ABSTRACT
The epilogue considers the closing years of the Nine Years’ War, and the aftermath of the war. My closing commentary reflects on the impact of dissent on the English government’s perceptions of the war from both sides of the Irish Sea. As the chapters of this book demonstrate, the contention for authority and the divided loyalties that characterize dissent within the English government and within England are never entirely resolved. The problems discussed in this book show up in different permutations repeatedly throughout and beyond the final conquest of Ireland. With every change of administrative regime, and every attempt to solve the “Irish problem,” the general priorities of the government shift; with these shifts, new conflicts arise, new allegiances are formed, and so too are new competing interests: how then can we explain England’s final victory in 1603? Some scholars have pointed out that England’s reconquest of Ireland is rather haphazard. In closing, the Prologue considersthe ways in which dissent and authority within the English inadvertently created an environment that compelled authorities to hammer out and confront the quandary of policy-making (and unmaking) in the reconquest of early modern Ireland.
