The Elizabethan war that won $300,000

Ruth Canning has just arrived at Concordia from University College Cork, in Cork, Ireland, with more than $300,000 in research funding.

The postdoctoral grant from the European Commission’s Marie Curie Actions Fellowships will fuel Canning’s three-year research project on a lost — yet surprisingly pertinent — corner of Irish history: the Nine Years’ War. Although waged more than 400 years ago in the last days of the reign of England’s Elizabeth I, it set the tone for centuries of Catholic-Protestant conflict.

It may seem strange to come to Canada in order to study Ireland, but Canning finds that the distance offers a new perspective. “Progressive institutions like Concordia’s School of Canadian Irish Studies are helping researchers like me take a fresh look at what can often seem like ancient history, and shed new light on present-day situations,” she says.

The Nine Years’ War is one such episode that, if explored further, could lead to a more nuanced understanding of the continued religious and cultural clashes in Ireland. The war, fought by Ireland and England from 1594 to 1603, cost Elizabeth I more money and men than any other, but history has largely overlooked it.

According to Canning, “At the time, Ireland was considered to be a strategic point of entry into England from the continent: it experienced an influx of ‘New English’ settlers who imposed their cultural and religious norms. That didn’t sit so well with the ruling ‘Old English’ landowners who had arrived in Ireland hundreds of years before, and whose cultural roots and Catholic attitudes already ran deep.”

Canning says that the Irish attached themselves to Catholicism during the Nine Years’ War in order to define themselves against the invading English. “As a result of this war, the Irish community came to see themselves as resolutely not English. It’s my hope that my research will lead to a new understanding of how this war helped the Irish form a new identity and planted the seeds for the Catholic-Protestant conflicts that still plague Ireland today.”

Canning is thankful to have the backing of the Marie Curie Fellowship to help achieve this goal. “This scholarship has given me the amazing opportunity of coming to Concordia’s School of Irish Studies, where I can be part of an internationally renowned group of scholars that is working together to increase the understanding of Irish history and culture worldwide,” she says.

She plans to share her knowledge with students by teaching courses that are part of the university’s new major in Canadian Irish Studies, a program that explores Ireland's history and culture alongside the rich narrative of the diaspora.