Resituating Henrician Ireland: imperium, prophecy and Reformation between the Atlantic and Eurasian worlds, 1514–47

Abstract

An intellectual-cultural history of sovereignty in Henrician Ireland, this article mines government writings and printed pamphlets to argue for Ireland’s integration within the dynastic strife, spiritual controversies and imperial ambitions that bridged the ‘New World’, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean in the early Reformation. Its conclusions are twofold: that the Henrician Reformation galvanized the political theologies of interfaith representation in Ireland, and that the island felt the weight of European Atlantic colonialism earlier than has hitherto been appreciated. The article suggests the need to reconsider Henrician Ireland in its entanglements with the political-theological Reformation worlds of inter-imperial rivalry.