The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The 1590s Crisis - Tapa dura

This book is about the impact of the nine years' war on central and local government and society in the English and Welsh shires in the 1590's. It contains fascinating new insights into the centrality of Ireland to England's problems in the crucial last decade of Elizabeth I's reign. However, this is in no sense a conventional military history of the Irish war, (1594-1603), but rather, a history of the social impact of the war and the strains it put upon the Elizabethan government. Based on painstaking primary research, it also covers the recruitment of levies for Ireland, their shipping their service in Ireland and the limited extent of aftercare given to the sick and wounded.

John McGurk is Associate Professor at the University of Ulster