For many years the Nine Years War (1593–1603), also known as Tyrone's rebellion appeared to be an unwanted orphan of Irish academia. Detailed descriptions and analysis of the war had been left to G. A. Hayes-McCoy's Irish battles (London, 1969) and Cyril Falls's Elizabeth's Irish wars (London, 1950), which remained the standard go-to texts for the subject. Others examined key moments during the conflict, such as John Silke's Kinsale (Liverpool, 1970) and Hiram Morgan's Battle of Kinsale (Bray, 2004). Many others looked at key protagonists, such as Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, Lord Mountjoy and Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, among others. Morgan's Tyrone's rebellion (Dublin, 1993) was pivotal in establishing the bedrock of study on the conflict, but it (most tantalisingly) stopped at 1596, just as the war was getting serious. Yet this just was not enough to explore the conflict. Indeed, in 2009 Eoin Ó Néill called for a root and branch re-examination. In this respect, Ruth Canning has very much stepped up and provided something new and necessary in the historiography of this often ignored or side-lined conflict.

Rather than examine the key belligerents of the war, the Irish confederation or English crown, Canning opts for the more nuanced and possibly more confusing aspect of the conflict: the experience of the Catholic Old English, a community trapped between competing military, economic and political demands of the English crown and Tyrone's Irish confederation. Canning starts the work by placing the Old English community in context with the prevailing historiography of the period and notes quite presciently that while there has been substantial work done on the Old English over the last forty years, somehow the role and position of the Palesmen in the conflict remained untouched, something the author set out to redress, and she does not disappoint.

After the introduction there are five thematic chapters, the first focusing on the role of the Catholic clergy within the Pale. While some encouraged the Catholic Palesmen to join Tyrone's war against the crown, with some showing steadfast dedication, the clergy was not homogeneous in the support of Tyrone's pretentions to a Catholic crusade. Many did not support him, preferring to remain loyal to their sovereign and chose religion over rebellion. Following on from this Canning looks at the complicated world of loyalty in the Pale, which was far from clear. The gulf between the Protestant New English and Catholic Palesmen did not necessarily force them into Tyrone's camp. Moreover, loyalties could be fluid, where avowed fidelity to the crown did not preclude the trade of information or munitions to the Irish for personal profit.

Nevertheless, distrust of Tyrone and his allies prevented many from breaking with the crown. Ultimately political allegiances were complicated and multifaceted. Yet the complicated political allegiances did not prevent the Old English forming a significant part in the military assets of the crown in Ireland. Though certainly not a spearhead of the English campaigns, their presence did allow the crown to commit their regular troops to offensive operations while the Old English ‘rising out’ acted as a defensive militia, securing the Pale and other territories under English authority. Furthermore, troop shortages often meant Palesmen filled the gaps in the crown's field armies.

Canning details the sufferings and response of the Old English to the crushing economic burden placed on them by the demands of the crown exactions to supply their troops, the rapacious plundering of those same troops, and the regular episodes of spoliation by the Irish confederates. The pressures placed on the Old English in the Pale made it all the more remarkable that they stayed loyal to the crown (for the most part). Worse still, this loyalty often went unacknowledged by the queen's officers in Dublin, as the traditional powers and authority of the Old English nobles was eroded in favour of New (Protestant) English arriving into the country.

What Canning has achieved must be greatly commended, as she has shed a light on a crucial aspect of the Nine Years War. Indeed it should be viewed as one of the most significant facets of the conflict, as it was the failure of Tyrone to secure Old English support that led to his defeat. The work is well-written, the prose is fluid and engaging, and never loses its focus with superfluous detail or diverting segues. Do I agree with everything in it? Not at all. The Old English military, represented by the rising out, were a lot less effective than they are presented, with a string of defeats evidence of their limited military usefulness. The work is also a bit ambiguous in using the term ‘Irish’ in English military musters to represent the presence of Palesmen in crown armies. Any disagreements on my part should not be taken as a negative. This work is an outstanding piece of scholarship and should be essential reading in the study of the Nine Years War and Old English society as a whole in early-modern Ireland.