IT is one of the supreme ironies of Ireland's history that a mid-12th century Pope first granted the land to England. For centuries thereafter the English fitfully sought to establish their dominion over the warlike yet poetry-intoxicated Gaelic tribes. It was not until the Reformation, however, that London determined once and for all to bring Ireland and its stubborn Catholics to heel. English colonies were "planted" on Irish soil, often with great bloodshed; sometimes peasants were stripped naked and thrown into bogs for the amusement of the invaders. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Poet Edmund Spenser witnessed the horrors...
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