Ireland
Uploaded by colakid on Oct 30, 2004
Throughout history the Irish have always faced many hardships. They are people who have faced poverty, war and not many high points. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Irish slowly lost more and more power in their own country.
The Irish had always had an English influence within the country. Kildare had been for a long time the head of this influence. When King Henry declared himself the leader of the Catholic Church, Kildare opposed his decision. King Henry felt threatened by Kildare because he was afraid that Kildare would become allies with England’s Catholic enemies and he sent for him to come to London. Kildare’s son, “Silken Thomas” arrived in Dublin on June 11, 1954 and declared Ireland’s revolt against England. After Sir William and his army knocked down the walls of Maynooth Castle and killed those who survived, “Silken Thomas” was defeated. “Silken Thomas” was murdered and the power that the Kildares had for many years was put to an end.
An English governor succeeded Kildares and once again there was an English influence in Ireland.
Henry started a lot of the fighting that went on between the Catholics and the Protestants. He was afraid that the Catholics would one day gain to much control in Ireland and therefore set up programs to deprive the Catholics of some of their basic freedoms. It was his daughter, however, who set up the system of “plantation.” Plantation was a system where the Irish would have their land taken away from them and then the English would be planted on the land. This land was often ancestral land that was past down from generation to generation. Although Mary I did give the Irish a choice, she allowed them to either give up their land or become tenant farmers on their own land. This was not much of a choice considering that the land had belonged to them. A lot of the Irish who were very attached to their land stayed to work for low wages on their own property and become prisoners in their own homes. In 1571 Mary I’s sister Elizabeth I decided to allot even more land to the Irish and to take away more rights from them. She outlawed Catholic services and even ordered the execution of many...