The Composition of Connacht was an agreement concluded in 1585 between the Gaelic and Gaelicised lords of Connacht and Thomond and the English administration at Dublin Castle, as part of the Tudor reconquest of Ireland, negotiated on the English side by Lord Deputy Sir John Perrot and the Governor of Connacht, Sir Richard Bingham. It replaced a patchwork of separate levies, including cess paid for English garrisons, coyne and livery paid to maintain Gaelic forces, and dues owed to local chiefs, with a single fixed annual rent on landholdings, set at ten shillings per quarter of inhabited land, alongside a smaller composition rent retained by local lords. The agreement also reorganized the traditional territories of Connacht's chiefs into baronies within counties, extending English style county administration across the province.
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Wikipedia: Composition of Connacht
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The Composition of Connacht, or Composition of Connaught and Thomond, was a 1585 agreement between, on the one hand, the Gaelic and Gaelicised chiefs of Connacht and Thomond and, on the other hand, the English Dublin Castle administration of the Kingdom of Ireland, which replaced the multiple existing levies with a single tax on land holdings.
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