Making Ireland British, 1580-1650 Paperback

Nicholas Canny

This is the first comprehensive study of all the plantations that were attempted in Ireland during the years 1580-1650. It examines the arguments advanced by successive political figures for a plantation policy, and the responses which this policy elicited from different segments of the population in Ireland. The book opens with an analysis of the complete works of Edmund Spenser who was the most articulate ideologue for plantation. The author argues that all subsequent advocates of plantation, ranging from King James VI and I, to Strafford, to Oliver Cromwell, were guided by Spenser's opinions, and that discrepancies between plantation in theory and practice were measured against this yardstick. The book culminates with a close analysis of the 1641 insurrection throughout Ireland, which, it is argued, steeled Cromwell to engage in one last effort to make Ireland British.

9780199259052

English

Oxford University Press, USA

13 Mar 2003

650

wonderful work, richly layered and contextualised ... a masterly study and an unmitigated triumph ... a masterpiece of painstaking research ... [a] splendid volume. * History Today * Let there be no mistake: Making Ireland British is an extraordinary book, a major feat of scholarship, and probably the single most important study of early modern Ireland to appear for a generation or more. * Wiliam and Mary Quarterly * No other work reveals so much about the transformation of life across the island through the remorseless colonial process that began in Elizabethan times. * Wiliam and Mary Quarterly * Canny's knowledge of literary as well as official sources is exemplary. * Wiliam and Mary Quarterly * ... for many years it will be compulsory reading for anyone wishing to understand English colonial policy and its impact on native society. * Wiliam and Mary Quarterly *