Since the early medieval period, Ireland has experienced invasion and settlement from abroad. The most notable invasions include the Norse Vikings from around 850 AD, the Anglo-Normans under Strongbow (alias Richard Fitzgilbert de Clare) in 1170, the English under King Henry II in 1171, and the Tudors in the late 16th and 17th centuries.
The English initially settled in the south-east of Ireland but gradually expanded their power throughout much of the island. The Tudor English struggled with the native Irish until the end of the Nine Years War in 1604, and the “Flight of the Earls” to France or Flanders. King James then allocated their lands among “undertakers” who undertook to settle immigrants from Scotland and England in the Plantation of Ulster. Rebellions against Cromwellian rule in Ireland, such as the Confederate Wars of 1641-1652, led to confiscation of rebel lands, which the Crown granted to former soldiers and to those who had financed the military. Though the Jacobite forces of King James consisted, in part, of French soldiers, and those of King William were partly Dutch and French, there is no sign of their settlement in Ireland at that time.
The Low Countries, especially the cities of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerpen, Ostende, and Brugge, were major markets for goods and raw materials imported from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The continuous stream of ships bound for or returning from the Low Countries encouraged Irish merchants to settle there. Low Countries universities, such as the University of Leiden, attracted Irish scholars. Most of the Irish migrants in Flanders or elsewhere in the Netherlands arrived as soldiers, some in Spanish service, others in English or Dutch service. Irishmen such as Owen Roe O’Neill, Thomas Preston, and Garret Barry, who had experienced warfare in Flanders and in the Thirty Years War, were among those soldiers who returned to Ireland to fight with their Catholic Confederates in their struggle with the forces of the English Parliament. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (alias the English Civil War), the indigenous Irish sided with the King, since Parliament was anti-Catholic. This led to Irish and Flemish privateers, like John O’Daniel of Limerick (and formerly in Dunkirk and Ostend), now being based at Waterford or Wexford attacking English or Parliamentary ships.
King Charles II took refuge in the Netherlands after being defeated at the Siege of Worcester in 1651. After his restoration to the thrones of England and Ireland in 1660, he encouraged the settlement of Protestants from the Netherlands and Flanders, as well as French Huguenots, in Ireland. On 23 August 1661, King Charles II approved of a bill naturalizing Dutch and other Protestant strangers “for there are now many Protestants in France, Flanders, and other parts that are industrious people, that if they might be there naturalized, would come over and bring with them persons skilled in making several sorts of manufactures.” On 7 September 1661, the Earl of Orrery wrote to Secretary Nicholas “it did my heart good to see at Limerick forty Dutch families, which I had lately gotten thither so busy in their manufactures and plantations.” Flemish Huguenots, in particular, settled in centers such as Dublin, Cork, Youghal, Port Arlington, and at Lisburn.
