To clarify what I meant a bit - Ireland was already part of Europe, and there were Irish scholars, Catholicism was there, they traded with Europe and were famil

To clarify what I meant a bit - Ireland was already part of Europe, and there were Irish scholars, Catholicism was there, they traded with Europe and were familiar with European norms and traditions. The culture that England forced on Ireland was not all that much different to what was already in place. I imagine, though, that opinion on the two terms depends on what you think of 'colonisation' as.