The British considered Celtic music to be a destabilizing force, galvanizing resistance, stirring up emotions, and reminding the Irish of their pre-occupation history.
They outlawed it, and Queen Elizabeth I decreed that musicians were to be arrested and hanged on the spot.
Queen Elizabeth faced a hostile, and in some places, a virtually autonomous Catholic population in Ireland, although Ireland was one of her two kingdoms.
The severe repression of Irish culture lasted for over 100 years.
