By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA)
England tore itself apart again. James II—Catholic, stubborn, authoritarian—had frightened Protestant elites into imagining he might create a French-style absolutist monarchy on English soil. When his Catholic son was born in 1688, they panicked. Whispers swept elite salons and military camps alike: A Stuart dynasty raised as Catholics—never.
In England, though there was no sitting Parliament at the time–James II had suspended it–the English Parliament invited William of Orange, leader of the Dutch Republic, to come to England. Parliamentary leaders invited him before Parliament officially assembled. In June 1688, seven leading English political figures secretly wrote to William. They asked him to go to Ireland on England’s behalf and “save” English Protestantism and the liberties of the kingdom in England and Ireland. These seven men included Earls, Bishops, and leading MPs who represented the Whig and Tory elite — the top of English political society. They promised William the support of most nobles, widespread popular backing, and told William that James II had “forfeited the nation’s trust.”
William, who ruled a Protestant confederation–the DUTCH REPUBLIC–as a Stadtholder, landed his ships full of soldiers in Ireland. He brought Dutch money and troops, as well as German and Huguenot fighters. His intervention in Ireland drove the deposed English King James out of Ireland and enforced Protestantism on the Island. William—bank-partnered, merchant-allied, militarily efficient—represented the Mardukian form of “order”: stratified, legalistic, property-centered. Ireland would soon feel the shockwave.
1689: IRELAND RALLIED TO JAMES — A CATHOLIC HOPE
Ireland had lived under a century of plantations, confiscations, and forced displacements. When James fled England, the Irish Catholic elite saw him as their one chance to reverse land loss.
Irish lords rallied behind him. Peasants cheered. The Anglo-Irish Protestant minority felt the ground tremble.
James crossed to Ireland, promising restoration.
Irish farmers whispered to their children, We may get our land back.
Priests prayed, Let Ireland rise again.
Yet James carried his own contradictions—fear of decisive action, French reluctance to give full support, and English memories of Catholic absolutism. Ireland projected onto James its longing for justice, while elites in England projected onto him the fear of losing their wealth.
1689–1690: THE SIEGE OF DERRY — “NO SURRENDER!”
Derry slammed its gates against James’s Jacobite forces. The Jacobites cut Derry off from its hinterland. Outside, thousands of Jacobite troops waited. Starvation crept inside the walls; disease spread. Women begged on their knees; men dug shallow graves in dark courtyards. Ships bearing relief tried to break through the boom across the River Foyle.
From the ramparts, starving defenders chanted: No surrender!
1690: BATTLE AT THE BOYNE RIVER
The Battle of the Boyne (1690) happened at the River Boyne because James II chose it as his defensive barrier. James’s forces, brave but less cohesive, faced them across the river. In the midst of the morning, commanders muttered, This will decide Ireland.
William rode forward—confident, pragmatic, cold. His ethos fit the Mardukian pattern: central command, military discipline, hierarchy enforced with an accountant’s clarity. He used multiple crossings — flanking upstream and forcing the ford at Oldbridge — to break James’s line.
James hesitated, withdrew early, and effectively abandoned his Irish supporters. (In partnership frames, leaders share risk; in domination frames, expendable people are left behind. Ireland became expendable).
Once William’s army crossed the river, James fled and the Williamite victory became inevitable. When the Jacobite army broke, the Irish people cried, We are betrayed.
1691: AUGHRIM AND LIMERICK
Aughrim was brutal. Rain turned the fields to sucking mud. Irish cavalry charged with desperate courage; infantry held hedgerows until they fell in heaps. Commanders shouted, Hold the ridge—hold for Ireland! The Jacobite cause died there. Limerick held out, but the political wind was gone. The defenders negotiated with honor, expecting fair terms.
The Treaty of Limerick promised rights—religious tolerance, protection of property, fair treatment of soldiers and civilians. It was a partnership template aligned with Ninmah’s ethos. But the ink was barely dry before the domination machine revoked it.
The Williamite Parliament shredded the treaty’s guarantees. Catholic landholdings were attacked with new laws and legal fictions. Irish officers were offered exile rather than service. Tens of thousands of Irish left for France, Spain, and beyond.
At the docks, mothers cried, Will you return? Young soldiers answered, Only when Ireland is free. They would not return. Domination systems always break treaties that threaten elite control.
1695–1709: THE PENAL LAWS SHAKLED IRISH LAND, LANGUAGE, AND WORSHIP
The Protestant rulers barred Catholics from holding arms, public office, teaching, inheriting land equally, entering certain professions, or practicing their Catholicism freely. The new Protestant rulers had massive landholdings in Ireland. Irish Catholic landownership collapsed from 90% in 1600 to 5% by 1778.
A farmer whispered to his son: We work the fields our ancestors owned, yet we may not own even the soil beneath our feet.
This was Mardukian domination—control through law, debt, and rigid hierarchy.
1700s: PROTESTANT ASCENDANCY LOCKED DOWN POWER
This Ascendancy was not a democracy but a narrow domination-driven oligarchy. A small class controlled land, courts, Parliament in Dublin, rents, militia and trade. The partnership values of Irish villagers—local autonomy, reciprocity, mutual aid—survived only in rural networks of kinship, Catholic clergy, and folk communities. Yet beneath the silence, something stored itself: memory, grievance, and hunger.
1800s (Prelude): HUNGER, RENTS, AND EVICTIONS BUILT TOWARD CATASTROPHE
By the early 19th century, Ireland hovered on a knife-edge: Absentee landlords raised rents beyond reason. Tenant families subdivided land until starvation shadowed every winter. Catholic emancipation arrived late and was limited. The Corn Laws controlled grain prices and crushed the poor.
A widow told a parish priest, “Each year my children eat less. He answered, Ireland cannot endure much longer.” The soil trembled toward its breaking point.
1845–1852: THE GREAT HUNGER LOOMED
Blight struck. Fields blackened. Leaves curled like burned paper. British officials debated market principles while people died in ditches.
In families across Ireland, a father would whisper: We must leave. There is nothing left for us here.
But…
500 IRISH CAVALRY DESTROYED BRITAIN’S SIEGE ARMY IN ONE NIGHT & SAVED MOST OF IRELAND FROM THE ENGLISH
A handful of brave Irish cavalrymen launched a lightning-fast night raid that obliterated Britain’s siege army—a daring move that changed the course of the conflict and saved much of Ireland from complete Protestant domination. The heroic cavalry fighters were outnumbered, out-gunned, and given little chance, yet through surprise, boldness, and gut-level resolve, they punched above their weight. Their action didn’t just win a battle—it disrupted the English plans and preserved a large part of Ireland’s population, social structure, and hopes for a Catholic future.
1690–1800: PROTESTANT ASCENDANCY & THE COLONIAL PATTERN
1690: William Triumphs at the Boyne
William III’s disciplined Dutch and English forces crossed the Boyne and broke James’s last bid to restore Catholic rule. The elites celebrated, but the Irish majority felt the shadows of a new order. William’s regime continued the domination current: hierarchy hardened, land ownership centralized, voice silenced.
1691: Treaty of Limerick (Broken Almost Immediately)
Promises to protect Catholic property and rights dissolved as soon as the ink dried.
1695–1728: Penal Laws Enacted
The Irish Catholic majority lived under legal suffocation:
- No political office
- No land inheritance
- No education in their faith
- No weapons
- No economic mobility
The system resembled earlier Mesopotamian models of domination: a rigid hierarchy, elite consolidation of property, and punishment for spiritual difference.
1740–1741: THE FAMINE
The “Little Ice Age” killed nearly 400,000. Exports of grain continued despite starvation—an early signal of the deadly political economy that would climax a century later.
1798: Rebellion of the United Irishmen
A brief flowering of partnership—Catholics, Protestants, and Dissenters uniting for self-rule—was crushed swiftly by the empire.
1801: Act of Union
Ireland’s parliament was abolished; Ireland was formally absorbed into Britain. Landlords grew richer; tenants fell deeper into precarity.
1800–1844: POVERTY, LANDLORD POWER, & MASS VULNERABILITY
1829: Catholic Emancipation: A symbolic victory, but land and power remained locked in the Ascendancy’s hands.
1831–1844: National School System Enforces Anglicization: A campaign to restructure identity and erase Gaelic culture.
1843: O’Connell’s Monster Meetings: Mass nonviolent rallies showed Ireland’s suppressed voice—but Britain refused structural change.
1845–1852: THE GREAT HUNGER
1845: Potato Blight Arrives: The staple crop failed. Nearly half the island stood on the edge of catastrophe.
1846: Second Failure—Laissez-Faire Hardness: British policy prioritized markets over lives. Food exports accelerated even as people starved.
1847: Black ’47: The nadir. Mass fever, eviction, coffin ships. Hundreds of thousands died on roadsides.
1848–1855: The Exodus: Over a million dead. Another million fled:
- To America (Boston, New York, Philadelphia)
- To Canada (Grosse Isle quarantine horror)
- To Australia (orphan transport, workhouse girls, convict descendants)
1849: Encumbered Estates Act: Landlords used the crisis to evict tenants en masse, creating vast cattle pastures and grazing estates.
The Famine represented the culmination of dominator economics—profits above people, hierarchy above survival, elite extraction above humanity. This echoes Enlilite and later Mardukian patterns across empires: centralized rule, resource control, enforced scarcity.
1850–1900: DIASPORA & REAWAKENING
1858: IRB Founded: The Irish Republican Brotherhood emerged as a secret, militant response to the injustice of landlord rule.
1879–1882: Land War: The people realized their power—boycotts, agitation, and non-payment campaigns pressured landlords for the first time.
1885–1914: Emigration Becomes Cultural Memory–Every village lost sons, daughters, and whole families. Boston and New York became Irish cities.
1893: Gaelic League–A cultural rebirth—language, literature, identity reclaimed.
1914–1923: WAR, REBELLION & PARTITION
1914–1918: World War I: Catholics joined the British forces in large numbers. Many died believing service might soften London toward reform.
1916: Easter Rising: A small, determined rebellion spoke loudly through the silence of execution by firing squad.
1919–1921: War of Independence; Guerrilla warfare forced negotiations.
1921: Anglo-Irish Treaty & Partition: A new Free State (26 counties) was born. Northern Ireland (6 counties) became a Unionist-dominated mini-state.
1922–1923: Civil War–The Irish fought each other over the treaty’s compromise with the Empire.
1923–1945: SOVEREIGNTY, NEUTRALITY & NAZI CONTACTS
1937: New Constitution (Éire): Internal sovereignty achieved; spiritual identity reclaimed.
1939–1945: World War II—“The Emergency.” Ireland remained officially neutral, protecting itself from entanglement.
IRA–Nazi Germany Contacts
The IRA briefly sought support from Germany to force Britain out of Northern Ireland.
Germany explored but never formalized the alliance.
De Valera’s Controversial Condolence Visit (1945): The diplomatic neutrality protocol is widely misunderstood.
1945–1968: MODERNITY, MIGRATION & UNREST
1949: The Republic of Ireland was declared, Full independence asserted.
1950s–1960s: New Waves of Emigration: Economic stagnation led many to emigrate to America and Britain.
1965: Lemass–O’Neill Talks: A flirtation with peace before the storm.
1968–1998: THE TROUBLES
1968: Civil Rights Movement: Northern Catholics demanded equality.
1969: British Troops Deployed: A conflict that would last 30 years began.
1972: Bloody Sunday: Anger exploded; peace retreated.
1973: Sunningdale Agreement (Failed): An early attempt at power-sharing was crushed by extremism.
1981: Hunger Strikes: Bobby Sands and others died protesting the criminalization of political prisoners.
1985: Anglo-Irish Agreement: A first recognition that Dublin must have a voice in the North.
1994: IRA & Loyalist Ceasefires
1998: Good Friday Agreement: A triumph of partnership principles—shared rule, civil rights, disarmament, and peace.
ENKI–ENLIL–MARDUK PATTERN ANALYSIS
Across three centuries, Ireland’s story echoes ancient patterns:
The Enlilite/Mardukian Domination Consciousness Resurged:
- Minority rule over majority (Ascendancy)
- Punitive law codes (Penal Laws)
- Resource extraction during famine
- Forced migration
- Militarized suppression (1798, 1916, Troubles)
The Ninmah (Great Goddess Consciousness)
- United Irishmen (1791)
- Catholic Emancipation
- Land War’s collective action
- Cultural revival (Gaelic League)
- Peace initiatives (Sunningdale, Good Friday Agreement)
History becomes a laboratory for understanding how domination and partnership play out over centuries, just as they did within the Anunnaki pantheon.
SOCIAL CLASSES & SPIRITUAL ALIGNMENTS (1690–1998)
PROTESTANT ASCENDANCY (Landed Elite, Clergy)
→ Alignment: Marduk–Enlil Domination Current
→ Mode: Hierarchy, economics of extraction
Catholic Tenants, Rural Poor
→ Alignment: Enki Partnership Current (solidarity, mutual aid)
→ Mode: community networks, cooperative survival
Irish Middle Class (19th–20th century)
→ Split between collaboration and reform currents
Irish Diaspora (U.S., Canada, Australia)
→ Mixed, but strongly Partnership-oriented regarding Irish issues
IRA (Different wings at different times)
→ Fusion of domination resistance + militant hierarchy
→ Sometimes sought external authoritarian allies (e.g., Nazi Germany)
Peace Movements & Civil Rights Groups (1968–1998)
→ Clear expressions of the Enki–Partnership orientation
REFERENCES
- BBC History (various articles on Williamite Wars, Penal Laws, and Irish independence).
- Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845–52, Gill Books, 1994.
- Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA, HarperCollins, 1994.
- Diarmaid Ferriter, The Border: The Legacy of Partition in Ireland, Profile Books, 2019.
- Fearghal McGarry, The Rising: Ireland—Easter 1916, Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Henry Patterson, Ireland’s Violent Frontier: The Border and Anglo-Irish Relations, Palgrave, 2010.
NEXT ARTICLE
Next in this series, we plunge into the catastrophe that reshaped the Irish soul:
The Great Hunger—how exported grain, enforced scarcity, British economic doctrine, and landlord power killed a million and sent millions more into exile.
Then we follow the survivors across oceans—into the streets of Boston and New York, the goldfields and penal settlements of Australia, and the trenches of World War.
