old english font - Old English Ireland

The Old English (Irish: Seanghaill, meaning "old foreigners") were the descendants of the settlers who came to Ireland from Wales, Normandy, and England after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169–71. Many of the Old English became assimilated into Irish society over the centuries. 

Some were dispossessed in the political and religious conflicts during and after the Tudor conquest of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely due to their continued adherence to the Roman Catholic religion. The so-called New English otherwise known as the settlers of the Protestant Ascendancy had largely replaced them by 1700.