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

Abstract

In the words of the author, this book is a ‘particular, local study’ of the course of the Reformation in the diocese of Dublin during the period 1534 to 1590. But it is much more than that. What Murray presents here is a seminal study of the factors determining the course, and ultimate failure, of the Reformation in Ireland. The focus on the archdiocese of Dublin, the wealthiest and most influential diocese of the Church of Ireland, allows Murray to investigate not only the internal ecclesiastical quagmire which was the Irish church in the sixteenth century, but also, crucially, its interactions with the Dublin government. In doing so Murray moves beyond a strictly ‘particular, local study’ to present the reader with an extensive disquisition on the politics of the English Reformation in Ireland. For many reasons this work deserves to become a standard textbook for the period, not least its masterly introduction which situates and explains the choice of topic in a dazzling summary of the current debate concerning the process of reformation in sixteenth-century Ireland. Murray acknowledges the dearth of sources of the kind common to English and continental exponents of such ‘local’ studies: in the absence of church wardens’ accounts and a corresponding lack of visitations records—sources which provide the backbone of similar studies in England—Murray cannot hope to provide an examination of the grass-roots reformation. He therefore turns the focus onto high politics and the often precarious power games initiated by successive archbishops of Dublin.