This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive study of the remaking of Ireland's aristocracy during the seventeenth century. It is a study of the Irish peerage and its role in the establishment of English control over Ireland. Jane Ohlmeyer's research in the archives of the era yields a major new understanding of early Irish and British elite, and it offers fresh perspectives on the experiences of the Irish, English, and Scottish lords in wider British and continental contexts.

The book examines the resident peerage as an aggregate of 91 families, not simply 311 individuals, and demonstrates how a reconstituted peerage of mixed faith and ethnicity assimilated the established Catholic aristocracy. Tracking the impact of colonization, civil war, and other significant factors on the fortunes of the peerage in Ireland, Ohlmeyer arrives at a fresh assessment of the key accomplishment of the new Irish elite: making Ireland English.

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Read a blog article by Making Ireland English author Jane Ohlmeyer on Yale's blog

Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History and Vice-Provost for Global Relations, Trinity College, Dublin. She is the author of Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms and Ireland from Independence to Occupation. She lives in Dublin.

"A stimulating study… of one of the most interesting (and controversial) social transformations in the British Isles over the last 500 years." Daniel Szechi, BBC History Magazine

“The synthesis of all this material into a comprehensive survey of the entire Irish aristocracy over a century is an astonishing achievement. It deserves to be widely read by academics and non-academics alike.” Patrick Little, Reviews in History