The saga of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland has rarely received the attention it deserves, long overshadowed by more ‘glamorous’ events that challenged the Queen, most especially those involving Catholic Spain and France, superpowers with vastly more resources than Protestant England. Ireland was viewed as a peripheral theatre, a haven for Catholic heretics and a potential ‘back door’ for foreign invasions.
Independent scholar and author of eight books James Charles Roy, will speak on the subject at Doneraile Court later this month, in an illustrated talk on ‘The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland’.
Lord Deputies sent by the Queen to Ireland were tormented by such fears, and reacted with an iron hand. Their cadres of subordinates, including poets and writers as gifted as Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Walter Raleigh, were all corrupted in the process, their humanist values disfigured by the realities of Irish life as they encountered them through the lens of conquest and appropriation. This is the story of revolt, suppression, atrocities and genocide, and ends with an ailing, dispirited queen facing internal convulsions and an empty treasury.
Her death saw the end of the Tudor dynasty, marked not by victory over the great enemy Spain, but by ungovernable Ireland – the first colonial ‘failed state’.
This upcoming talk by historian James Charles Roy is presented by the Office of Public Works as part of the 2023 Cultural Programme at Doneraile Court. The speaker is a well-known member of the Irish-American academic community, and also a former editorial contributor and American representative of the Journal of the Galway Archaeological & Historical Society, he has been published by leading imprints in the US, Ireland and Germany. Also a gifted photographer, his work has been exhibited at the Boston Public Library, the National Library of Ireland and numerous other venues.
Taking place on Sunday, July 16 at 4pm in Doneraile Court, tickets (€6) are available at www.eventbrite.ie
