Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland: Clerical Resistance and Political Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin, 1534-1590.

Mulligan, William H., Jr.

Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland: Clerical Resistance and Political Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin, 1534-1590, by James Murray. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009. xvi, 353 pp. $120.00 US (cloth).

Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland is a welcome and significant contribution to our understanding of a complicated and extremely important period in Irish history. Murray has done an impressive amount of research in the extant primary sources as well as reading closely the extensive secondary literature. He presents the results of this research and reading very effectively. Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland is highly readable, especially given the convoluted political and religious maneuverings it analyses. Further, he presents his case clearly even when events are at their most convoluted. The organization of the book is especially impressive. Seldom does an author place his or her work so clearly in the context of the existing literature and scholarly debate as Murray does in the book's "Introduction." His discussion of the "state of the question" is thorough and clear, and provides an unusually good preparation for reading the book and following both the complicated and somewhat convoluted course of events and Murray's interpretation of those events. It does far more than the usual introduction to a scholarly monograph and stands on its own as an important contribution. In the same vein, one seldom encounters as clear a statement of a book's findings and its contribution to the literature as Murray provides in the "Afterword." Seldom does one read a monograph so clearly placed in the context of the literature to which it contributes. These two chapters can be read separately from the book as significant historiographic essays on their own and offer a useful model for other scholars in the detailed placement of the work in the literature.

The years under review, from Henry VIII's break with Rome through the acceptance of the failure to reform the Irish church in the area of Ireland where English influence was strongest is a particularly important, even pivotal, period in Irish history. Ultimately, the Reformation failed in Ireland among those within the pale who were still culturally more English than Irish. The clerical elite of the Pale, Murray shows, rejected the Reformation decisively after more than fifty years of manipulation and maneuver by the Crown to gain that acceptance through a variety of strategies. That effort, however, was neither unbroken, nor consistent. The brief reign of Queen Mary, which sought actively to restore the old religion, Murray argues, was critical. He attributes the failure of the reformation largely to the revival of Catholicism during Mary's reign which provided sufficient ideological strength for the conservative faction and leadership within the Irish church to resist the renewed reforming efforts of the early years of Elizabeth's reign. Less explicitly addressed is the question of to what extent the shifting goals of reform prior to Mary's accession to the throne and the inconsistent application of attention to religious reform within the context of the Henry's political agenda in Ireland affected the success of Henry's reformation. The Catholicism that triumphed was the pre-Reformation vision of the Catholic Church held among the Anglo-Irish clergy of the Pale, not the renewed counter- Reformation form of Catholicism that emerged on the Continent or from the Council of Trent. That it developed independently of any sense of nationality among the Irish outside the Pale is clear from Murray's discussion. This, and a great deal else in the book, underscores the complexity of identity during this period and much of early modern Irish and British history. Especially for those within the Pale, whether they were English or Irish was not always clear, and frequently shifted depending on context. Religious identity was, especially early in the period, equally flexible. Those whose careers were in the church had to navigate a constantly changing environment not only during the years of Henry VIII, but the even more so during the short reigns of Edward and Mary when religious policy shifted dramatically. The career of Archbishop George Browne and his ultimate failure to keep his position is an example, perhaps the most prominent, of just how difficult it could be to keep up with the changing views and expectations Henry and then his successors had for senior clerics in Ireland. Browne's marriage and family, for example, illustrate how complicated the situations created by efforts to follow the policy of the day could be.

Murray does a good job of presenting the intricacies of the religious and political intrigue of the period clearly. Individuals are identified clearly as are the

various issues and policies involved. For the most part, one does not need to be a specialist to understand either events or Murray's argument. Where the sources are lost and Murray speculates he is clear that he is speculating and offers reasons to support his position. Inheriting the English Reformation in Ireland is a welcome addition to the literature and a model monograph in many ways.

William H. Mulligan, Jr.

Murray State University