The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Writing of Ireland’s History in the Sixteenth Century
This chapter contrasts the annalistic tradition expressing pride in ancestry that had prevailed for centuries in Gaelic Ireland with the twelfth-century writings of Gerald of Wales that convinced people of English descent in Ireland that the country had been brought into historical time through English conquest. It demonstrates how the sense that English culture was superior to Gaelic culture was heightened by humanist histories, notably those by Campion and Stanihurst. It then explains that as English society in Ireland remained Catholic when government and society in England were becoming self-consciously Protestant, the government encouraged Protestant apocalyptic authors, notably John Derricke and John Hooker, to write histories for Ireland that contended that England’s reform mission in Ireland had always been religious more than civil.