The opposition to the ecclesiastical legislation in the Irish reformation parliament

Abstract

Arecent writer has drawn attention to the reluctance of historians to undertake a study in depth of individual Tudor parliaments in Ireland. He attributes this reluctance to the sparseness of the source material. Nevertheless the task must be undertaken if the history of Tudor Ireland is to be understood. The present essay is confined not only to a particular parliament, the reformation parliament of Henry VIII, but to a particular aspect of the parliament, namely its reaction to the ecclesiastical legislation which formally established the breach with Rome.