The Pale in the context of "History of Ireland"

The Kingdom of Ireland (Early Modern Irish: Ríoghacht Éireann; Modern Irish: Ríocht na hÉireann, pronounced [ənˠ ˌɾˠiːxt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ]) was a dependency of England from 1542 to 1707, and subsequently Great Britain from 1707 to 1800. It was ruled by the monarchs of England and then of Great Britain in personal union, and was administered from Dublin Castle by a viceroy appointed by the English king: the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. By the late 17th century, the state was dominated by the Protestant Anglo-Irish minority, known as the Protestant Ascendancy. The Protestant Church of Ireland was the state church. The Parliament of Ireland was almost exclusively Anglo-Irish. From 1661, the administration controlled an Irish army. Although formally a kingdom in personal union on equal footing with England and later Great Britain, for most of its history it was de facto a dependency with a viceroy sent as an envoy from London. This status was enshrined in the Declaratory Act 1719, also known as the Irish Parliament Act 1719.

The territory of the kingdom comprised that of the former Lordship of Ireland, founded in 1177 by King Henry II of England and the English Pope Adrian IV, after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. By the 16th century, the Pale, the area of effective English rule, had shrunk greatly; most of Ireland was held by Gaelic nobles as minor principalities notionally subject to London but independent in practice. By the terms of the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, Henry VIII of England became "King of Ireland", theoretically elevating Ireland to coequal status with England as a kingdom in personal union. There followed an expansion of English control during the Tudor conquest. This sparked the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years' War. The conquest of the island was completed early in the 17th century. It involved the confiscation of land from the native Irish Catholics and its colonisation by Protestant settlers from Britain. Most Catholic countries at the time did not recognise Protestant monarchs as legitimate kings of Ireland (or indeed of England), instead supporting the Jacobite government-in-exile from 1688 onwards.

Gaelic Ireland (Irish: Éire Ghaelach) was the Gaelic political and social order, and associated culture, that existed in Ireland from the late prehistoric era until the 17th century. It comprised the whole island before Anglo-Normans conquered parts of Ireland in the 1170s. Thereafter, it comprised that part of the country not under foreign dominion at a given time (i.e. the part beyond The Pale). For most of its history, Gaelic Ireland was a "patchwork" hierarchy of territories ruled by a hierarchy of kings or chiefs, who were chosen or elected through tanistry. Warfare between these territories was common. Traditionally, a powerful ruler was acknowledged as High King of Ireland. Society was made up of clans and, like the rest of Europe, was structured hierarchically according to class. Throughout this period, the economy was mainly pastoral and money was generally not used. A Gaelic Irish style of dress, music, dance, sport and art can be identified, with Irish art later merging with Anglo-Saxon styles to create Insular art.

Gaelic Ireland was initially pagan and had an oral culture maintained by traditional Gaelic storytellers/historians, the seanchaidhthe. Writing, in the form of inscription in the ogham alphabet, began in the protohistoric period, perhaps as early as the 1st century. The conversion to Christianity, beginning in the 5th century, accompanied the introduction of literature. In the Middle Ages, Irish mythology and Brehon law were recorded by Irish monks, albeit partly Christianized. Gaelic Irish monasteries were important centres of learning. Irish missionaries and scholars were influential in western Europe and helped to spread Christianity to much of Britain and parts of mainland Europe.

Ireland was conquered by the Tudor monarchs of England in the 16th century. The Anglo-Normans had conquered swathes of Ireland in the late 12th century, bringing it under English rule. In the 14th century, the effective area of English rule shrank markedly, and from then most of Ireland was held by native Gaelic chiefdoms. Following a failed rebellion by the Earl of Kildare in the 1530s, the English Crown set about restoring its authority. Henry VIII of England was made "King of Ireland" by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542. The conquest involved assimilating the Gaelic nobility by way of "surrender and regrant"; the confiscation and colonisation ('plantation') of lands with settlers from Britain; imposing English law and language; banning Catholicism, dissolving the monasteries, and making Anglican Protestantism the state religion.

The Tudor policies in Ireland sparked the Desmond Rebellions (1569–1573, 1579–1583) and the Nine Years' War (1594–1603). Despite Spain sending an armada to support the Irish Catholics during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), by 1603 the entire country was under English rule. The Flight of the Earls in 1607 largely completed the destruction of the Gaelic aristocracy and left the way open for the Plantation of Ulster, which established a large British Protestant population in the north. Several people who helped establish the plantations of Ireland also played a part later in the early colonisation of North America, particularly a group known as the West Country Men.

Leinster (/ˈlɛnstər/ LEN-stər; Irish: Laighin [ˈl̪ˠəinʲ] or Cúige Laighean [ˌkuːɟə ˈl̪ˠəinˠ]) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland.

The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of Ireland, the historic "fifths" of Leinster and Meath gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled both, thereby forming the present-day province of Leinster. The ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes. In later centuries, local government legislation has prompted further sub-division of the historic counties.

The history of Ireland from 1169–1536 covers the period from the arrival of the Cambro-Normans to the reign of Henry VIII of England, who made himself King of Ireland. After the Norman invasion of 1169–1171, Ireland was under an alternating level of control from Norman lords and the King of England. Previously, Ireland had seen intermittent warfare between provincial kingdoms over the position of High King. This situation was transformed by intervention in these conflicts by Norman mercenaries and later the English crown. After their successful conquest of England, the Normans turned their attention to Ireland. Ireland was made a lordship of the King of England and much of its land was seized by Norman barons. With time, Hiberno-Norman rule shrank to a territory known as the Pale, stretching from Dublin to Dundalk. The Hiberno-Norman lords elsewhere in the country became Gaelicised and integrated in Gaelic society.

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (Irish: Aodh Mór Ó Néill; c. 1550 – 10 July [N.S. 20 July] 1616) was an Irish lord and key figure of the Nine Years' War. Known as the "Great Earl", he led the confederacy of Irish lords against the English Crown's conquest of Ireland during the Elizabethan era.

He was born into the O'Neill clan, Tír Eoghain's ruling noble family, during a violent succession conflict which saw his father assassinated. At the age of eight he was relocated to the Pale where he was raised by an English family. Although the Crown hoped to mold him into a puppet ruler sympathetic to the English government, by the 1570s he had built a strong network of both English and Irish contacts which he utilised for his pursuit of political power, eventually becoming one of the richest and most powerful lords in Ireland.