Authors

Tara S. Rider

Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Landsman, Ned | Bottigheimer, Karl | Cooper, Alix | Hutner, Heidi.

Date

2015-08-01

Keywords

Colonialism, Gender, Grace O'Malley, Gráinne Ní Mháille, Ireland, Landscape | History | Colonialism, Gender, Grace O'Malley, Gráinne Ní Mháille, Ireland, Landscape

Department

Department of History.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77730

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

Gender, power, and identity formed a critical intersection in sixteenth century Ireland as Tudor England sought to bring this neighboring island more fully under Crown control. This dissertation examines how England imposed gender on both the Irish landscape and the Irish people, creating an illusion of weakness, a lack of power, and a means of controlling a society and a nation. This project examines the strategies England employed in the sixteenth century to bring Ireland more fully under English control in order to demonstrate how the cultural construction of Ireland's land and populace as both female and Other justified English colonization of Ireland. This project explores how the geo-politics of sixteenth century Ireland created a divide between not only the Irish and the English, but also within the peoples of Ireland. Ironically, England's colonial creation of a negative sense of femininity forced the self-consciousness of these discernible differences - such as gender - that would lead to the Irish opposition of colonization. By studying not only the historical figure of the " Irish Pirate Queen" Gráinne Ní Mháille, but also how she would be imagined and reimagined by future Irish generations, this project explores how the constructions of masculinity/femininity as well as of colonizer/colonized could be disrupted. In its search for social, economic, and political independence, Ireland highlighted the mutability of the roles of colonizer and colonized.  | Gender, power, and identity formed a critical intersection in sixteenth century Ireland as Tudor England sought to bring this neighboring island more fully under Crown control. This dissertation examines how England imposed gender on both the Irish landscape and the Irish people, creating an illusion of weakness, a lack of power, and a means of controlling a society and a nation. This project examines the strategies England employed in the sixteenth century to bring Ireland more fully under English control in order to demonstrate how the cultural construction of Ireland's land and populace as both female and Other justified English colonization of Ireland. This project explores how the geo-politics of sixteenth century Ireland created a divide between not only the Irish and the English, but also within the peoples of Ireland. Ironically, England's colonial creation of a negative sense of femininity forced the self-consciousness of these discernible differences - such as gender - that would lead to the Irish opposition of colonization. By studying not only the historical figure of the " Irish Pirate Queen" Gráinne Ní Mháille, but also how she would be imagined and reimagined by future Irish generations, this project explores how the constructions of masculinity/femininity as well as of colonizer/colonized could be disrupted. In its search for social, economic, and political independence, Ireland highlighted the mutability of the roles of colonizer and colonized. ,246 pages

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