Ireland in the Virginian Sea: Colonialism in the British Atlantic

Introduction: Ireland and the Virginian Sea

 1 INTRODUCTION Ireland and the Virginian Sea “I had rather labour with my hands in the plantation of Ulster,” declared Sir Arthur Chichester, accomplished military man and Lord Deputy of Ireland, “than dance or play in that of Virginia.” Chichester’s 1610 statement references the contemporary entanglement of two of England’s colonial ventures: one just about to begin in the north of nearby Ireland, and the other barely clinging to life across the Atlantic, in the land known to its Powhatan inhabitants as Tsenacommacah. Within a decade, association of the two was routine, reflected in the chronicler Fynes Moryson’s casual 1617 description of Ireland as “this famous Island in the Virginian Sea.”1 Observers have long noted connections between Ireland and England’s New World expansion, and indeed, mention of Ireland has become de rigueur for Atlantic histories. What has been missing is a detailed comparative consideration of early modern colonialism in both lands that gives equal weight to each region. What were the actual similarities? Was Moryson correct in viewing Ireland as immersed in a Virginian, rather than Atlantic, sea? Do his comments imply that Ireland is better understood as situated on the far side of the Atlantic rather than just upon England’s doorstep? Should we take more seriously the oft-quoted contemporary chroniclers who elided the perceived barbarity of the Irish with that of New World Natives? Did Ireland in any way serve as a model for the New World? Or is such an assumption rendered moot by the reality that most plantation efforts in Ireland postdated both the Roanoke and Jamestown settlements? Is it even appropriate to consider Ireland as a colony akin to Virginia, given that Ireland remained a separate kingdom until the nineteenth century? This study offers a fresh look at the convergence and divergence of British expansion into both lands, with emphasis upon applying anthropological insights to 1. Sir Arthur Chichester to the king, Oct. 31, 1610, in C. W. Russell and John P. Prendergast, eds.,Calendar of the State Papers, Relating to Ireland, of the Reign of James I, 5 vols. (London, 1872– 1880), III, 1608–1610, 520; Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell . . . , 4 vols. ([1617]; Glasgow, 1907–1908), IV, 185. 2 } INTRODUCTION understanding the relations between natives and newcomers that shape all colonial encounters.2 Ireland and eastern North America were very different places and very different kinds of colonial enterprises. Yet analysis of cultural relations between 2. Following first the lead of David Beers Quinn (Ireland and America: Their Early Association [Liverpool, 1991]) and then Nicholas Canny (Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World, 1560–1800 [Baltimore, 1987]), scholars have granted Ireland a regular place at the Atlantic table. Consider the comments of Alison Games: “Colonial historians often think of Ireland as a formative place in shaping English plantations in America” (Games, “Beyond the Atlantic : English Globetrotters and Transoceanic Connections,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., LXIII [2006]), 675–692. See also Eliga Gould’s assertion that “colonists in North America and the West Indies” viewed “Ireland’s coordinate relationship with England as an appropriate model for ‘ancient’ colonies like Virginia, Massachusetts, and Barbados” (Gould, “Revolution and Counter-Revolution,” in David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick, eds., The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 [Basingstoke, 2002], 197). Similarly, Andrew Hadfield suggests, “When the Jamestown colony was established in 1607, colonial experience in Ireland formed the only serious precedent and means of making sense of the New World” (Hadfield, “Irish Colonies and America,” in Robert Appelbaum and John Wood Sweet, eds., Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World [Philadelphia, 2005], 174). Other scholars extend Ireland’s influence on North American colonization even farther back in time. James Muldoon asserts, “By the end of the sixteenth century, as the English were beginning to attempt the colonization of North America, they could call upon four centuries of experience in overseas colonization and a significant body of literature analyzing the failure of English policy in Ireland ” (Muldoon, Identity on the Medieval Irish Frontier: Degenerate Englishmen, Wild Irishmen, Middle Nations [Gainesville, Fla., 2003], 91). Acceptance of the connections between British expansion in North America and Ireland is not limited to American historiography. Ulster historian Jonathan Bardon compares the two ventures: “Elizabethan conquest was therefore followed by Jacobean plantation, a colonising enterprise matching in scale and character the contemporary English migrations to the New World” (Bardon, A History of Ulster [Belfast, 1992], 115). In...