the next 100 years took many different forms – political, military, cultural and religious. It went through many different phases and stages of intensity. It began in the area known as the Pale which included Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Offaly and Laois –these latter known then as Kings county and Queens county. It then extended to Ulster after the Flight of the Earls in September 1607.
As Ireland’s population increased and the land and produce became more profitable it was considered by the English to be strategically important but for that to take place, the power of the local families had to be removed or weakened. The English got their excuse to start the destruction of the native families in 1534 when the leading member of the Fitzgeralds of Maynooth, refused to accept the English king’s authority and led a rebellion against the English monarch. Lord Kildare was executed in Tyburn. His son ‘Silken’ Thomas Fitzgerald(his soldiers wore silk) sought to continue the rebellion but was arrested and also hanged in London in 1537 – along with five other senior members of the Kildare family.
The Catholic Church in Ireland at that time was loyal to Rome and, after King Henry’s break with Rome, was regarded as a constant threat to their power. The Irish Catholic church was regarded as corrupt and in need of reform! The many monastic settlements were regarded as a special threat. This was the excuse the English monarchy used to intervene in the Church affairs of this small island of almost 1 million inhabitants only 20 miles from England. It was used as an excuse for the English to teach the Irish how to be civilised and to teach them a few lessons about morality and faith and respect for the monarch! This was the monarch’s chance to take control and stop any future threat of rebellion.
No comments yet.