Lord Deputy of Ireland in the context of Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester

The siege of Smerwick took place at Ard na Caithne (the Hill of the Arbutus Tree, known in English as Smerwick) in November 1580, during the Second Desmond Rebellion in Ireland. A force of between 400 and 700 Papal freelance soldiers, mostly of Spanish and Italian origin, landed at Smerwick to support the Catholic rebels. They were forced to retreat to the nearby promontory fort of Dún an Óir, where they were besieged by the English. The Papal commander parleyed and was bribed, and the defenders surrendered within a few days. The officers were spared, but the other ranks were then summarily executed on the orders of the English commander, Arthur Grey (Baron Grey de Wilton), the Lord Deputy of Ireland.

The Rt Hon. Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton, KG (1536–1593), was a baron in the Peerage of England. Lord Grey de Wilton is now largely remembered for his memoir of his father, for participating in the last defence of Calais (1558), and for his involvement in the massacre after the Siege of Smerwick (1580) on Corca Dhuibhne in County Kerry. He served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1580 until 1582.

Poynings' Law or the Statute of Drogheda (10 Hen. 7. c. 4 (I) [The Irish Statutes numbering] or 10 Hen. 7. c. 9 (I) [Analecta Hibernica numbering]; later titled "An Act that no Parliament be holden in this Land until the Acts be certified into England") was a 1494 Act of the Parliament of Ireland which provided that the parliament could not meet until its proposed legislation had been approved both by Ireland's Lord Deputy and Privy Council and by England's monarch (the Lord of Ireland) and Privy Council. It was a major grievance in 18th-century Ireland, was amended by the Constitution of 1782, rendered moot by the Acts of Union 1800, and repealed by the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 57).

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (UK: /lɛfˈtɛnənt/), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the Kingdom of Ireland (1541–1800) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922). The office, under its various names, was often more generally known as the Viceroy, and his wife was known as the vicereine. The government of Ireland in practice was usually in the hands of the Lord Deputy up to the 17th century, and later of the Chief Secretary for Ireland.