Thomas Smith and Reading as a 'Trigger for Action'

Following the failure of various English attempts at colonisation in Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth I, Smith’s own self-financed scheme for settlement of the Ards peninsula on Ireland’s north-east coast met with Royal approval. Notwithstanding his much vaunted aspiration to civilise the Irish, Smith also saw in his scheme a means finally to subdue a people who had long resisted English attempts to impose sovereignty. Still attached to the Church of Rome, Ireland represented a threat to the authority of Elizabeth I.

Title: The present state of Ireland (London, 1673)
Shelfmark: F.16.7 (catalogue record)

F.16.7