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In 1690 Ireland became the principal battlefield in the contest between the deposed James II and William III, the Dutch prince who, with his wife Mary, had been recognised as monarch in England, Scotland and Ireland after the Revolution of 1688–89. The conflict was never merely a private dynastic quarrel. James’s restoration depended on the military and financial support of Louis XIV of France; William’s success was essential to the wider European coalition resisting French power in the Nine Years’ War. Ireland’s ports, rivers and cities therefore mattered to decision-makers in London, Versailles, The Hague and Copenhagen as well as to people living beside the Boyne, Shannon and Lee.
In 1689 Ireland became the principal battlefield in the struggle unleashed by the overthrow of James II in England. The conflict was not simply an Irish religious war, although religious allegiance mattered profoundly. It joined disputes over monarchy, land, law, local security and the international contest between William of Orange and Louis XIV. In Ireland, James still possessed a substantial base of support, particularly among Catholics who had gained influence under his lord deputy, Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, and who expected a more durable redress of the land settlement imposed after the Cromwellian conquest.
Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, governed Ireland for James II as lord deputy. A Catholic royalist and an energetic political operator, Tyrconnell had spent the previous years remodelling the Irish administration. Catholics were increasingly appointed to offices in the army, law, local government and county administration from which they had long been excluded. In the army, the change was especially conspicuous: Protestant officers and soldiers had been removed or marginalised, while Catholic recruitment and promotion accelerated.
Tyrconnell’s appointment as lord deputy was recorded on 8 January 1687, replacing the Protestant lord lieutenant, Henry Hyde, second earl of Clarendon. He was sworn into office in February. The distinction mattered: Tyrconnell held the practical powers of chief governor but the deliberately lesser title of lord deputy signalled James II’s caution. The king wanted Catholic advancement, but did not wish to provoke Protestant subjects unnecessarily or to commit himself immediately to a wholesale revision of the land settlement.
On 9 January, Henry Hyde, second earl of Clarendon, was sworn in at Dublin as lord lieutenant. Clarendon was the king’s brother-in-law and a committed Anglican. His appointment initially suggested that James might pursue Catholic relief while retaining an experienced Protestant magnate at the summit of Irish government. Yet the arrangement was unstable from the outset. Clarendon’s authority was constrained by the separate military influence of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, a Catholic courtier, soldier and close confidant of the king.
The succession did not itself repeal any Irish law, redistribute an acre, or overturn the established church. Nor should the year be read backwards from the Williamite war which began in 1689. In 1685 James’s authority was recognised across the island, and the administrative machinery built under his brother remained functioning. The duke of Ormond’s long influence over Irish government still framed the political world in which landlords, bishops, judges, merchants and county gentry operated. But confidence in continuity was weakened by the identity of the new monarch and by the men closest to him.
