Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World

by Jane Ohlmeyer

Ireland was England's oldest colony. Making Empire revisits the history of empire in Ireland—in a time of Brexit, 'the culture wars', and the campaigns around 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Statues must fall'—to better understand how it has formed the present, and how it might shape the future.

Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states that are the blip on the historical horizon. Making Empire re-examines empire as process—and Ireland's role in it—through the lens of early modernity. It covers the two hundred years, between the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century, that equate roughly to the timespan of the First English Empire
(c.1550-c.1770s).

Ireland was England's oldest colony. How then did the English empire actually function in early modern Ireland and how did this change over time? What did access to European empires mean for people living in Ireland? This book answers these questions by interrogating four interconnected themes. First, that Ireland formed an integral part of the English imperial system, Second, that the Irish operated as agents of empire(s). Third, Ireland served as laboratory in and for the English empire.
Finally, it examines the impact that empire(s) had on people living in early modern Ireland. Even though the book's focus will be on Ireland and the English empire, the Irish were trans-imperial and engaged with all of the early modern imperial powers. It is therefore critical, where possible and
appropriate, to look to other European and global empires for meaningful comparisons and connections in this era of expansionism.

What becomes clear is that colonisation was not a single occurrence but an iterative and durable process that impacted different parts of Ireland at different times and in different ways. That imperialism was about the exercise of power, violence, coercion and expropriation. Strategies about how best to turn conquest into profit, to mobilise and control Ireland's natural resources, especially land and labour, varied but the reality of everyday life did not change and provoked a wide variety of
responses ranging from acceptance and assimilation to resistance.

This book, based on the 2021 James Ford Lectures, Oxford University, suggests that the moment has come revisit the history of empire, if only to better understand how it has formed the present, and how this might shape the future.

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction, Politics, World History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 9, 2023

Reviews

[Neil Kenealy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very readable even though its thoroughly academic with thousands of references and bibliography. It evolved from a series of weekly lectures at Oxford in 2021 given by Jane Ohlmeyer who is professor of Modern Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin.

The subtitle for this book is Ireland, Imperialism and the early modern world. Early modern is 1500 to 1700 so this includes the Tudor conquest and Cromwellian plantations and the forced export of thousands of native Irish to the newly minted Caribbean colonies. It’s a period that laid the foundations and formative ideas for the 1800s which are more associated with the British Empire.

Ireland was a laboratory for both the administration of and resistance to empire. This especially applies to India. Things were tried in Ireland first and then applied around the world. After Irish independence, partition was first tried in Ireland and later copied in Palestine and India. The parallel with India is well covered near the end of the book. British Army learning how to deal with the guerilla tactics if the IRA during The Troubles is the most recent example. But the origin goes right back to the early modern period with the Tudor plantations where mass migration of thousands of families to settle on recently cleared land was orchestrated by the state.

A visit to any of the big houses in Ireland which weren’t burned down in 1922-23 shows much exotic far flung paraphernalia. Also, this book fills a gap in the historiography by including the role of women during 1500 to 1700. Women were often hidden in plain sight during coverage of this period.

Some of this story doesn't fit well into Ireland’s foundation story which is much dominated by the unshackling of Ireland from the British empire. For example, Irish industry in the 1700s was well connected with the British Empire trading systems. Also, Ireland supplied a disproportionate percentage of army and police forces and commanders had learned strategy and tactics in Ireland. Any good re-examination of Irish history is bound to ruffle some nationalist feathers.

[Sophie L · Rating 3 out of 5]

wow i need to read more dense history this took me way too long to get through. but i really enjoyed the way Ohlmeyer blended together literature and history to examine the themes of the book. Ireland as place of empire and colony was fascinating to read about, especially when Ohlmeyer pulled in the literary tradition to examine the ways people of the time saw the country developing hand in hand with England but also independently. Lots of think about as a place where not only empire but also resistance tactics were developed.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific read, with lots of interesting info. I particularly enjoyed the academic respect shown to Brian Friel's plays "Making History" and "Translations" as ways of illustrating some important historical situations.

[andy noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent well written history. Tye book covers tge Tudor and Stuart period as the English conquered Ireland. It brings to light the horrors of the conquest and rebellions against it. More enlightening, it also records how the Irish helped grow the British Empire in both India and the Americas.

[Michael Jennings · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting recount of the importance of Ireland and its peoples during the height of the British Empire. Interesting, detailed, and dense at times.

[Juan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book or, at least, I had the wrong expectations going into it. I picked it up after hearing the author on *Empire Pod*, imagining something more accessible about the history of early English imperialism in Ireland. But the book is very “academic”; the acknowledgments indicate it is based on lectures the author gave in university. Probably as a result, there is a frustrating level of detail throughout, at times giving way too little background on proper noun characters and at others focusing much too narrowly on individual people / towns. All to say, I didn’t get all that much out of reading this.

Here’s what I found interesting: the idea that Ireland is the “first” British colony, the only colonized country in western Europe; the steps the English took to try to “anglicize” Ireland early on; the process of using both settlers (“plantations”) to dispossess the locals *and* (interestingly) the “carrot” of being made nobility to win over the elites; and the way that colonial practices in Ireland would later be reflected in other colonies, down to specific people (one Irish man who worked in colonial policing in Ireland, India, and Palestine). The Irish being sent all over the world was also surprising, but makes sense; that’s how you get the hilariously named Bernardo O’Higgins as a Chilean founding father.

These are interesting ideas but they don’t get a lot of development. There’s also an emphasis on culture and discourse that I know is interesting to some people, but not to me. That colonial administrators in Ireland would conceptualize the island’s “problems” in disease-like language, and that this same language would later show up in India, is not so interesting to me. What I found more interesting was how often the Irish were invoked in North America: “the wild irish and the indian do not much differ”. There’s a dark comedy there where the colonizer recognizes these “similarities” in otherwise very dissimilar peoples but fails to recognize the common denominator (the colonial relationship).