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Celtic Hist. Newsletter: Origins of Anglo-Irish Animosity
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hist-@historicgames.com
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Jul 01, 2008 10:11 PDT
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The Celtic History Newsletter
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Origins of Anglo-Irish Animosity
Some of the roots of the animosity between the Irish and the English
go back even further than the religious conflicts of the Protestant
Reformation. English kings feared that if they did not dominate the
smaller island, some continental power might gain a foothold there,
and use it as a secondary base from which they could out flank England
and launch a two-sided invasion. Thus domination of Ireland was seen
as vital to English security.
As early as the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) many Norman-Irish
landowners had begun to live comfortably in England off of the rents
they collected from their Irish tenants. Even the English Parliament
denounce the abuses of absentee landlords who, for the next three
centuries, continued to be one of the inspirations for Irish revolts
against English control.
On the other hand it was found that English landowners who lived on
their Irish holdings, over time, ?went native? -marrying Irish women
and adopting Irish ways. Among it?s 36 acts the 1366 Statute of
Kilkenny banned the intermarriage between Irish and English as well as
other intimate relations such as the fosterage of children:
?But now many English of the said land, forsaking the English
language, manners, mode of riding, laws and usages, live and govern
themselves according to the manners, fashion, and language of the
Irish enemies; and also have made divers marriages and alliances
between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid; whereby the said
land, and the liege people thereof, the English language, the
allegiance due to our lord the king, and the English laws there, are
put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish enemies exalted and
raised up, contrary to reason?
...it is ordained and established, that no alliance by marriage,
gossipred*, fostering of children, concubinage or by amour, nor in any
other manner, be hencefoth made between the English and Irish of one
part, or of the other part?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes_of_Kilkenny
It further prevented Irishmen from to be accepted in English religious
organization, and no Irish bards were to enter Irish homes. These
restrictions failed in the long run, and in the words of historian
Will Durant, ?The roses in Irish cheeks outshone the majesty of the
law,? and the dilution of English culture in Ireland continued.
It was only the internicene conflicts that prevented the Irish chiefs
from expelling the Irish during the Wars of the Roses. And after Henry
VII re-established English authority, Sir Edward Poynings emasculated
the Irish government by passing ?Poynings? Law? (1494) which said that
no future Irish Parliament could convene until all until all bills
presented to it had been approved by the English king and Privy
Council. The Irish government continued ineffective and corrupt as The
English appointed one after another of the sixty chieftains as the
viceroy?s deputy who was commissioned to buy or subdue the rest of the
chieftains and helping collect English taxes to keep Ireland poor and
weak.
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*Gossipred: When a man stood sponsor for a child at baptism, he became
the child's godfather, and gossip to the parents. Gossipred was
regarded as a sort of religious relationship between families, and
created mutual obligations of regard and friendship.
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