The Nine Years' War was the largest war in Tudor England – and one of the most expensive too, costing the government around £1.131 million. But its lasting effects were more than just financial: it led to the collapse of Ireland's traditional Gaelic order and its clans.
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Outside of Dublin (which became a Norse kingdom from 853 to 1170 AD), Irish dynasties repelled Viking invaders with a good degree of success. And, although the Anglo-Normans conquered much of Ireland in the 12th century, the Gaelic clans fought back and reduced the extent of the English crown’s control to Dublin and its immediate surrounds, an area known as The Pale, beyond which various kings and clan chieftains held power until the 16th century.
The Tudors were determined to regain control of the whole country, however, not least because of the religious connections between the clans and catholic nations in Europe. In 1542, Henry VIII established the Kingdom of Ireland as an English dependency, and attempted to impose a policy of 'surrender and regrant', whereby clans were forced or bribed into cutting kinship loyalties, accepting the English feudal system, giving up Brehon law and adopting English common law. Some chiefs acquiesced, but others resisted, ultimately leading to the Nine Years' War (1593–1603), when Irish enlisted the support of Spain.
In 1601, when the English defeated the united forces of several big clans (notably the O'Neills and O'Donnells) at the Battle of Kinsale, Ireland's traditional Gaelic order collapsed. The Elizabethan conquest followed and in 1607, several high chiefs left Ireland with their leading kinsmen in the Flight of the Earls, heading for Continental Europe, where they remained active in political and military shenanigans.
The legacy of the clan system reverberates through Irish history and culture still, however, not least in the castles and forts scattered across the country. The main names are very much existent, various authorities keep records about who rightly holds what title, and millions of people of Irish extraction now living all over the world can trace their family lines right back to where they began, with the country's clans.
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Top image: a map of the Siege of Kinsale, one of the battles during the Fourth Spanish Armada in the Nine Years' War, by Abraham Hogenberg. Credit: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
