EDUARDO DE MESA GALLEGO
The Intellectual and Cultural Mentality of Irish Soldiers in Spanish Military Service during the 17th Century
Supervised by: Dr Declan Downey, UCD School of History and Archives
Overview and Methodology
This study will trace the individual careers of Irish soldiers in Spanish service, and reconstruct the intimate
details of their social lives and cultural activities using
archival sources, principally papers contained in the archives
of the Council of State, the Council of Finances and the
Council of War of the Hapsburg Monarchy. The Irish
persisted in maintaining a mental and cultural
distinctiveness over at least two generations in Spanish
Society, yet this cultural self-awareness did not prevent
their integration and assimilation into Spanish Society. A
combination of Habsburg political ideology and the
religious, educational and intellectual formation of Spanish
Reformed Catholicism helped the Irish to integrate
successfully in Spain. And these factors also combined to form or forge a cultural and intellectual worldview
among those Irish soldiers, students, merchants and clergy who lived in Spain and later returned to
Ireland.
Aims
- To make available information from hitherto untapped Spanish and Belgian archival sources concerning Irish self-definition, cultural awareness and intellectual developments among the military communities in Seventeenth Century Flanders.
- To analyse how the Irish soldiers learned the Art of
War from the “Spanish School”, how they fought in
the wars of the Spanish Habsburgs, and how they returned to Ireland and fought for the Confederation. - To analyse and portray how these Irish émigrés
maintained and developed their identities as well as
develop their political, social and cultural
identification with the broader political, ideological
and cultural interests
- Dr Thomas Kador
- Dr Ciaran O'Scea
- Dr Catherine Morris
- Dr Siobhan Byrne
- Dr Neil Fleming
- Dr Jim MacPherson
- Dr Laura McAtackney
- Dr Stefanie Lehner
- Dr Susan Cahill
- Dr John O'Neill