Choosing Religious Atrocities in Ireland 

"these two sets on events [do not] balance each other. Atrocities don't work that way." Have truer words ever been spoken? Thank you.

I'm a native of Drogheda - grew up there and heard all the local stories at school. Even though its was 40 years ago, this was presented in a rather detached and surprisingly matter-of-fact manner. This lecture set it in historical context perfectly.

Wow! Fantastic lecture. I'm English. I was taught minimal Irish history. Thank you for deepening and broadening my knowledge. I shall now watch this entire video all over again!

Absolutely brilliant lecture Alec, best wishes from this non practicing but cultural Scots Presbyterian, who is married to a lovely Philippine catholic, & has an adorable Philippine catholic daughter named Angel Alexis, our gift from the Lord. ❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇵🇭

Lots excluded. Priest hunters, 1588 in my home town three Franciscians were mocked, spat at, whipped, hanged, drawn and quartered and their remains burnt. Their crime being Catholic, Irish and they were going up into the he hills where the Irish were hunted to give them the sacraments.

Well worth accessing UTube just for material like this. Thank you sir

1649 was when the diggers were fighting for the right to grow food on common land as times were hard, but, as in Ireland, the rich property owners wanted all of the land for themselves, as it is today the world over, ultimately, there'll be no lasting peace until this ends.

Great presentation, should be given to all schools in Britain and Ireland! Would be interested to hear his take on the following decades.

An excellent presentation from a keen mind that makes it look so easy. Dr Eyrie is a teacher that can and does.make early modern history something worth pursuing. Well done sir!

A very informative and pragmatic lecture Professor Ryrie, thank you.

Thank you for this Iecture. I am baised in Northern Ireland, a Presbyterian and an Ulster Scot. I was mediator during the Northern Irish Conflict and now read early modern Histoy at an university in Ireland. The one constant is that the factual evidence of History must be examined through cold scholarly eyes. There is no room for romance, or nostalgic sentiment, nor ideas that lead to political and social intupretations, myths and legends. There was and still remains an abiding sense of English civility and Irish ignorance. My Ulster accent has been corrected by a number of times by English colleagues. I would propose that Cromwell's troops viewed themselves as the avenging Sword of the Lord, in some Old Testament sense. Many accounts of the Irish referred to their superstitious nature and adherence to to Catholicism. To early modern Protestants belief in Catholicism was the equivalent to belife the demonic. Indeed, the Westminster Confession Faith stated that the Pope was the antichrist. Many believed that they were living in the end times during the War of the Three Kingdoms. There was a desire to build a good and Godley state and perge superstition, witchcraft, moral degeneration and Catholicism. This misguided religious zeal was the backdrop the atrocities that took place in Drogheda and Wexford as well as witch-hunting across England and Scotland. Today we can't comprehend how the slaughter of Innocents and civilians could possibly be condoned, but during the protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter- Reformation many atrocities were committed by both sides in the name of God. This lecture was a very blanced and factual insight into a very difficult subject. There still pravades a fear among Protestants that live in the North of Ireland. This fear may have been the cause of the disparity in civil rights that existed in the past. Yet I and so many decendents of planters feel that we' have no cultural or national identity. We are Britan's illegitimate colonists, rejected by the rest of the UK and Irish alike. We are British, but yet not British, we are Irish, but yet not lirish........

I am a proud Irishman. I love England, English history and English people who, like all other peoples, are responsible for what they do and not what their ancestors might or might not have done.

I was educated in Drogheda by the Irish Christian Brothers. In teaching Irish History, Brother Houlihan never gave any interpretations which might engender either anti-English or anti-Protestant sentiment. I loved Dr. Eyrie's talk.

Excellent. Really covered a lot and gave a sharper context. The bit that caught my attention, because it was a new link for me, was how events in Ireland instigated the Civil War in England and ultimately to the execution of King Charles and Cromwell’s immediate move to Ireland shortly afterwards.

Elizabethan generals like Walter Devereux and Walter Raleigh also committed attrocities such as at Smerick and Rathlin Island. Devereux at one point was recalled over it.

Balanced lecture which shows the harmony achieved and how easily it can be lost.

The end of this video is particularly poignant, because hatred only brings more hatred, and the only way to prevent this sort of unspeakable horror is to try to never let it happen again.

Sir, I just want to say THANK YOU! Unbiased historical information that’s not leaving the Churches impact into the historical event, is super important, and I appreciate knowing this history! Now if only we can wake up and not allow history to repeat..

That was a beautifully honest and sympathetic description of those violent times, especially from an Englishman. Thank you.

An excellent lecture. Thank you very much. This history lesson should be compulsory for all Eire & UK 2nd level students. So many learnings and highlighting the unusual and sometimes unhealthy beliefs and behaviours of all who traditionally share these island's.

The only thing that confounded Cromwell were the poor but brave Irish people who when their half doors were kicked in, held up their Rosary beads unafraid of martyrdom, these people knew their faith back then, they knew that the taking of their life in standing for their faith would raise up hundreds thereafter, the blood of the martyr's ensures that the faith lives on and on!

Ireland's "old English" Population were of largely of Norman stock, were very catholic & spoke French.

Thank you professor for, at the very least, improving my vocabulary. Internecine caught my eye. Great video, well covered content.

It is said in the Bible that the truth sets us free, at least your lectures read through the eyes of a historian. free us from many misleading misconceptions. I have always felt deeply for the way and consequently the French Canadians were similarly treated. because they were also Catholics. It is sadly understandable that many young people refuse to belong to an established church certainly a reflection on past atrocities...Thank you Pr Ryrie for opening our ears and heart to this tragic past historical reality.

I am very impressed by this lecture. Professor Ryrie, thank you for your work and for your posting.

Brilliant and very informative! THX!

Alec, you do an outstanding job on your presentations. There needs to be many more…..outstanding!

That was a real eye opener....and in such times that our freedoms depend on 'numbers' ! Thankyou so much for this clearly explained history lesson.

Loved this. Explains a lot.

That was worth every moment of my attention.

I'm from a part of England that retained a large Catholic population after the Reformation. Large numbers of Irish folk settled here and were seen as fellow Catholics. There was an Irish family on the street I grew up on and another close by. I was raised by an Irish Catholic mother and she had a keen sense of Ireland's history. Her father volunteered and served with a Belfast regiment through the Burma campaign. A Nationalist friend of mine related the reply an Irish journalist gave when asked about the attitude of the English to the conflict in Ireland. His reply was in Irish; and is here in English. " They are burnt black with it".

Wonderful lecture, Thank you

Well done. Thank you!

Poetic and instructive. Thank you very much for this!

My mothers side (the Cosbys) were sent by Queen Elizabeth to Stradbally in Ireland where they threw a feast...and murdered every Irish youth that showed up. This resulted later in the "Battle of Stradbally bridge". I've decided if Ireland does unite as one country at some point in the future...I will go celebrate with them and try to atone for that half of my family.

Excellent presentation!

Very well done. One dimension he could have touched on was the religious wars and associated massacres of the previous seven decades on the neighbouring continent. The convention that a side that refused an offer of surrender could not count on quarter incuded the civilian population of any town that had resisted a seige. In the 80 years war which saw the birth of the Netherlands as a state and the 30 years war that reduced the area now Germany to depopulated wreckage that happened again and again.

Cromwell's Irish campaign and the horrific atrocities reminds one of the Kwangtung Army arrival outside Nanking in 1937.

The beginning and the end of any war is always the most dangerous time.

Excellent briefing on the religious history of the island of Ireland.

Thanks for the invaluable information!

As an answer to your initial question, I remember that we were taught some Irish history at my comprehensive school in Bristol (GCE 'O'-level history 1964), along with with quite a lot of British social history.

A great video , best I have seen for a very long timev

Why would English students study the history of Ireland when they barely study the history of their own country?

1602 was the year George Carew presided over the Dursey Island massacre. He had previously strangled several men, not many tyrants take the hands on approach.

Excellent presentation, as always.

Many thanks for the lecture and the balance you attempted to bring to one of the saddest parts of our history. I live in and come originally from some of the areas that Cromwell 'pacified'. I grew up being taught in both school and at home of his Irish campaign, especially in Drogheda. Believe it or not even now Cromwell is still a very dark figure in my generations psyche, even though so much time has passed, which makes me appreciate and reflect on your view that some atrocities have a significant political dimension when compared to other equally appalling events which are allowed to fade. Much to reflect on. Thanks again.

Fantastic! Thanks!

Poynings law (10mins) was passed at sitting of Parliament in Drogheda 1494-95

Excellent lecture. I was born and educated in Dublin in the 70’s/80’s. We were constantly taught the English were the worst people on earth and the Irish were mere victims. We were never taught about 1641 etc. and I had always wondered about Cromwell. This lays an excellent grounding for further research. I do understand your optimism about the change in Irish attitude however I do not believe it is a softening of the attitude towards the English but merely a loss of what it was to be Irish. The abandonment of the Catholic Church in modern Ireland a major contribution to this. It has for some time now been my aim to try to understand the underlying abrasive attitude of the Irish towards the English and vice versa. This lecture goes a long way to understanding it. Thanks again.

This was excellent. Thank you so much. I'm a proud Irish Canadian. I was brought up by my father singing Irish rebel songs. The history of Ireland breaks my heart. We used to say that there was no such thing as an Irish Protestant, though now a days you'd be hard put to find a "practicing" Catholic in Canada, Irish or not, but that's not the point is it? In the ealry 90s I lived in Cambridge for four years, and was often quite casually told that all Irish are drunks and cheats. Thanks for recalibrating the illusion.

A very enjoyable and learned lecture. Please note, Drogheda isn't pronounced with a ch in the middle just an H.

Absolutely outstanding.

Excellent .... fascinating - I also knew little of this period of history

Consider me educated. Fantastic lecture.

I am Irish, as such I ask what did we do to contribute to this disaster? The next question is what weaknesses is decimating the Church in Ireland today? And finally what is my part in this? The key in both our ancient history and present issues appears to lie in corrupted family law.

@36:44 "Neither island could be secure if the other was held by a hostile regime." That point sums up the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Everything about the complex relationship between the 2 countries over the last couple of centuries can be understood by looking from that perspective. This includes Anglican-Catholic tension, Anglo-Spanish imperial rivalry, WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and even today in Britain's post-Brexit emerging relationship with the EU.

An excellent lecture.

brilliant explication of irish history ,well researched

I thought the Macdonalds were on the side of the Irish Confederates. They certainly where not Covenanters. Randal Macdonald was Catholic along with Alistair McColla. Other highland clans and mercenaries fought on the side of the Irish Confederates during the wars of the three kingdoms. Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics tried to put a Catholic King back on the throne of Britain in a number of Jacobite uprisings. I have always thought of the Highlands of Scotland and South Ireland being very similar whilst lowland Scots and the Northern Irish are similar.

Superb lecture, many thanks

Thank you!

great lecture thanks.

That is the best account of Cromwell's invasion I have ever heard.

Excellent lecture, very accurate, very balanced and dare I say it, wise 👍

Excellent. It's sad how these themes are perpetuated in popular culture in Scotland as well, to a great extent through the great Glasgow football rivalry.

Gresham College, is there not a bit missing from the recording at 3:55? But thanks for your lectures.

So you read your entire lecture ? Hence it's written down, can one read it, did you publish it?

Really great lecture, Its interesting that Dublin's Temple bar area is still so named, i guess the history of John Temple and his son william temple have eluded the connection of the propaganda described in this video.

Please repair critical loss of sound at 3'56: "... at Catholic hands"

What a superb appraisal!

Bravo!!

Most of the Ulster plantation settlers were from the Scottish Lowlands ,not the Highlands

This was the third vid I had seen of this scholar. Learned so much. But the comment at minute 47:22 was very weird almost as weird as his poise when he said it. I was not able to take it lightly and made a decision to seek knowledge somewhere else.

Very informative but my opinion of Oliver Cornwell has not changed.

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you Dr Eyrie - just one point to add: Ireland supported Henry VII's opponents the Yorkists during the Wars of the Roses, so there was already animosity before Henry VIII claimed Kingship

Nice presentation

Weren't the Anglo-Normans invited by Dermot, the deposed king of Leinster?

The tradition of miss information is a long and well developed one. Centuries of honing their expertise it would seem.

What a magisterial lecture series!

If Alec had asked his audience to raise a hand if they had a close Irish ancestor, he might have got a few responses. My wife had an Irish mother and so did her father. Having two Irish grandmothers might be unusual, but having just one is not in my experience. After the Bexit vote the Irish embassy in England received many requests for Irish passports by English people who thought that it would enable them to still travel and work in the EU.

Eloquent, measured, revealing, and... painful, inevitably, at least for this viewer. Thank you...

You have missed out the role of the Scottish Border Rievers, many of whom eventually moved to America and as Scots Irish became a significant factor in American history .

You only have to go to Hodges & Figgis on Dawson St and count the number of books on Ireland's relationship with Britain, hundreds of books, you go to a book Shop in England, you'd be lucky to find 3....herein lies the rub.. they don't want to be reminded of Ireland

Education is lifting the yoke of christian/muslim/jewish religious belief off the shoulders of Humanity.

43:00 civilians not mascaraed (excepting the clergy is that ?)

How did I learn about the English Civil War at school without learning about the events in Ireland? Bizarre

I think you will the first lord of Ireland was more Norman than English. Normans being vikings.

Thanks for this. I do hope this isnt a prescient description of our current simmering woke religions wars.

Some think history is better forgotten. Are we all to divolve into sardine like beings.

Thankyou for the Irish History. My mother was Irish....but stepmother was English. As an Australian we did not study this History. Our stepmother didn't like the Irish so we were not allowed to talk or study that part of our heritage. My grandfather was from Drogheda.

are you english?

The Irish unfortunately never had the luxury to ignore their neighbours history.

If only they’d had Hate Speech laws and knew their diversity was their greatest strength.

The atrocities go both ways.

I like the colour of the walls

Brexit's "Irish Border" is a British border in Ireland.

The commander of the Drogheda garrison was one Arthur Aston - an English royalist - and a sizeable number of the garrison of Drogheda were likewise English. So the Drogheda massacre was to some extent English slaughtering English. There was a certain English Colonel named Daniel Axtell - he was later sent home by Ireton for a massacre of Irish at meelick island - I have often wondered what role did this significant English commander play in the massacre at Drogheda - he was an avowed anti- Catholic zealot and he subsequently went on to conduct his own massacre.

As for Drogeda some information is missing here that sheds more light on it. Drogheda wasn't a Confederate town, but had in fact been besieged twice by the Confederates for not declaring for the Confederacy. Secondly English Royalists made up much of the occupying force holding Drogheda, after failing in two civil wars, the English Royalists that retreated to Ireland to continue the struggle were seen in England as fundamentalists, the equivalent today of ISIS. The troops that held out in the inner keep who surrendered and then were massacred were the English Royalists. I think the English Royalist presence shouldn't be underestimated when explaining Cromwell's actions at Drogheda. Cromwell let the Confederates surrender many times and honoured it, the one time he didn't it was when the English Royalist were around. Secondly he is often praised for his humanity in sparing the civilians, however the majority of the civilians were English protestant setters (hence the fact the Confederate had to besiege the town twice). Cromwell's not exactly going to massacre English protestants is he? So I don't think a great act of humanity for Cromwell not to massacre them.

Communication is key. Emancipate yourself from the Supernatural and the world will be a better place 🌏❤