Tudor conquest of Ireland

The Tudor conquest (or reconquest) of Ireland took place under the Tudor dynasty, which held the Kingdom of England during the 16th century. Following a failed rebellion against the crown by Silken Thomas, the Earl of Kildare, in the 1530s, Henry VIII was declared King of Ireland by statute of the Parliament of Ireland, with the aim of restoring such central authority as had been lost throughout the country during the previous two centuries.

By conciliation and repression the conquest continued for sixty years, until 1603, when the entire country came under the nominal control of James I, exercised through his privy council at Dublin. This control was increased after the Flight of the Earls in 1607.

The conquest was complicated by the imposition of English law, language and culture, as well as by the extension of Anglicanism as the state religion. The Spanish Empire intervened several times at the height of the Anglo-Spanish War, and the Irish found themselves caught between their widespread acceptance of Papal authority and the requirements of allegiance demanded of them by the English monarchy.

Upon completion of the conquest, the polity of Gaelic Ireland had been largely destroyed and the Spanish were no longer willing to intervene directly. This left the way clear for extensive confiscation of land by English, Scots, and Welsh colonists, culminating in the Plantation of Ulster.

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