The mere Irish and the colonisation of Ulster : c.1570-1641

Abstract

This work is an examination of the native Irish experience of conquest and colonisation in Ulster. While some Irish-language sources are drawn-upon, the fact that these have already been used to explore Gaelic mentalités by specialists like Marc Caball and Brendán Ó Buachalla, mean that English primary documents such as the state papers and 1641 depositions are heavily relied-upon. The oft-cited limitations of these primarily literary materials as a historical source have led to an assumption that the native Irish (especially non-elite) perspective in this era is largely irrecoverable. It is one of the primary aims of this thesis to challenge this assumption, by showing how English sources can be read against their own rhetorical intentions in order to recover something of this perspective. A case-study (chapter six) of the native landowners in Dungannon and Tiranny under the colonial order illustrates the extent of detail that can be mined from the patent rolls and various surveys carried out in the 1650s by the Commonwealth government, supplemented by discursive sources such as the war-diary of Friar Ó Mealláin. In this, my purpose has been not only to suggest the kind of detailed survey of native Irish society which is possible from such sources, but also to chart the links between specific families' place in Gaelic Ulster and the colonial order which replaced it.