The Tudor conquest of Ireland took place largely during the 16th century. Henry V111 was  declared King of Ireland in 1541. The defeat of the Irish at the Battle of Kinsale in 1602 signified the end of Gaelic Ireland. The Tudor period ended in 1603 when, on the death of Elizabeth 1, the entire country came under the control of the Stuart King, James.

Henry V111 imposed a policy known as "surrender and regrant". Irish chieftains surrendered their hereditary titles and lands which he then regranted to them. This had the effect of causing civil war in Ireland and a ten-year war against the English ending with Irish defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1602.

The Tudors also sought to reduce the power of the “Old English”, the earlier colonizers, who had been administering Ireland on behalf of the Crown. They succeeded in destroying the Fitzgerald dynasty in the 1530’s.

The counties of Offaly and Laois were named Kings County and Queens County by Queen Mary. An attempted settlement of the province of Munster resulted in war, forced famine, and the deaths of one third of the population. In 1577, 400 Irish chieftains and their families were invited, under the pretense of friendship, to a social event at Mullaghmast in Kildare and slaughtered there. The Irish led by people such as Shane and Hugh O'Neill, and Fiach McHugh O'Byrne fought back as did the remaining Anglo-Irish Fitzgerald’s.

The conquest was an attempt to impose English law, language, culture (Anglicization), and Anglicanism as the state religion. Upon completion of the conquest, the old Gaelic system had been largely destroyed. This left the way clear for extensive confiscation of land by English, Scots, and Welsh colonists, in the Plantation of Ulster.

This four-week course will review in some detail the major events of this period. These events had a great impact on the people and institutions of the native Irish people and the descendants of the Anglo-Norman colonizers of the previous four centuries.