ABSTRACT
The officially sanctioned colonization of Northern Ireland began in 1609, after a proclamation by James I. The settler colony was predominantly Scottish, but it makes no sense to speak of Scottish imperialism since political power resided in Westminster. All the same, a majority in Britain would hold much more happily to the notion that religion is the cause of the Troubles, ignoring the historical and political reasons that link Catholicism to nationalism and Protestantism to British interests. It is possible to trace Irish struggles back to the Middle Ages, to Brian Boru defeating the Danes at Clontarf in 1014, or to the Anglo-Norman occupation of Dublin in 1171. However, the historical events that were looked back on with most relish or woe in the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British imperialism were the struggles between the deposed monarch James II and his successor William of Orange.
