The Kildare rebellion of 1534 was an accident, a débâcle anticipated by few and one from which no one was to emerge without loss. In this simple but frequently misunderstood fact all of the major issues which would plague Irish politics for the rest of the sixteenth century had their origin. For the rebellion and destruction of the house of Kildare let loose a series of problems both for the English government and for the native communities of Ireland which neither side could resolve and which would ultimately result in their unwilling but irreparable estrangement. The year 1534, then, deserves its place as a date of crucial importance in the Irish historical canon, but not as tradition would have it, as the starting point of an ever more triumphant Tudor conquest; it marked rather the beginning of a long series of misunderstandings, miscalculations and failures which were to constitute Ireland's political tragedy in the sixteenth century.

In one important respect the traditional view of the event retains its point. The rebellion did indeed bring about the end of the Kildare ascendancy: the power of the Fitzgerald family was smashed, its leadership all but annihilated, its vast possessions confiscated. The collapse was so sudden and so complete that it seems strange the Kildares should have raised any resistance to Tudor power in the first place. Yet their decision to rebel was based on two perfectly realistic assumptions.