Studies of the Tudor conquest of Ireland have expanded rapidly in the decades since the pioneering work of D. B. Quinn, Nicholas Canny, and Brendan Bradshaw. Archaeological studies of this period, however, have begun to appear only recently. The Manchester Spenser Series, designed to expand upon the contexts within which Edmund Spenser worked, is to be commended for underscoring archaeology's contribution to studies of Tudor conquest in Ireland by the inclusion of this work among its publications. The purpose of Eric Klingelhofer's study is to provide material context for Spenser in Ireland, specifically his role as a New English landowner on the Munster plantation, formed in the aftermath of the Desmond Rebellion (1579–83) when over 500,000 acres of land were confiscated. Accordingly, at the heart of Klingelhofer's study is a consideration of Spenser's castle of Kilcolman on the Munster plantation (chapter 5), destroyed by an uprising in 1598 in the midst of the Nine Years’ War. Spenser and his castle are placed squarely within Elizabethan colonialism in Ireland, and by way of introduction, this is placed within the yet larger context of English colonialism in the Americas. Klingelhofer builds to the topic of Kilcolman Castle through preparatory chapters on architecture, fortifications, and colonial settlement in the Elizabethan period, chapters studded with an impressive number of photographs and maps. Although he draws a number of general conclusions regarding early modern English colonialism, in spite of the work's subtitle, the emphasis here is on Munster.
Chapter 1 begins with an overview of Elizabethan colonization and exploration in the Americas, followed by a general introduction to Ireland's society and economy in the early stages of Tudor conquest, the latter providing helpful background for those coming to this work with little prior knowledge of Irish history. Here Klingelhofer makes the case for archaeology's ability to contribute substantially to our understanding of Tudor conquest. While this is certainly true, scholars of the last few decades will feel slighted by his assertion that this is so because archival studies have little new to offer on the subject, those sources having already been long thoroughly sifted, Klingelhofer asserts, by D. B. Quinn and Nicholas Canny (8), an assertion that would be dispelled by greater attention to more recent work. Chapter 2's consideration of Elizabethan fortifications, however, argues successfully in favor of the assertion that archaeology does have much to offer historical studies of the militarization of English policy in Ireland in this period.
The discussions of colonial settlement and vernacular architecture in chapters 3 and 4 are grounded in Klingelhofer's identification of the Munster plantation as a failure and his concern to locate the source of that failure. His consideration of colonial settlement patterns leads him to identify the lack of settlement planning (69), or more accurately the unfeasibility and failure of settlement proposals (72), as one source of the Munster plantation's failure. It was a “paper state” only, one of “great expectations” that failed to materialize as planned (82). Chapter 4 provides a detailed discussion of house types and their evolution, including tower houses, manor houses, and fortified houses, as a framework within which to consider architecture's reflection of the political and social changes catalyzed by the extension of English control in this period.
Klingelhofer makes extensive use of his excavations at Kilcolman as the basis for chapter 5. Its detailed portrait of the castle and of life at Kilcolman will certainly be of great interest to Spenserians. There is greater importance to this, however, for Klingelhofer's placement of Spenser within local economic structures reminds historians that taking into account the manner in which New English landowners functioned within their local economies offers a beneficial complement to assessment of their role as colonial administrators and officers.
Klingelhofer's consideration of Spenserian architecture in Ireland in chapter 6 builds on the subject of building types set out in chapter 4, drawing comparisons with the evolution of building types in England as the basis for the work's larger conclusions. Concern for local defense in Ireland determined house types of the elite in particular, a significant factor in assessing the degree to which construction reveals colonial attitudes as well as practicalities. Klingelhofer sees a critical transformation, arguing that “an imperial mentality, not a colonial outlook[,] determined their choice of building” and that “their houses represent something other than the fruits of colonization, or colonialism in its basic sense, and that is the idea of empire” (157).
As this last point suggests, some of Klingelhofer's assertions tantalizingly speak to debates concerning the Tudor conquest of Ireland though he does not engage directly with those debates. For instance, his identification of “proto-colonial” settlement under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary as a function of frontier defense rather than colonization (63) is a point that would be enhanced by consideration of competing assessments of England's perception of its relationship to Ireland and how that determined attitudes no less than policy. Other comments challenge recent work on Tudor Ireland—for instance, his description of sixteenth-century Ireland as “one of retarded change, of resistance to both Renaissance and Reformation” (86). While certainly there was extensive resistance to the Protestant Reformation among the Gaelic and Old English, much work exists demonstrating a profound engagement with Renaissance thought and practice in the Gaelic and Old English communities. With work such as Klingelhofer's on sixteenth-century Ireland, we can now move on to the greater incorporation of theorization within archaeology—for instance, accommodating the emerging field of conflict archaeology already utilized in considerations of the Ulster plantation and elsewhere—to arrive at a yet more comprehensive appreciation of the strategies and attitudes that underpinned Elizabethan control in Ireland.
