The twilight lords

the long version

"A chronicle of the ferocious twenty-year struggle between the English monarch and the feudal lords of Ireland, The Twilight Lords describes the first authentic colonial venture in English history, a venture that held captive a whole generation of the best that Ireland and England could muster. The pacification of Ireland began as a policing action, but escalated to a full-scale operation due to the tenacity and savagery of the Irish soldiers. By the time the last and greatest of the "rebels" surrendered, Elizabeth was dead, two waves of English settlers had been exterminated, and southern Ireland had become a barren wilderness."--BOOK JACKET.