Renaissance

Renaissance, a general term for the transformation of artistic and intellectual life in Europe from the late 15th century, involving a return to classical aesthetic standards and a revival of humanist as opposed to scholastic learning. The Renaissance affected Ireland more profoundly than one might expect. As a poor peripheral region, it was not involved in artistic and architectural developments. However, Ireland did make a late contribution to Renaissance scholarship with the likes of Richard Stanihurst, the writer and alchemist, and William Bathe (1564–1614), who developed musical notation and revolutionized the teaching of Latin.

These men worked on the Continent, whereas the leading scholars in Elizabethan Ireland were New Englishmen—translators such as Geoffrey Fenton and Ludowick Bryskett and poets such as Edmund Spenser. Their presence and the exile of their Irish contemporaries was a consequence of the Tudor conquest.

Ireland became a Renaissance social laboratory where classical ideas about government and colonization were applied. Humanism believed in the civilization of individuals through education and the reform of the commonwealth through princely intervention. The administrative machinery of early modern government proved incapable of achieving these reformist objectives and, by invariably resorting to force, destroyed any initial possibility of success.

In defence of its liberties, the native elite responded with the revived classical concept of patria. It is no surprise, perhaps, that Irish theologians, especially Franciscans, were closely identified with scholasticism, which Renaissance humanism had sought to discredit. Maurice O'Fihely, archbishop of Tuam (d. 1513), had continued the promotion of scholasticism as a lecturer in Padua in the heart of Renaissance Italy, while Aodh Mac Aingil (archbishop of Armagh, 1626), Luke Wadding, and others led its revival in the 17th century.

Hiram Morgan