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Lordship of Ireland | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1177–1542 | |||||||||
 The Lordship of Ireland (pink) in 1300. | |||||||||
| Status | Papal possession held in fief by the King of England | ||||||||
| Capital | Dublin[b] | ||||||||
| Common languages |
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| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||||||
| Government | Feudal monarchy | ||||||||
| Lord | |||||||||
• 1177–1216 | John (first) | ||||||||
• 1509–1542 | Henry VIII (last) | ||||||||
| Lord Lieutenant | |||||||||
• 1177–1181 | Hugh de Lacy (first) | ||||||||
• 1529–1534 | Henry FitzRoy (last) | ||||||||
| Legislature | Parliament | ||||||||
| House of Lords | |||||||||
| House of Commons | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||
• Established | May 1177 | ||||||||
| June 1542 | |||||||||
| Currency | Irish pound | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | IE | ||||||||
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| Today part of | |||||||||
![Coat of arms[a] of Ireland](view_image.php?q=Lordship_of_Ireland&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:Coat_of_arms_of_the_Lordship_of_Ireland.svg)
The Lordship of Ireland (Irish: Tiarnas na hÉireann), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Anglo-Norman Lords between 1177 and 1542. The lordship was created following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169–1171. It was a papal fief, granted to the Plantagenet kings of England by the Holy See, via Laudabiliter. As the Lord of Ireland was also the King of England, he was represented locally by a governor, variously known as the Justiciar, Lieutenant, Lord Lieutenant or Lord Deputy.
The kings of England claimed lordship over the whole island, but in reality the king's rule only ever extended to parts of the island. The rest of the island – referred to subsequently as Gaelic Ireland – remained under the control of various Gaelic Irish kingdoms or chiefdoms, who were often at war with the Anglo-Normans.
The area under English rule and law grew and shrank over time, and reached its greatest extent in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The lordship then went into decline, brought on by its invasion by Scotland in 1315–18, the Great Famine of 1315–17, and the Black Death of the 1340s. The fluid political situation and Norman feudal[3] system allowed a great deal of autonomy for the Anglo-Norman lords in Ireland, who carved out earldoms for themselves and had almost as much authority as some of the native Gaelic kings. Some Anglo-Normans became Gaelicised and rebelled against the English administration. The English attempted to curb this by passing the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366), which forbade English settlers from taking up Irish law, language, custom and dress. The period ended with the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542.
- ^ Perrin, WG; Vaughan, Herbert S (1922), British Flags. Their Early History and their Development at Sea; with an Account of the Origin of the Flag as a National Device, Cambridge, ENG, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 51–2.
- ^ Chambers's Encyclopædia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge, 1868, p. 627,
The insignia of Ireland have variously been given by early writers. In the reign of Edward IV, a commission appointed to enquire what were the arms of Ireland found them to be "three crowns in pale". It has been supposed that these crowns were abandoned at the Reformation, from an idea that they might denote the feudal sovereignty of the pope, whose vassal the king of England was, as lord of Ireland
. - ^ "The Norman Feudal System". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
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