This is the story of the 'First British Empire' - in Ireland - and of the perennial Irish Question dating from the middle ages which defeated Britain at the height of her imperial power, and has reached to the present. The Tudor period is crucial and the long-simmering problem came to the boil in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Ireland has been overshadowed by the huge events surrounding Tudor history but was central to Elizabeth's foreign policy when Protestant England was threatened by the European Catholic superpowers - Spain and France - with Ireland as the backdoor for invasion.

Ireland was ruled from England by a series of Lords Deputies from 1556-1616, chosen from British aristocracy and gentry, and with connections with elite literary and intellectual society, including even such a stellar figure as Edmund Spencer. They considered Ireland as being integral to British state and society, and was a constant preoccupation, as seen in the 'salon' of Bryskett's Cottage, where the luminaries met to pore over the 'Irish Question.' But the deliberations were rewarded by no triumph following the wars in Ireland from at least 1560 until the the end of the century.

It is story of constant revolt, suppression, warfare, atrocities and even genocide, and suffering by all sectors of the population, and especially the Catholic native Irish peasantry, and ending with an ailing, dis-spirited and dying Queen, facing further revolt, foreign invasion and with an empty Treasury. Ireland had remained a constant and unresolved irritant marking the end of the Tudors, not by the great enemy Spain, but by ungovernable Ireland - a first colonial 'failed state'.