King Henry & the Dissolution of Ireland’s Monasteries

How a horny king’s delusions of grandeur contributed to the ruin of monastic houses across Ireland

Ireland is the land of lost faith, or looks like it anyway. If you haven’t been there, let me tell you the amount of abandoned ruins is almost shocking. We’re talking acres and acres of land sprinkled with the remains of what were some pretty epic buildings and full scale communities. Rock walls for miles, simply integrated into today’s farms and pastures. Huge structures several stories high, jutting up from fields over the horizon. Over 3,000 abandoned sites, and when you’re talking about an island roughly the size of West Virginia, well, it’s a fucking lot. As I’m cataloguing and documenting the ruins I’ve visited, I started to wonder why were these monasteries left to rot? and noticed a reoccurring name: James Butler.

So, who the fuck was James Butler?

Funny story. While you may never have heard of Butler, you’ve most certainly heard of King Henry VIII. You know, Henry the head-chopping king with six wives who literally divorced the Catholic Church and started his own religion? Well James and Henry were besties. Around 1522 there was a land dispute between Butler’s father and Thomas Boleyn. It was King Henry’s grand plan for Butler to marry the other’s daughter and squash the beef, a young girl by the name of…Anne Boleyn. Suffice it to say, that did not happen. With King Henry’s eye, or dick rather, now firmly focused on Anne, the Butlers lost claim of the land, and it was awarded to Anne’s father.

Fast forward about a decade. It’s 1530-something, and King Henry has ripped the nation apart in an effort to annul his first marriage so he can finally bed the elusive Anne Boleyn. Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy, which made Henry not only the King of England but also the King of the Church of England. Not only was he free to marry, annul, divorce, imprison, and behead whoever he liked, he also had supreme control over all religious houses. So he married Anne. Then he cut her head off. But overshadowed by his ten year crusade to get laid, he also started a religious campaign against the Roman Catholic Church by way of the dissolution of monasteries. It was a land grab that allowed him to close all houses of worship while reaping the rewards of confiscating their coffers. Henry was padding his pockets while destabilizing the Roman Catholic hold. Those who did not hand over their houses willingly were subjected to intimidation, bribery, imprisonment, and eventually executed for treason. There was no escaping King Henry’s wrath. But across the pond, Henry had far less control, and so hired the local clans to raid, pillage and plunder the withholding houses into submission. Henry was so obsessed with the dissolution of the Irish monastic houses that he would eventually give the land away in exchange for allegiance to the Crown, negating the whole point of seizure. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

“Henry was padding his pockets while destabilizing the Roman Catholic hold.”

After Anne lost her head, the long forgotten land dispute defaulted back to the Butlers, now including all the forfeited papal properties. Butler left the sites abandoned, and they fell to ruin. Some were used as barns or meeting places for the local parish, but most were left to rot, falling away as the years ticked by. Entire cities left untouched for the better part of a few centuries. And James Butler? He and 16 family members would be poisoned a few years later at a dinner party.

So what really led to all these abandoned houses? The short answer: King Henry’s dick. Simply put, if Henry hadn’t had a hard-on for Anne, she would’ve married Butler and gotten to keep her head. Henry would’ve kept blindly banging the Queen’s ladies in waiting. The Reformation would never have gotten off the ground without Henry’s push for annulment. The Act of Supremacy would never have been written, leaving thousands of clergy members safe in their straw beds. And four subsequent queens would have been spared their heads, titles, and freedoms.

On the other hand, maybe Anne should’ve just given him some ass.

xoxo, The Bitter Bitch