After the Armada

Following the failure of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth I ordered a formal and public thanksgiving for England's deliverance. Soon after, the queen and her privy council determined that her kingdom of Ireland should also give thanks. This Irish thanksgiving, celebrated in late January 1589, represents a rare example of a government-ordered national event that sought to draw together Elizabeth's subjects in Ireland to give thanks to God and to pray with one voice for their queen and the continued success of her reign. This article explores the circumstances surrounding Ireland's first thanksgiving to see what this national day of commemoration can tell us about the state of English rule in later Elizabethan Ireland. The very fact that a public display of this kind was held in Ireland at all is significant. It was indicative of the confidence of a government which had at last exerted its control over most of Ireland and which could reasonably expect the queen's subjects there to behave as they had in England

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