User:Jdb004/Anti-Irish sentiment

Anti-Irish sentiment
Bolded text is my contributions.

Pre-Modern era
Negative English attitudes towards the Gaelic Irish and their culture date as far back as the reign of Henry II of England. In 1155, Pope Adrian IV (himself an Englishman) issued the papal bull called Laudabiliter, that gave Henry permission to conquer Ireland as a means of strengthening the Papacy's control over the Irish Church, although the very existence of the bull is disputed by modern historians. Pope Adrian called the Irish a "rude and barbarous" nation. The Norman invasion of Ireland began in 1169 with the backing of Pope Alexander III, who was Pope at the time of the invasion and ratified the Laudabiliter, giving Henry dominion over Ireland. He likewise called the Irish a "barbarous nation" with "filthy practices".

Gerald of Wales accompanied King Henry's son, John, on his 1185 trip to Ireland. As a result of this he wrote Topographia Hibernica ("Topography of Ireland") and Expugnatio Hibernia ("Conquest of Ireland"), both of which remained in circulation for centuries afterwards. Ireland, in his view, was rich; but the Irish were backward and lazy:"They use their fields mostly for pasture. Little is cultivated and even less is sown. The problem here is not the quality of the soil but rather the lack of industry on the part of those who should cultivate it. This laziness means that the different types of minerals with which hidden veins of the earth are full are neither mined nor exploited in any way. They do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. They depend on animals for their livelihood and they live like animals."Gerald's views were not atypical, and similar views may be found in the writings of William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh. When it comes to Irish marital and sexual customs Gerald is even more biting: "This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. They indulge in incest, for example in marrying – or rather debauching – the wives of their dead brothers". Even earlier than this Archbishop Anselm accused the Irish of wife swapping, "exchanging their wives as freely as other men exchange their horses".

One will find these views echoed centuries later in the words of Sir Henry Sidney, twice Lord Deputy of Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and in those of Edmund Tremayne, his secretary. In Tremayne's view the Irish "commit whoredom, hold no wedlock, ravish, steal and commit all abomination without scruple of conscience". In A View of the Present State of Ireland, circulated in 1596 but not published until 1633, the English official and renowned poet Edmund Spenser wrote "They are all papists by profession but in the same so blindingly and brutishly informed that you would rather think them atheists or infidels". In a "Brief Note on Ireland," Spenser argued that "Great force must be the instrument but famine must be the means, for till Ireland be famished it cannot be subdued. . . There can be no conformity of government where is no conformity of religion. . . There can be no sound agreement between two equal contraries viz: the English and Irish".

Anti-Irish sentiments played a role in atrocities perpetrated against the Irish. For instance, in 1305, Piers Bermingham received a financial bonus and accolades in verse after beheading thirty members of the O'Conor clan and sending them to Dublin. In 1317, one Irish chronicler opined that it was just as easy for an Englishman to kill an Irishman or English woman to kill an Irish woman as he would a dog. The Irish were thought of as the most barbarous people in Europe, and such ideas were modified to compare the Scottish Highlands or Gàidhealtachd where traditionally Scottish Gaelic is spoken to medieval Ireland.

To prevent English from integrating into Irish culture the Parliament declared the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. '''These acts forbade the speaking of the Irish language among English settlers and any Irish living with them. They also prevented marriages between English and Irish and segregated the churches. These were limited in area to the Pale and enforcement is debated. The first diligent attempt to phase out the Irish language and culture across the island came from Henry VIII in 1537.  'The Act for English Order, Habit and Language' required the Irish parishes to contain an English grammar school and required everyone to do their best to speak English and teach their children English language. The schools were not fully implemented till the National Schools in 1833. The act stated that the Irish possess "a certain savage and wild kind and manner of living" which it sought to remove. '''

Modern period
In the Early Modern period following the advent of Protestantism in Great Britain, Irish Catholics suffered both social and political discrimination for refusing to renounce Catholicism. Irish Catholics lost many rights concerning land, inheritance, voting, and more under the Penal Laws (Ireland). This discrimination sometimes manifested itself in areas with large Puritan or Presbyterian populations such as the northeastern parts of Ireland, the Central Belt of Scotland, and parts of Canada. Thinly veiled nationalism under the guise of religious conflict has occurred in both the UK and Ireland.

Anti-Irish sentiment is found in works by several 18th-century writers such as the French philosopher Voltaire, who depicted the Catholic Irish as savage and backward, and defended British rule in the country.