John Lynch, exiled to France by Cromwell’s men, lamented the way that Irish was being labelled as a language of sedition.
By 1495 and the reign of Henry VII, attempts to stamp out Irish language and culture in ‘The Pale’, the area of English governance in Ireland, had largely failed. And a good thing too, said Irish priest John Lynch, writing in 1662. Exiled in France thanks to Cromwell’s brutal rampage in Ireland, he decried the politicisation of language by ruling powers.