‘Ireland under James VI & I’ An illustrated talk by Professor Clare Jackson Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Portrait photo of Professor Clare Jackson Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Saturday, 11 November 2023

Event times:

15:00 - 16:00

Event location:

Farmleigh House & Estate

Event price:

€16.00

About this event

Arising from Professor Jackson’s forthcoming biography, this lecture reconsiders what Ireland meant for James. Despite never setting foot on Irish soil, he habitually referred to Irish policy in notably personal, often proprietorial, terms.

When King James VI & I was taken on a tour of the newly founded State Papers Office at Whitehall in 1619, he was taken aback by the sheer bulk of paperwork relating to Irish affairs. As he feelingly remarked, ‘there was more ado with Ireland than all the world besides’.

The eventual transformation of Ireland’s physical, political, demographic, religious, economic and cultural landscape as a result of the Ulster Plantation has accorded James a predictably prominent place in histories of early seventeenth-century Ireland. And yet, curiously, Ireland rarely features to a comparable extent in appraisals of this king.

Clare is currently writing a life of King James VI & I, to be published in March 2025 on the 400th anniversary of James’s death.

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