The formation of an Irish regiment in the Spanish Netherlands, under the Archduke Albert of Austria in 1605, was a noteworthy development, since this contingent was destined to play a vital role in Anglo-Spanish relations during the early decades of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately little is known about the creation of this controversial force and the problems provoked by it.

The pivotal character upon which this examination revolves is Henry O'Neill, the second son of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone and his second wife Siobhán (sister of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, earl of Tyrconnel), who served as the regiment's colonel from its inception until his untimely death in 1610. Henry first arrived on the continent in the spring of 1600, when as a boy of thirteen, he and other youths, were sent by Tyrone to Spain as hostages.

‘ … it is most certain that from I Jacobi to this day so long as Ireland hath had any degree of peace there hath been every year as great an importation of Irish cattle as there is now, and this he that will take the pains to examine the customs books shall find … ’

Sir Heneage Finch, in the house of commons, 18 October 1665

The Tudor subjugation of Ireland which was accomplished by the very end of Elizabeth's reign left the Irish economy in a depressed condition. But conquest brought more than economic dislocation. The success of English arms involved the destruction of the old Irish social system and permitted the development of a much more thorough programme of plantation than had been possible during the sixteenth century. The Ulster plantation, which followed the flight of the earls in 1607, was succeeded by smaller plantations in Leinster, Connaught, Wexford and King's County before 1641.

The three main opposition groups in Ireland facing Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, in 1640 were the Old English, the New English and the Ulster-Scots. All three groups had grievances over land and religion, but it was the religious issue which was primarily responsible for bringing the lord lieutenant into conflict with the Ulster-Scots. Because Charles I had a dispute with his subjects in Scotland, because the Ulster-Scots maintained close contact with their homeland and because of Ulster's close proximity to Scotland, the quarrel between Wentworth and the Scottish settlers in the north of Ireland gained a significance which transcended Irish politics. No major rebellion broke out in Ulster during the bishops’ wars, yet much of Wentworth's policy towards the Ulster-Scots during this period can, at best, be regarded as ill-advised. This paper will attempt to show how this policy developed and why it was misguided.

During the struggle for Irish home rule and independence, A. V. Dicey, Vinerian professor of English law at Oxford, appears as the leading academic spokesman for the unionist forces. In 1886, while he denied having any special knowledge of Irish affairs, he rejected all proposals for altering the union on constitutional and national grounds:

Whatever may be the difficulties, or even the disadvantages, of maintaining the union, it undoubtedly has in its favour not only all the recommendations which must belong to a policy of rational conservatism, but also these two decisive advantages—that it does sustain the strength of the United Kingdom, and that it does not call for any dereliction of duty.

The electoral debacle of 1874 removed only the least important aspect of Irish liberalism. The real strength of the liberal approach to Irish government continued to lie in the much less accessible, but much more important, official world of Dublin Castle which, in the early 1880s, was still confidently running Ireland as it thought best without too much reference to public opinion. The emergence of militant nationalism should not divert attention from the plain fact that the government of the country remained firmly in the hands of liberal-minded administrators, of whom very little is known. Dublin Castle, like Whitehall, guarded its secrets with care, the great scandal of 1884 marking the single departure from normal practice. The high value which the liberal establishment of 1880–85 placed on discretion is registered most forcibly through the lack of memoirs written by senior officials, whose competent management of affairs deserved a permanent literary memorial. No Boswell, or even Edward Hamilton (Downing Street's uncritical diarist at this time), came forward to describe the régime at work or at play. Unpublicised achievements are easily forgotten: and in this case the problem of penetrating a wall of silence is made more difficult by the absence of most of the appropriate archives. Apart from Spencer himself, only Thomas O'Hagan, the Irish lord chancellor (1880–81) and one of the least important figures in Forster's circle, seems to have preserved a substantial body of papers, though further discoveries may still be made.