ABSTRACT
The nature of the Gaelic response to the Tudor conquest is presently one of the most emotive issues in Irish history. Since the late 1970s, Irish historians have become more interested in the native sources: from being a hopelessly backward, deeply conservative and introverted society incapable of adapting to outside influences, Irish Gaeldom has been historiographically transformed into a dynamic, open society, powerfully influenced by the Renaissance and highly sensitive to the problems of the age. The changing political and military balance precipitated a remarkable efflorescence of Gaelic culture, attesting to the growing confidence of native society in this period. The Scottish government consolidated royal control over its western seaboard; James VI took steps to rein in the islanders, so that the supply of redshanks began to dry up. The late medieval lordship of the Isles was modernizing and expanding in broadly the same way as the Stewart monarchy had itself done earlier.
