Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘Vain imagination’: the French dimension to Geraldine intrigue, 1523–1539
- 2 Gerald Fitzgerald's sojourn in France, 1540
- 3 Irish dimensions to the Anglo-French war, 1543–1546
- 4 The French diplomatic mission to Ulster and its aftermath, 1548–1551
- 5 French conspiracy at rival courts and Shane O'Neill's triangular intrigue, 1553–1567
- 6 French reaction to Catholic Counter-Reformation campaigns in Ireland, 1570–1584
- 7 France and the fall-out from the Nine Years' War in Ireland, 1603–1610
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘Vain imagination’: the French dimension to Geraldine intrigue, 1523–1539
- 2 Gerald Fitzgerald's sojourn in France, 1540
- 3 Irish dimensions to the Anglo-French war, 1543–1546
- 4 The French diplomatic mission to Ulster and its aftermath, 1548–1551
- 5 French conspiracy at rival courts and Shane O'Neill's triangular intrigue, 1553–1567
- 6 French reaction to Catholic Counter-Reformation campaigns in Ireland, 1570–1584
- 7 France and the fall-out from the Nine Years' War in Ireland, 1603–1610
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The historiography of Franco-Irish relations in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has traditionally concentrated on commercial connections between the two countries and on the embryonic development of the Irish, and specifically the clerical, diaspora in France. Ireland's commercial ties with France in the late Middle Ages have been the subject of a substantial amount of specialised scholarly research that has broadly traced the principal trade routes, identified both Irish and French families involved in commercial networks and provided an insight into the practicalities of their business transactions. Arising from this exposition it is clear that Ireland had established trade links with the main ports of Normandy and those of the French Atlantic seaboard by the late fifteenth century. This trade survived the disruptions of legislative restrictions, war and piracy throughout the sixteenth century and increased in the early 1600s. While existing studies have examined Ireland's commerce with France in isolation, this study shows that when set within the wider context of sixteenth-century Franco-Irish relations, these connections, combined with Irish seafarers' familiarity with French ports, proved critical in facilitating the flight and safe harbouring of Ireland's political dissidents who sought asylum or assistance in France from 1540 onwards. Later they were to determine the destinations of the thousands of Irish migrants who fled to France during and in the immediate aftermath of the final contest in the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland, the Nine Years' War (1594–1603).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Franco-Irish Relations, 1500–1610Politics, Migration and Trade, pp. 1 - 26Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003