The ideology of english colonization: From Ireland to America

ATHOUGH the lordship of Ireland had long been in Englishhands, effective control over the country had been lost duringthe late medieval period, with the result that independent and autonomous Irish jurisdictions covered much of the island until the end of the sixteenth century. Attempts to reassert English authority over Ireland produced under Elizabeth I a pattern of conquest, bolstered by attempts at colonization, which was contemporaneous with and parallel to the first effective contacts of Englishmen with North America, to plans for conquest and settlement there, and to the earliest encounters with its Indian inhabitants. The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland should therefore be viewed in the wider context of European expansion.