The Common Perception Is That Gaelic Irish Resisted This Conquest Through Military Means

The common perception is that Gaelic Irish resisted this conquest through military and other means, but their society featured small independent lordships and lacked a common political goal such as a centralised independent Irish state. The Protestant Reformation in England, introduced a religious element to the 16th-century Tudor conquest of Ireland, as many of the native Irish and Anglo/Irish remained Catholic. The Plantations of Ireland dispossessed many native Catholic landowners in favour of Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.[1] In addition, the Plantation of Ulster, begun in 1609, "planted" a sizeable colony of English and Scottish Protestant settlers into the north of Ireland.

The closest Gaelic lords came to waging an identifiably nationalist campaign against the English presence, the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill in the 1590s (known as the Nine Years War1594–1603), aimed to expel the English and make Ireland a Spanish protectorate.[1] However, despite claiming to represent a movement of Irish Catholics against English Protestants, O'Neill's forces were a shifting coalition of clans and lords and many historians see O'Neill himself as primarily motivated by personal ambition – specifically the securing of his authority over Tyrone in Ulster.[2]

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The green harp flag was first used byIrish Confederate troops in the Eleven Years War, and became the main symbol of Irish nationalism from the 17th century to the early 20th century.

A more significant movement came in the 1640s, after the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when a coalition of Gaelic Irish and Hiberno-Norman Catholics set up a de facto independent Irish state to fight in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (see Confederate Ireland). The Confederate Catholics of Ireland, also known as the Confederation of Kilkenny, emphasised the idea of Ireland was a Kingdom independent from England, though under the same monarch. They demanded autonomy for the Irish Parliament, full rights for Catholics and...