O’Neill’s Roman Grave
Archived: 16 October 2026
Abstract
In 1616 Ireland was not at war, yet it was still being remade by the settlement that followed the Nine Years’ War. The disappearance of one old leader, the arrival of a new royal governor, and a civic confrontation in Waterford make the year unusually revealing. They show an Ireland governed from Dublin in the name of James I, but connected also to Rome, London, Spain, the Scottish west coast and the English border counties. They show, too, that conquest had not made questions of land, religion or political allegiance disappear. It had changed the institutions through which those questions