Identifier
etd-04242012-124150
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
This study challenges current historical assumptions about the nature, scope, and timeframe of the 1641 Irish Rebellion in Kerry, Clare, and Limerick counties in western Munster. Placing the start of the popular rebellion in these counties around 1 January 1642, the beginning of unrest is set several months further back. In the process of analyzing the actions of popular and organized rebels alike, the motivations for rebellion are characterized as political and social rather than religious. In turn, seventeenth-century Irish society was transformed from the traditional narrative of a rigid, religiously-divided society into something far more complex and amorphous, with emphasis placed on the importance of local situations, in particular the successes or failures of plantation policy and the existence of substantial Protestant populations. Though the rebellion would later coalesce along confessional lines after the October 1642 Confederation of Kilkenny, the initial period of rebellion demonstrates that certain areas of Ireland by 1641 had produced religiously heterogeneous societies that served to slightly soften attitudes between rebels and their Protestant neighbors.
Date
2012
Document Availability at the Time of Submission
Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.
Recommended Citation
Sailus, Christopher, "Rebels, settlers and violence: rebellion in western Munster 1641-2" (2012). LSU Master's Theses. 956.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/956
Committee Chair
Stater, Victor
DOI
10.31390/gradschool_theses.956