Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland
Clerical Resistance and Political Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin, 1534–1590

This text examines the efforts of the Tudor regime to implement the English Reformation in Ireland during the sixteenth century.

James Murray (Author)

9780521369947, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 July 2011

376 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.5 kg

'… this much anticipated volume has a great deal that is new and important to say on the subject [of why the Reformation failed in Ireland] … the author's fresh perspective on an old problem marks this as a Reformation study of high quality.' Irish Economic and Social History

This book explores the enforcement of the English Reformation in the heartland of English Ireland during the sixteenth century. Focusing on the diocese of Dublin - the central ecclesiastical unit of the Pale - James Murray explains why the various initiatives undertaken by the reforming archbishops of Dublin, and several of the Tudor viceroys, to secure the allegiance of the indigenous community to the established Church ultimately failed. Led by its clergy, the Pale's loyal colonial community ultimately rejected the Reformation and Protestantism because it perceived them to be irreconcilable with its own traditional English culture and medieval Catholic identity. Dr Murray identifies the Marian period, and the opening decade of Elizabeth I's reign, as the crucial times during which this attachment to survivalist Catholicism solidified, and became a sufficiently powerful ideological force to stand against the theological and liturgical innovations advanced by the Protestant reformers.

Introduction
1. 'Handmaid' of the English church: the diocese of Dublin on the eve of the Reformation
2. 'Faithful Catholics of the English nation': patriotism, canon law and the corporate clergy
3. Rebellion and supremacy: Archbishop Browne, clerical opposition and the enforcement of the early Reformation, 1534–40
4. 'God's laws and ours together': Archbishop Browne, political reform and the emergence of a new religious settlement, 1540–2
5. The rise and fall of the Viceroy's settlement: property, canon law and politics during the St Leger era, 1542–53
6. Archbishop Dowdall and the restoration of Catholicism in Dublin, 1553–5
7. Rejuvenation and survival: the old religion during the episcopacy of Hugh Curwen, 1555–67
8. Archbishop Loftus and the drive to protestantise Dublin, 1567–90
Afterword
Appendix I. The division of administrative responsibilities between the two Dublin cathedrals
Appendix II. The parishes of the diocese of Dublin, 1530–1600.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]