The summation of so much history in the few paragraphs provided below will help the reader understand better the context of the folklore I will be discussing, yet such a summation is bound to be daunting, reductive, and highly selective. A very brief sketch of Irish history is provided in Killanin and Duignan (1989:9-32). A detailed history is available in Moody and Martin (1967).
The plantation of Ireland from England began in 1556 in the province of Leinster after the Tudor conquest. Native landholders defended themselves but ultimately lost battles that resulted in the laying down of their arms by the beginning of the 17th century. Colonization in the province of Ulster beginning at this time was particularly oppressive as the best land was confiscated by Protestant planters from England and Scotland, with Catholics forming an increasingly large peasant class bereft of ownership and many rights. A rebellion of complex loyalties of both Irish and Old English (preTudor colonizers) and against the New English (postTudor) erupted in 1641, the war closing by 1652 with the help of Cromwell. With the land despoiled by war and famine, plantation accelerated, resulting in substantial new Protestant population and dominion of land-owning classes and commerce. But the power structure in Ireland was far from simple. Rule from London was complicated by tendencies toward formation of an Irish parliament. Later, native forces as well as ideas from political events in America and on the Continent gave rise to the democratic movements dedicated to parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. The 19th century saw many gains stemming from this momentum. Of particular importance to this article’s focus on the landlord Fleming is land reform leading gradually to eased conditions for the Irish peasant class. The liberal Englishman Gladstone turned out to be the groundbreaker for such reform. His 1870 Land Act ameliorated peasant conditions. Parnell and Gladstone united in 1881 for the first Land Act bill, which began a series of acts (up to 1903) that reduced rents and encouraged landlords to sell out to peasants.
At the same time as land reform, a Home Rule movement gathered momentum starting in 1873, whose best known champion was Parnell, assisted by Gladstone. This began as a call for home rule within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. Liberal politicians in England almost made Home Rule a reality in 1912 but were hindered by opponents and then the coming of World War I. The Irish Republican Brotherhood created an insurrection in 1916, although it was quickly crushed. But in the coming months a new republican party, Sinn Féin, gained power in the Irish parliament, ratified the 1916 proclamation for the Irish Republic, and claimed jurisdiction over the island. Warfare between British forces and the Irish Republican Army led to the 1920 British amendment to the Home Rule act, which created the partition of the land into the six counties of Ulster (the most densely populated region of Protestant loyalists) and the 26 counties of the remainder, under separate parliaments. In 1921 the British offered the dissatisfied Irish nationalists dominion of the 26 counties as The Irish Free State, although loyalty to the Crown was required, which led to further conflicts until 1923. However, the 26 counties became the sovereign Republic of Ireland in 1948, leaving the 6 counties of Ulster to this day part of the United Kingdom, still a source of political conflicts between the UK and nationalists and loyalist groups on the island.
© Wade Tarzia 1997
© assemblage 1997