Podcast Summary:

New Books Network
Episode: Jane Ohlmeyer, Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World (Oxford UP, 2023)
Date: February 22, 2026
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer

Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging discussion between Dr. Miranda Melcher and Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer about Ohlmeyer’s book Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World. The conversation explores Ireland as England’s oldest colony and examines how Ireland’s experience as a site of colonization both shaped the English/British imperial project and had lasting consequences on Irish society and identity. By investigating processes such as “Anglicization,” the experiences of women, the role of Irish people within and against imperial machinery, and the legacy of empire into the present, the episode offers a nuanced understanding of Ireland’s pivotal but often misunderstood place in early modern history and beyond.

Key Discussion Points

1. Author Introduction & Motivation for the Book

• Personal and Scholarly Background:
  Dr. Ohlmeyer grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, deeply impacting her interest in empire and Ireland's unique colonial/post-colonial status.
• Genesis of the Book:
  Inspired by delivering the prestigious James Ford Lectures at Oxford in 2021, Ohlmeyer brought together 30 years of research to reflect on Ireland’s imperial experience and its modern legacies.

  "I was always very conscious of Ireland having this anomalous position of being...both colonial and post colonial." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 01:50)

2. Time Period and Terminology Framing

• Scope:
  Focuses mainly on the late 16th century through the 18th century, coinciding with the formation of the "first English Empire". Extends in one chapter into the 20th century, especially examining Ireland’s relationship to India. (04:05, 06:06)
• Terminology Clarified:
  • Imperialism: Policy or process of extending/control via empire (per Said, Darwin, Osterhammel).
  • Colony/Colonization: Used interchangeably with “plantation” in the early modern period.
  • Civilize: Contemporary term for what historians later called “Anglicization.”

  "The word Anglicization is a product of a much later period. So they...use this word to civilize. So language matters." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 07:50)

3. Continuities from Early Modern to Present: The Power of Story and Memory

• The Role of Theatre:
  Ohlmeyer discusses Brian Friel’s play Making History (set in the 16th century but written in the 1980s during the Troubles) as a framework for addressing thorny contemporary legacies of empire, identity, and shared futures.

  "What Brian Friel's play gave me was a way of approaching these extremely thorny and very sensitive discussions around empire and around identity in the Ireland of the 21st century." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 09:43)

• Contemporary Resonance:
  Friel, and figures like Seamus Heaney, sought through their art to create a "fifth province of the mind"—a shared space for all communities to imagine a peaceful and pluralistic future.
• Relevance to Modern Conflicts:
  Ohlmeyer connects Irish experience to contemporary global issues (Ukraine, Middle East), and the international wave of reckoning with empire’s legacies—statue controversies, Black Lives Matter, Brexit, and the rise of English nationalism. (14:30)

4. The Anglicization/Civilizing Process

• Complex, Multi-Faceted Approach:
  Ireland underwent waves of imperialism, shifting between violent military conquest and policies of cultural, religious, and economic transformation (Anglicization).
  • Land & Labor: Over 8 million acres expropriated, hundreds of thousands of primarily Protestant settlers transplanted by the 18th century.
  • Religion: Crown attempts to convert Irish Catholics to Protestantism.
  • Culture & Language: Pressure to adopt English language, fashions, legal system, and economic structures; towns and markets built, barter replaced with currency.
  • Resistance: Frequent rebellions, e.g., Nine Years’ War (1590s), major independence movement (1640s).

  "You see this very intricate combination of military conquest and political subjugation. And alongside that, we see this wider desire to convert the Irish to Protestantism, but also to make them English..." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 17:33–23:56)

5. The Lived Experience of Empire – Intermarriage and Gender

• Intermarriage:
  Contrary to post-hoc mythologies, intermarriage between English/Scottish settlers and native Irish was common, even requiring explicit prohibition by authorities like Cromwell.
  • Resulted in complex cultural and religious negotiations within families.

  "Sometimes the most Protestant families within three generations are the most zealous Catholics, and vice versa. That is a story that has just not really been told." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 28:10)

• Women's Roles:
  Ohlmeyer extends the discussion by noting that both colonial and indigenous women exercised real agency—protecting faith and culture, actively negotiating their roles; English writers often demonised Irish women precisely for their protective roles.

  "Edmund Spenser...denigrated Irish women wherever he could...because he recognized that they were the ones who ensured that children were brought up in the Catholic faith and that they were the guardians of language and culture." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 29:44)

6. Agents of Empire

• Types of Agents:
  • Collaborators: Irish elites who worked with the Crown for pragmatic reasons, often protecting their own holdings and dependents in the process.
  • Imperial Opportunists: Protestant newcomers like the Earl of Cork, “land grabbers” who built immense fortunes.
  • Irish Merchants: Played significant roles across multiple European empires, often in the Americas and Atlantic slave economies; Irish mercenaries & missionaries likewise exerted influence abroad.

  "The Irish are trans imperial. They're really good at piggybacking on the empires of others." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 35:30)

  • Military & Religious Networks: Irish soldiers and clergy served in both English and continental armies and missions, building global linkages.

7. Case Study: Tangier

• Tangier became, for a time, an “Irish colony” in North Africa, largely populated and administered by Irish Catholics.
  • Showcased the complexity of identity: Irishness vs Englishness (not yet “Britishness”).
  • Use of Irish as a "secret language" among soldiers.

  "Tangier effectively became an Irish colony because it was largely administered, and most of the soldiers...were Irish, mostly Irish Catholics." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 37:31)

8. Ireland as Imperial Laboratory

• Ideological & Practical Testing Ground:
  • Ireland served as the model for later imperial practices—in ideology, law, mapping, administrative structures.
  • Racial Othering: Notions of English cultural superiority over the “barbarous” Irish (Edmund Spenser etc.) foreshadowed racial ideologies later exported across the empire.
  • Legal Innovations: Laws tested in Ireland, repurposed (e.g. anti-native Irish laws morphing into slave codes in the Caribbean).
  • Mapping & Knowledge-Gathering: Pioneered by William Petty, influencing imperial administration globally.

  "Ireland is probably the most extensively mapped place in the early modern world...those techniques...are really fine-tuned in Ireland...then applied...in the Atlantic world and later in India as well." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 43:00)

9. Irish Resistance as Inspiration

• Irish resistance models later inspired independence movements globally (notably in India and even the American Civil War).
  • Close ties between Irish and Indian nationalist leaders and thinkers; Irish revolt of 1916 influenced key Indian uprisings.

  "The Irish taught the Indians their ABC of freedom fighting and are recognized as such...you see these Bengali nationalists really drawing inspiration from what the Irish...are doing." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 47:48–48:42)

10. Memory, Controversy, and Legacy

• Contested Remembrance:
  • Protestant Loyalist Perspective: Commemorate events like the 1641 uprising and the Battle of the Boyne.
  • Catholic Memory: Cromwell looms large in folklore and social memory.
  • Ohlmeyer sees this selective memory as both a challenge and opportunity for honest dialogue in building Ireland’s future.

  "History is a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. So it's really important that we call out people who are trying to use it inappropriately..." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 54:00)

11. Next Project – The Hidden Lives of Women

• Ohlmeyer discusses her new ERC-funded project on the lived experiences of women in early modern Ireland, adopting digital and comparative approaches to place women (settlers and indigenous) at the center of the narrative.

  "Now these women have been hiding in plain sight. We've paid no attention to them whatsoever. Let's now put their stories and their lived experiences at the heart of Irish history." (Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer, 54:32)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the personal drive for the project:

  "I've been interested in issues of empire basically my entire life...Ireland having this anomalous position of being, if you want, both colonial and post colonial." (01:51)

• On art as a framework for understanding history and identity:

  "What Brian Friel's play gave me was a way of approaching these extremely thorny and very sensitive discussions around empire and around identity in the Ireland of the 21st century." (09:43)

• On gender and intermarriage:

  "Sometimes the most Protestant families within three generations are the most zealous Catholics, and vice versa." (28:10)

• On memory as a battleground:

  "History is a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands." (54:00)

Important Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 01:50 — Dr. Ohlmeyer's personal and academic background
• 04:05 — Focus time period of the book and rationale
• 06:27 — Definitions and importance of terminology
• 09:43 — How the play Making History shaped Ohlmeyer’s lectures/book
• 17:33 — The Anglicization process unpacked: land, religion, culture
• 26:21 — Intermarriage and gendered aspects of colonial experience
• 31:55 — Agents of empire: Irish collaboration and subversion
• 37:31 — The special case of Tangier: Irishness and Englishness abroad
• 40:05 — Ireland as laboratory for imperial ideas and practices
• 45:21 — Irish resistance and its influence abroad, especially in India
• 49:40 — How early modern empire is remembered in Irish society today
• 54:24 — Preview of Ohlmeyer’s next research project on Irish women

Tone and Style

Ohlmeyer and Melcher maintain a scholarly yet approachable tone—respectful of the period’s complexities, attentive to the implications for both Irish history and global imperial studies, and conscious of the responsibility to promote informed, empathetic debate about the legacies of empire.

For Further Detail

Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer’s Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World (Oxford UP, 2023) explores these themes in much greater depth and with extensive evidence.