Home › Eras › The Kildare Ascendancy1470 — 1541
The Kildare Ascendancy
The English crown is too poor to govern Ireland directly, so it governs through the greatest of the Geraldines instead. For sixty years the Earls of Kildare are kings in all but name, holding Gaelic and English Ireland in balance against each other. Then Silken Thomas rebels in 1534. After that the Tudors decide to govern Ireland themselves.
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Who holds the land
Counties were still being drawn and redrawn through this age, and were not fixed until 1610. The colours approximate the dominant power onto today’s boundaries rather than the shifting ones of the time.
The English Pale
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The fortified coastal strip around Dublin — the only part of Ireland where English law reliably ran by the 15th century. To live 'beyond the Pale' meant to live outside it.
Earldom of Desmond (FitzGerald)
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The Munster Geraldines — Norman earls gone half-Gaelic, keeping poets and brehons. Their destruction in 1583 cleared the ground for the Munster Plantation.
O'Neill of Tír Eoghain
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The Great O'Neill, premier Gaelic lord of Ireland. Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, came within one battle of undoing the English conquest.
Clandeboye O'Neills & MacDonnells
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East Ulster under the Clandeboye branch of the O'Neills and, along the Antrim coast, the Scottish MacDonnells of the Isles.
O'Connor lordships
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The reduced but stubborn O'Connor territories of Roscommon and Sligo, heirs of the last High Kings.
Earldom of Ormond (Butler)
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The Butlers of Kilkenny, the crown's most reliable great family in Ireland — perennial rivals of the FitzGeralds.
MacMurrough Kavanagh
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Descendants of the kings of Leinster, resurgent in Carlow and Wexford; Art MacMurrough Kavanagh humbled two royal expeditions of Richard II.
O'More & O'Connor Faly
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The midland lordships of Laois and Offaly, whose relentless raids on the Pale made them the first target of plantation in the 1550s.
O'Donnell of Tír Chonaill
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Lords of Donegal and masters of the Spanish wine trade; Red Hugh O'Donnell was the fire of the Nine Years' War.
Fermanagh (Maguire)
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The Maguires of Fermanagh, lords of Lough Erne, whose fleet of boats made them kings of the lake country.
Oriel (MacMahon)
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The MacMahon lordship of Monaghan, successor to ancient Airgíalla; its partition by English commissioners in 1591 was a rehearsal for the conquest of Ulster.
East Bréifne (O'Reilly)
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The O'Reillys of Cavan, wealthy enough to mint their own money — 'O'Reilly's money' passed as coin along the border.
West Bréifne (O'Rourke)
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The O'Rourkes of Leitrim. Brian O'Rourke sheltered Armada survivors in 1588 and was hanged at Tyburn for it.
Clanricarde (Burke)
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The southern Burkes, Normans turned Gaelic lords ('more Irish than the Irish themselves'), ruling Galway's hinterland.
Mac William Bourke (Mayo)
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The northern Burkes of Mayo, thoroughly gaelicised; Grace O'Malley, the pirate queen, married into their lordship.
Thomond (O'Brien)
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The O'Briens of Clare, who alone among the great Gaelic dynasties navigated the Tudor conquest by becoming Earls of Thomond.
O'Byrne & O'Toole country
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Driven from Kildare into the Wicklow mountains, the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles raided the Pale from the hills for four centuries, unconquered.
Annaly (O'Farrell)
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The O'Farrell lordship of Annaly in modern Longford, holding the Shannon crossings between the Pale and the Gaelic west.
🕯 Unknown history
In 1487 Ireland crowned a King of England. The Dublin establishment crowned the ten-year-old pretender Lambert Simnel as 'Edward VI' in Christ Church Cathedral and invaded England on his behalf. After the defeat, Henry VII pardoned the boy — and set him to work in the royal kitchens.
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Sources for this age
The map is this site's reading of who held each county, drawn onto today's borders; the articles above are where each power and event can be checked.
📜 The chronicle — events of this age
1477
Gearóid Mór becomes Earl of Kildare
↗ The 'Great Earl' begins six decades of FitzGerald dominance.
1487
Lambert Simnel crowned in Dublin
↗ Ireland crowns a boy pretender King of England in Christ Church Cathedral.
1494
The Irish parliament is barred from meeting or legislating without English approval.
1504
Kildare marshals half of Ireland, Gaelic and English, against Clanricarde — a private war on a national scale.
1534
The Kildare heir renounces allegiance; the rebellion's failure destroys the house of Kildare.
1541
Henry VIII takes the royal title, replacing the medieval papal lordship.
Quick answers
When was the Kildare Ascendancy in Ireland? The Kildare Ascendancy spans 1470 to 1541 in this atlas. The English crown is too poor to govern Ireland directly, so it governs through the greatest of the Geraldines instead.
Who ruled Ireland during the Kildare Ascendancy? Power was divided: The English Pale (5 counties); Earldom of Desmond (FitzGerald) (4 counties); O'Neill of Tír Eoghain (3 counties); Clandeboye O'Neills & MacDonnells (2 counties); O'Connor lordships (2 counties), among others. County boundaries are modern approximations.
What is a lesser-known fact about the Kildare Ascendancy? In 1487 Ireland crowned a King of England. The Dublin establishment crowned the ten-year-old pretender Lambert Simnel as 'Edward VI' in Christ Church Cathedral and invaded England on his behalf. After the defeat, Henry VII pardoned the boy — and set him to work in the royal kitchens.
↗ links go to the relevant Wikipedia article for each event and ruler (sources & further reading).
Spotted an error, or know a better story for this age? Suggest a correction .
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