Oliver Cromwell, English statesman, farmer and soldier, sets sail from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, on August 13, 1649, with a fleet of about 35 ships, accompanied by a second and third flotilla that arrives days later. The invasion marks the beginning of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, a brutal four-year campaign (1649–1653) that reshapes the island’s political and demographic landscape.
Cromwell’s landing at Dublin is swift but not without hardship—seasickness plagues him during the voyage. He lands with around 9,000–20,000 troops, stores, and £20,000 in cash. His early actions include the Siege of Drogheda (September 10, 1649) where, following a prolonged cannonade, his forces breach the town’s defenses. On September 11, the entire garrison—about 8,000 men, including English troops, Irish soldiers, and civilians—is massacred, including commander Sir Arthur Aston. Early actions also include the Sack of Wexford (October 1649). Despite Cromwell’s public justification for the slaughter, Wexford’s garrison and civilians are killed in a similar manner.
Over the next four years, Cromwell’s forces defeat the Irish Confederacy by late 1650, engage in widespread plunder, executions, and displacement of Catholic populations, confiscate large tracts of Catholic land for Protestant settlers under the Cromwellian Plantation, and introduce the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652, barring Catholics from most public offices and redistributing land.
Modern estimates suggest 15–40% of Ireland’s pre-1641 population perishes due to warfare, famine, and disease. The campaign entrenches Protestant dominance in Ireland and leaves deep scars in Irish memory.
Cromwell’s invasion is remembered in Ireland as a symbol of English conquest and sectarian violence. While some historians argue his actions are within contemporary military norms, many see them as part of a broader pattern of colonial subjugation. The detailed land surveys he orders—mapping every parish and barony—become a tool for land redistribution, shaping Ireland’s political and economic structure for centuries.
In short, August 13, 1649, is the start of a campaign that not only ends Irish Catholic political power but also alters the island’s demographic and cultural fabric for generations.
At the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, most of south-eastern Ireland falls to the Catholic insurgents. Roughly 1,000 rebels blockade Duncannon, which is heavily fortified and contains an English garrison of about 300 men. Around 150 of the English troops are killed in forays against the Irish at nearby Redmond’s Hall, but without siege artillery, or expertise in siege warfare, the rebels are unable to take Duncannon.
Hostilities continue throughout 1642, as the Irish, now organised as the Irish Confederacy raid the town’s hinterland. As in much of Ireland, the conflict is bitter. In one incident, Laurence Esmonde, 1st Baron Esmonde, the Royalist commander, hangs 16 Irish prisoners who have been taken at nearby Ramsgrange. In response, the Irish execute 18 English prisoners whom they have been holding.
In 1643, because of his need for troops to fight in the English Civil War, Charles I signs a ceasefire with the Irish Confederates. As a result, hostilities between Duncannon and the Catholic-held surrounding area are suspended.
However, in 1644, the English garrison of Cork, under Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, unhappy with the Royalist truce with the Irish Confederates, declares for the English Parliament, who are to remain hostile to Irish Catholic forces throughout the 1640s. Esmonde, under pressure from elements of his garrison, also changes to the side of Parliament and effectively re-declares war on the Catholic Confederates. His motives are unclear: though he is a Protestant convert, the Esmonde family are Anglo-IrishRoman Catholics, and he owes his entire advancement to the Crown.
Duncannon is a strategically important town for two reasons. Firstly, it has formidable defences. Secondly and more importantly, its guns overlook the sea route to Waterford and New Ross, two of the most important Catholic-held towns and also ports at which the Confederates receive military aid from Catholic Europe.
Needing to keep this channel open and also fearing the presence of an English garrison deep in their territory, the Confederates’ Supreme Council in Kilkenny despatches Thomas Preston, general of their Leinster Army, to take Duncannon in January 1645. Preston has at his disposal 1,300 men, four cannons and a mortar. The mortar, the first of its kind to be used in Ireland has been donated by Spain the previous year and is commanded by a French military engineer named Nicholas La Loue. La Loue had served with Preston in Flanders and is chief of engineering in the Leinster Army.
Duncannon possesses formidable defences. For one thing, it is located on a peninsula and can only be approached from the north, the other three sides jutting out into the sea. Just off the town are docked four Parliamentarian ships, which are supplying Duncannon with food and reinforcements. Secondly, it possesse two lines of fortifications, the outer line being a more modern low deep rampart protected by a dry ditch and the inner wall being a medieval curtain wall, complete with three towers. However, it has two grave weaknesses, first, it is overlooked by a hill to the north, from which an attacker can fire into the town and, secondly, the water supply is located outside the walls.
Preston arrives at Duncannon on January 20 and proceeds to construct a ring of trenches which cut off Duncannon on its landward side. From the hill that overlooks the town to the north, his guns are able to fire on a squadron of four Parliamentarian ships that are docked off Duncannon and providing the town with supplies. The flagship, the Great Louis, is badly damaged, its mast wrecked by cannon fire, and it takes several more hits from the mortar as it tries to get away. The ship sinks in deep water, drowning its crew and 200 soldiers who are on board.
Having cut off Duncannon’s supply from the sea, Preston proceeds to dig saps closer to the walls, the ultimate aim being to bring his cannon close enough to the walls in order to blast a breach and open the way for an assault. His engineers also dig a mine underneath one of the town’s bastions. All the while, the town’s defenders are kept under a bombardment by the mortar and, as the Confederate troops get closer to the walls, by sharpshooters. On March 12, one such sniper kills the fort’s second in command, one Captain Lurcan, who is hit in the head by a bullet.
On March 16, by which time the Irish trenches are “within pistol shot of the walls,” Preston orders the mine to be exploded, opening a breach in Duncannon’s outer walls. The Irish infantry then assault the town, but are beaten off with some losses. The following day, Saint Patricks Day, Preston tries again and this time his troops succeed in taking the town’s outer, more modern walls but are stopped at Duncannon’s inner, medieval ramparts. They succeed in occupying one of the town’s towers for an hour before being beaten back. Geoffrey Baron, a Confederate politician, who keeps a diary of the siege, reports that 24 Irish soldiers are killed in the two assaults.
At this point, Preston summons Esmonde to surrender, before he has to “proceed to extremities.” This is a delicate threat, implying that if the town falls to an assault, its defenders will be put to the sword – as is customary in contemporary siege warfare. Esmonde is also advised to surrender by the Parliamentarian vice admiral, William Smith, who is anchored offshore with seven ships, but cannot break through to relieve the town. In a letter that reaches Esmonde on March 11, Smith warns him that “if the rebels take the fort by storming it, they will undoubtedly put you all to death…you should agree with thy adversary while thou art in the way.” Esmond has Smith’s letter publicly read to his troops after the assaults of March 16-17 to discourage those who favour holding out.
Alongside the risk of massacre, the English garrison is also very low on gunpowder and water. The town’s only source of fresh water, a well, is behind the Confederate siege lines.
In light of these facts, Esmonde formally surrenders Duncannon to Preston on March 18. The Confederates take possession of the town but its garrison is allowed to march away to Youghal, which is in Protestant hands. However, they have to leave behind the town’s 18 artillery pieces. Esmonde himself dies a feways after the end of the siege. Preston goes on to briefly besiege Youghal, but bad weather, a lack of supplies and squabbling with James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, the Confederate Munster general, puts an end to his campaign for the winter.
The siege is of importance in that it reopens the sea route into Waterford and eliminates a hostile English garrison in Confederate territory. Preston, who had for many years been the Spanish military governor of Leuven, is highly experienced in siege warfare and his conduct of the siege draws widespread praise. Not only does he take the town, but he does so at a relatively low cost. Sixty-seven Confederate soldiers die in the siege, of whom roughly 30 die of disease. Given that the campaign is conducted in mid-winter, in an age when disease routinely kills many more soldiers than combat, this represents a considerable logistical achievement on the part of the Irish general.
The Great Lewis, the Parliamentarian ship sunk during the siege, is rediscovered in 1999 and raised in 2004.
During the Irish Confederate Wars, like most Irish Catholics, O’Brien sides with Confederate Ireland. His services to the Catholic Confederation are highly valued by the Supreme Council. He treats the wounded and supports Confederate soldiers throughout the conflict. He is against a peace treaty that does not guarantee Catholic freedom of worship in Ireland and in 1648 signs the declaration against the Confederate’s truce with Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, who has committed atrocities such as the Sack of Cashel against Catholic clergy and civilians, and the declaration against the Protestant royalist leader, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, in 1650 who, due to his failure to resist the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland is not deemed fit to command Catholic troops. He is one of the prelates, who, in August 1650 offers the Protectorate of Ireland to Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine.
In 1651, Limerick is besieged and O’Brien urges a resistance that infuriates the Ormondists and Parliamentarians. Following surrender, he is found ministering to the wounded and ill inside a temporary plague hospital. As previously decided by the besieging army, O’Brien is denied quarter and protection. Along with Alderman Thomas Stritch and English Royalist officer Colonel Fennell, he is tried by a drumhead court-martial and sentenced to death by New Model Army General Henry Ireton. On October 30, 1651, O’Brien is first hanged at Gallows Green and then posthumously beheaded. His severed head is afterward displayed spiked upon the river gate of the city.
After the successful fight that is eventually spearheaded by Daniel O’Connell for Catholic emancipation between 1780 and 1829, interest revives as the Catholic Church in Ireland is rebuilding after three hundred years of being strictly illegal and underground. As a result, a series of re-publications of primary sources relating to the period of the persecutions and meticulous comparisons against archival Government documents in London and Dublin from the same period are made by Daniel F. Moran and other historians.
The first Apostolic Process under Canon Law begins in Dublin in 1904, after which a positio is submitted to the Holy See.
In the February 12, 1915 Apostolic decree, In Hibernia, heroum nutrice, Pope Benedict XV formally authorizes the formal introduction of additional Causes for Roman Catholic Sainthood.
During a further Apostolic Process held in Dublin between 1917 and 1930 and against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, the evidence surrounding 260 alleged cases of Roman Catholic martyrdom are further investigated, after which the findings are again submitted to the Holy See.
On September 27, 1992, O’Brien and sixteen other Irish Catholic Martyrs are beatified by Pope John Paul II. June 20th, the anniversary of the 1584 execution of Elizabethan era martyr Dermot O’Hurley, is assigned as the feast day of all seventeen. A large backlighted portrait of him is on display in St. Michael’s Church, Cappamore, County Limerick, which depicts him during The Siege of Limerick.
Following the trial and execution of the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, in May 1641, Ireland is in a state of turmoil. There is growing tension between Catholics and Protestants (particularly those of a Puritan tendency) with the former generally sympathetic to King Charles while the latter supports the English Parliament and the ScottishCovenanters in the dispute that shortly leads to the outbreak of the English Civil War. This forms part of the wider War of the Three Kingdoms.
On October 23, a major uprising breaks out in Ulster organised by leading members of the Gaelic aristocracy. The rebels attack Protestant plantation settlements as well as native Irish Protestants and take garrison towns held by the Irish Army. Irish government authorities in Dublin struggle to contain the insurgency with the limited number of troops they have at their disposal. A last-minute warning saves Dublin Castle from a surprise attack, although O’Neill is clearly unaware of the failure of the Dublin plot when he issues his proclamation.
After seizing several key strategic points in Ulster over the previous twenty-four hours, O’Neill makes his proclamation in Dungannon, a town that has symbolic importance as the traditional capital of the O’Neill dynasty.
In support of his actions, O’Neill claims to have a document from King Charles commissioning him. The Commission is supposedly signed under the Great Seal of Scotland. By declaring their loyalty to the Crown and defence of the Catholic religion, O’Neill and his followers adopt a political stance which is taken up by the subsequent Irish Confederation which governs rebel-controlled territory in the name of the King from 1642 until 1649. The Proclamation encourages many Catholics to believe they can lawfully join the rising with the King’s blessing, while Protestants are left demoralised.
O’Neill’s second and more trenchant proclamation is made “from our camp at Newry” on November 4, 1641 alongside Rory Maguire. He also publishes the actual royal commission that gives authority for his earlier proclamation. It is subtly different, in that it empowers him to arrest and seize property from all of Charles’s English Protestant subjects living in Ireland, but exempts his Irish and Scottish subjects.
Until the late nineteenth century historians generally accept that the commission is genuine, or at the very least Charles had secretly encouraged the Irish Catholics to launch a rising. Since then, for a variety of reasons, it has been considered to be a forgery produced by O’Neill and his associates without the knowledge of the King. They may well have acquired a copy of the Great Seal of Scotland when they captured the garrison town of Charlemont on October 23.
The historian David Stevenson notes that it would be unlikely that the commission would have been addressed to O’Neill. Had it been genuine it would almost certainly have been issued to more senior Irish Royalists such as the James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, or the leading Catholic noble of Ulster, Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim. It is also unlikely to have been issued at Edinburgh as O’Neill claimed. However, King Charles was in Edinburgh on October 1, dealing with Scottish political matters.
Forgery or not, King Charles publicly proclaims all the Irish rebels as traitors on January 1, 1642.
That the Commission is genuine is widely accepted in England and Scotland by the King’s opponents and even some of his own supporters. It seems to tie in with earlier rumours of an army plot which had suggested that Charles might bring over the New Irish Army, made up largely of Ulster Catholics, to impose his will on England and Scotland. Anger at the King’s alleged links with the insurgents grow – particularly as horror stories of atrocities committed, such as the Portadown Massacre, begin to filter across the Irish Sea. Tensions arising from news of the Irish rebellion is a factor in the English push to Civil War in early 1642.
The Scottish authorities dispatch an Army which quickly retakes much of Ulster from the insurgents. Once the English Civil War breaks out in October 1642, Charles’ emissaries begin negotiations with the Irish rebels for their support, which seems to present further evidence to his opponents of his links with the Catholic Ulster leaders. Many of these later dealings are exposed when Charles private letters are captured during the Battle of Naseby (1645) and published as King’s Cabinet Opened.
When O’Neill is captured in 1653 following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, he is put on trial for his life. The authorities offer to spare him if he will repeat his earlier claims that Charles had ordered the Catholics to rise in 1641. O’Neill now refuses to implicate the King, who had been executed four years earlier, and is put to death himself. Nonetheless, the English Republicans continue to use O’Neill’s earlier claims of the King’s involvement to justify their decision to commit regicide.
Talbot is born likely in 1630, probably in Dublin. He is one of sixteen children, the youngest of eight sons of William Talbot and his wife Alison Netterville. His father is a lawyer and the 1st Baronet Talbot of Carton, County Kildare. His mother is a daughter of John Netterville of Castletown, Kildare. The Talbots are descended from a Norman family that had settled in Leinster in the 12th century. They adhere to the Catholic faith, despite the founding of the Reformed Church of Ireland under Henry VIII. Little is recorded of Talbot’s upbringing. As an adult he grows to be unusually tall and strong by standards of the time.
Talbot marries Katherine Baynton in 1669, and they have two daughters, Katherine and Charlotte. Katherine dies in 1679. In 1681, he marries Frances Jennings, sister of Sarah Jennings, the future Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.
Talbot’s early career is spent as a cavalryman in the Irish Confederate Wars. Following a period on the European continent, he joins the court of James, Duke of York, then in exile following the English Civil War, becoming a close and trusted associate. After the 1660 restoration of James’s older brother, Charles, to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, he begins acting as agent or representative for Irish Catholics attempting to recover estates confiscated after the Cromwellian conquest, a role that defines the remainder of his career. James converts to Catholicism in the late 1660s, strengthening his association with Talbot.
When James takes the throne in 1685, Talbot’s influence increases. He oversees a major purge of Protestants from the Irish Army, which had previously barred most Catholics. James creates him Earl of Tyrconnell and later makes him Viceroy, or Lord Deputy of Ireland. He immediately begins building a Catholic establishment by admitting Catholics to many administrative, political and judicial posts.
Talbot’s efforts are interrupted by James’s 1688 deposition by his Protestant son-in-law William of Orange. He continues as a Jacobite supporter of James during the subsequent Williamite War in Ireland, but also considers a peace settlement with William that would preserve Catholic rights. Increasingly incapacitated by illness, he dies of a stroke on August 14, 1691, shortly before the Jacobite defeat. He is thought to have been buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick. By depriving the Jacobites of their most experienced negotiator, his death possibly has a substantial impact on the terms of the Treaty of Limerick that ends the war.
Talbot’s widow, Frances, and his daughter, Charlotte, remain in France, where Charlotte marries her kinsman, Richard Talbot, son of William Talbot of Haggardstown. Their son is Richard Francis Talbot. Talbot’s other daughter, Katherine, becomes a nun. An illegitimate son, Mark Talbot, serves as an officer in France before his death in the Battle of Luzzara in 1702. Talbot’s estate in nearby Carton, renamed Talbotstown, is uncompleted at the time of his death. Tyrconnell Tower on the site is originally intended by him as a family mausoleum to replace the existing vault at Old Carton graveyard but is also left unfinished.
Talbot is controversial in his own lifetime. His own Chief Secretary, Thomas Sheridan, later describes him as a “cunning dissembling courtier […] turning with every wind to bring about his ambitious ends and purposes.” Many 19th and early 20th century historians repeat this view. Recent assessments have suggested a more complex individual whose career was defined by personal loyalty to his patron James and above all by an effort to improve the status of the Irish Catholic gentry, particularly the “Old English” community to which he belonged.
(Pictured: Watercolour portrait of Richard Talbot by John Bulfinch (d.1728) after painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller)
Sir Rory O’Moore (Irish: Ruaidhrí Ó Mórdha), Irish politician and landowner also known Sir Roger O’Moore or O’More or Sir Roger Moore, dies in obscurity on February 16, 1655. He is most notable for being one of the four principal organizers of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
O’Moore’s uncle, Rory O’More, Lord of Laois, had fought against the English during the Tudor conquest of Ireland. In 1556, Queen Mary I confiscates the O’Mores’ lands and creates “Queens County” (modern-day County Laois). Over 180 family members, who are peaceful and have taken no part in any rebellion, are murdered with virtually all of the leaders of Laois and Offaly by the English at a feast at Mullaghmast, County Kildare, in 1577. Rory Óg and his wife Maighréad O’Byrne, sister of Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne, are hunted down and killed soon afterwards. This leads to the political downfall of the O’Moore family as their estates are given to English settlers.
Given the causes of the rebellion and the Crown’s weakness during the Bishops’ Wars into 1641, O’Moore plans a bloodless coup to overthrow the English government in Ireland. With Connor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen, he plans to seize Dublin Castle, which is held by a small garrison, on October 23, 1641. Allies in Ulster led by Sir Phelim O’Neill are to seize forts and towns there. The leaders are to assume the governing of their own country and with this provision offer allegiance to King Charles. They are betrayed, and the plan is discovered on October 22 and the rising fails in its first objective. O’Neill has some success, and O’Moore quickly succeeds in creating an alliance between the Ulster Gaelic clans and the Old English gentry in Leinster.
In November 1641, the Irish forces besiege Drogheda, and a royalist force comes north from Dublin to oppose them. O’Moore is one of the leaders of the rebel army that intercepts and defeats the relief force at the Battle of Julianstown on November 29.
The Irish historian Charles Gavan Duffy writes: “Then a private gentleman, with no resources beyond his intellect and his courage, this Rory, when Ireland was weakened by defeat and confiscation, and guarded with a jealous care constantly increasing in strictness and severity, conceived the vast design of rescuing the country from England, and even accomplished it; for, in three years, England did not retain a city in Ireland but Dublin and Drogheda, and for eight years the land was possessed and the supreme authority exercised by the Confederation created by O’Moore. History contains no stricter instance of the influence of an individual mind.”
Bishop Michael Comerford writes that after O’Moore’s defeat at the Battle of Kilrush in April 1642 he retires and dies in Kilkenny city in the winter of 1642–43, having co-founded the Irish Catholic Confederation there a few months earlier. However, this ignores his contacts with Inchiquin and Ormonde in 1647–48.
In 1652, O’Moore goes to Inishbofin off the coast of Galway, one of the last Catholic strongholds, but as the parliamentary forces approach, he makes arrangements to flee. Walter Lynch, Bishop of Clonfert, sails in the last ship to leave the island without waiting for O’Moore, who is forced to make his own way. He finally escapes into Ulster but dies in obscurity on February 16, 1655. He is buried at Steryne churchyard, in the parish of Magilligan, County Londonderry.
St. Colman’s Church on the island once bears a tablet with the inscription: “In memory of many valiant Irishmen who were exiled to this Holy Island and in particular Rory O’More a brave chieftain of Leix, who after fighting for Faith and Fatherland, disguised as a fisherman escaped from his island to a place of safety. He died shortly afterwards, a martyr to his Religion and his County, about 1653. He was esteemed and loved by his countrymen, who celebrated his many deeds of valour and kindness in their songs and reverenced his memory, so that it was a common expression among them; ‘God and Our Lady be our help and Rory O’More’.”
The Balyna estate is inherited from Calvagh O’More by Rory’s brother Lewis. Balyna is passed down to Lewis’s last surviving O’More descendant, Letitia, who is also descended from Rory O’More because her grandfather married a second cousin. Letitia marries a Richard Farrell in 1751. This Farrell family henceforth takes the surname More O’Ferrall.
Waterford is a Catholic city and like most other towns in southeast Ireland, the populace has supported the Confederate Catholic cause since the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Late in 1641, Protestant refugees, displaced by the insurgents, begin to arrive in the town, creating tension among the Catholic townspeople. The city’s mayor wants to protect the refugees, but the recorder and several of the aldermen on the city council want to strip them of their property and let in the rebels, who arrive outside the walls in early 1642. At first, the Mayor’s faction is successful in refusing to admit rebel forces, but by March 1642, the faction in the municipal government sympathetic to the rebellion prevails. The Protestants in Waterford are expelled, in most cases put on ships to England, sometimes after having their property looted by the city mob. In 1645, Confederate troops under Thomas Preston besiege and capture nearby Duncannon from its English garrison, thus removing the threat to shipping coming to and from Waterford.
Waterford’s political community is noted for its intransigent Catholic politics. In 1646, a synod of Catholic Bishops, based in Waterford, excommunicate any Catholic who supports a treaty between the Confederates and English Royalists, which does not allow for the free practice of the Catholic religion. The Confederates finally agree to a treaty with Charles I of England in 1648, in order to join forces with the Royalists against their common enemy, the English Parliament, which is both anti-Catholic and hostile to the King. The Parliamentarians land a major expeditionary force in Ireland at Dublin, under Cromwell in August 1649.
The English Parliamentarian New Model Army arrives to besiege Waterford in October 1649. One of the stated aims of Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland is to punish the Irish for the mistreatment of Protestants in 1641. Given Waterford’s history of partisan Catholic politics, this provokes great fear amongst the townspeople. This fear is accentuated by the fate of Drogheda and nearby Wexford which had recently been taken and sacked by Cromwell’s forces and their garrisons massacred.
Waterford is very important strategically in the war in Ireland. Its port allows for the importation of arms and supplies from continental Europe and its geographical position commands the entrance of the rivers Suir and Barrow.
Before besieging Waterford, Cromwell has to take the surrounding garrisons held by Royalist and Confederate troops in order to secure his lines of communication and supply. Duncannon, whose fort commands the sea passage into Waterford, is besieged by Parliamentarians under Ireton from October 15 to November 5. However, due to a stubborn defence, the garrison there under Edward Wogan holds out. This means that heavy siege artillery cannot be brought up to Waterford by sea.
New Ross surrenders to Cromwell on October 19 and Carrick-on-Suir is taken on November 19. A counterattack on Carrick by Irish troops from Ulster under a Major Geoghegan is repulsed on November 24, leaving 500 of the Ulstermen dead.
Having isolated Waterford from the east and north, Cromwell arrives before the city on November 24. However, Waterford still has access to reinforcements from the west and up to 3,000 Irish soldiers from the Confederate’s Ulster Army under Richard O’Farrell are fed into the city in the course of a week. O’Farrell, having been a successful officer in the Spanish Army, is highly trained and experienced in siege warfare from battles in Flanders. Cromwell has come up against a superior minded soldier and commander. The weather is extremely cold and wet, and the Parliamentarian troops suffer heavily from disease. Out of 6,500 English Parliamentarian soldiers who besiege Waterford in 1649, only 3,000 or so are still fit by the time the siege is called off. Added to this, Cromwell is able to make little headway in taking the city. The capture of a fort at Passage East enables him to bring up siege guns by sea, but the wet weather means that it is all but impossible to transport them close enough to Waterford’s walls to use them. Farrell proves tactically superior in defending Waterford and repels Cromwell’s attempts. Eventually Cromwell has to call off the siege on December 2 and go into winter quarters at Dungarvan. Among his casualties is his commander Michael Jones, who dies of disease.
Rinuccini is born in Rome on September 15, 1592. He is educated by the Jesuits in Rome and studies law at the Universities of Bologna and Perugia. In due course, he is ordained a priest, having at the age of twenty-two obtained his doctor’s degree from the University of Pisa. He is named a camariere (chamberlain) by Pope Gregory XV and in 1625 becomes Archbishop of Fermo. In 1631 he carefully refuses an offer to be made Archbishop of Florence.
Rinuccini departs France from Saint-Martin-de-Ré near La Rochelle on October 18, 1645, on the frigate San Pietro and arrives in Kenmare, County Kerry, on October 21, 1645, with a retinue of twenty-six Italians, several Irish officers, and the Confederation’s secretary, Richard Bellings. He proceeds to Kilkenny, the Confederate capital, where Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, the president of the Confederation, receives him at the castle. He speaks Latin to Montgarret, but all the official business of the Confederates is done in English. He asserts in his discourse that the object of his mission is to sustain the King, but above all to help the Catholic people of Ireland in securing the free and public exercise of their religion, and the restoration of the churches and church property to the Catholic Church.
Rinuccini had sent ahead arms and ammunition: 1,000 braces of pistols, 4,000 cartridge belts, 2,000 swords, 500 muskets and 20,000 pounds of gunpowder. He arrives twelve days later with a further two thousand muskets and cartridge-belts, four thousand swords, four hundred braces of pistols, two thousand pike-heads, and twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder, fully equipped soldiers and sailors and 150,658 livres tournois to finance the Irish Catholic war effort. These supplies give him a huge input into the Confederate’s internal politics because he doles out the money and arms for specific military projects, rather than handing them over to the Confederate government, or Supreme Council.
Rinuccini hopes that by doing so he can influence the Confederates’ strategic policy away from making a deal with Charles I and the Royalists in the English Civil War and towards the foundation of an independent Catholic-ruled Ireland. In particular, he wants to ensure that churches and lands taken in the rebellion would remain in Catholic hands. This is consistent with what happened in Catholic-controlled areas during the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. His mission can be seen as part of the Counter-Reformation in Europe. He also has unrealistic hopes of using Ireland as a base to re-establish Catholicism in England. However, apart from some military successes such as the Battle of Benburb on June 5, 1646, the main result of his efforts is to aggravate the infighting between factions within the Confederates.
The Confederates’ Supreme Council is dominated by wealthy landed magnates, predominantly of “Old English” origin, who are anxious to come to a deal with the Stuart monarchy that will guarantee them their land ownership, full civil rights for Catholics, and toleration of Catholicism. They form the moderate faction, which is opposed by those within the Confederation, who want better terms, including self-government for Ireland, a reversal of the land confiscations of the plantations of Ireland and establishment of Catholicism as the state religion. A particularly sore point in the negotiations with the English Royalists is the insistence of some Irish Catholics on keeping in Catholic hands the churches taken in the war. Rinuccini accepts the assurances of the Supreme Council that such concerns will be addressed in the peace treaty negotiated with James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, negotiated in 1646, now known as the First Ormond Peace.
However, when the terms are published, they grant only the private practice of Catholicism. Alleging that he had been deliberately deceived, Rinuccini publicly backs the militant faction, which includes most of the Catholic clergy and some Irish military commanders such as Owen Roe O’Neill. On the other side there are the Franciscans Pierre Marchant, and later Raymond Caron. In 1646, when the Supreme Council tries to get the Ormond Peace ratified, Rinuccini excommunicates them and helps to get the Treaty voted down in the Confederate General Assembly. The Assembly has the members of the Supreme Council arrested for treason and elects a new Supreme Council.
However, the following year, the Confederates’ attempts to drive the remaining English (mainly Parliamentarian) armies from Ireland meets with disaster at the battles of Dungan’s Hill on August 8, 1647 and Knocknanuss on November 13, 1647. As a result, the chastened Confederates hastily conclude a new deal with the English Royalists to try to prevent a Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland in 1648. Although the terms of this second deal are better than those of the first one, Rinuccini again tries to overturn the treaty. However, on this occasion, the Catholic clergy are split on whether to accept the deal, as are the Confederate military commanders and the General Assembly. Ultimately, the treaty is accepted by the Confederacy, which then dissolves itself and joins a Royalist coalition. Rinuccini backs Owen Roe O’Neill, who used his Ulster army to fight against his former comrades who had accepted the deal. He tries in vain to repeat his success of 1646 by excommunicating those who support the peace. However, the Irish bishops are split on the issue and so his authority is diluted. Militarily, Owen Roe O’Neill is unable to reverse the political balance.
Despairing of the Catholic cause in Ireland, Rinnuccini leaves the country on February 23, 1649, embarking at Galway on the ship that had brought him to Ireland, the frigate San Pietro. In the same year, Oliver Cromwell leads a Parliamentarian re-conquest of the country, after which Catholicism is thoroughly repressed. Roman Catholic worship is banned, Irish Catholic-owned land is widely confiscated east of the River Shannon, and captured Catholic clergy are executed.
Rinuccini returns to Rome, where he writes an extensive account of his time in Ireland, the Commentarius Rinuccinanus. His account blames personal vainglory and tribal divisions for the Catholic disunity in Ireland. In particular, he blames the Old English for the eventual Catholic defeat. The Gaelic Irish, he writes, despite being less civilised, are more sincere Catholics.
Rinuccini returns to his diocese in Fermo in June 1650 and dies there on December 13, 1653.
The Rebellion comes about because of the resentment felt by the Irish Catholics, both Gael and Old English, in regard to the loss of their lands to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.
Irish Catholics are frightened by reports that the Covenanter army in Scotland is considering an invasion of Ireland in order to eradicate the Catholic religion. At the same time, there is also a threat of invasion by Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans who are at war against King Charles I. It is hoped that the King would redress the complaints of the Catholics and halt or even reverse the policy of plantation. It is not an act of rebellion against the Royal domain.
The uprising is led by Rory O’ Moore from Leix, with Sir Phelim Roe O’ Neill and his brother Turlough of Tyrone, the Maguires of Fermanagh, the Magennis, O’ Reilly and the MacMahons. They plan to begin the rebellion on October 23, 1641, with attacks on Dublin and various other British strongholds throughout the country. However, their plans are betrayed to the British by a native Irish convert to Protestantism, Owen O’ Connolly.
As a result of this betrayal, Dublin does not fall. However, the rebellion proceeds in the north with the towns of Dungannon, Newry, and Castleblayney, along with the fort at Charlemont falling to the rebels.
Most of the province of Ulster comes under the control of the rebel leaders. The rebel army, consisting of 30,000 men, has been instructed to take no life except in battle, to arrest the gentry and to spare the Scottish planters as they are considered kindred. For a week after the rebellion, these instructions are adhered to but many of the rebels have lost their lands to the Protestant planters, and they want revenge. They attack farms and settlements, killing and turning many people away, robbing and stripping them of all their goods.
Sir Phelim O’ Neill has been himself thought to have ordered the murder of Protestants in Tyrone and Armagh. It is believed that about 12,000 people are slaughtered although contemporary reports put the death toll as much higher. It is thought that up to 30% of the Ulster planters lost their lives while 10% is the figure for the whole of Ireland.
As the rebellion progresses in Ulster there are uprisings in Leinster by November and thereafter throughout the whole of Ireland. In Munster, where many English settlers are planted, the rebels do not shed much blood, but they do turn out these settlers, many of whom flee back to England.
In 1642 the Scottish Covenanters invade the North and they, in turn, take to killing Catholics in revenge for the deaths of Protestants. The Covenanter Clan Campbell of Argyll takes the opportunity to attack and slaughter the Catholic Rathlin Islanders who belong to ancient enemies, Clan Mac Donald. The Covenanters also slaughter the approximately 3,000 Catholics on Islandmagee. Catholic prisoners and traders in Newry are murdered.
This ruthless slaughtering of civilians, by both sides, is only brought under control when Owen Roe O’ Neill arrives back from exile in France to take control of the Confederate army and, with Major General Robert Monroe in charge of the Covenanter Army, continues the war under the code of conduct that they had both learned on the Continent. However, the effects of the rebellion last to the present day, especially in Ulster where sectarian divide remains strong during The Troubles.
(Pictured: Depiction of the massacre of Ulster Protestants during the 1641 rebellion, The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
Curran is the eldest of five children of James Curran, seneschal of the Newmarket manor court, and Sarah, née Philpot. The Curran family are said to have originally been named Curwen, their ancestor having come from Cumberland as a soldier under Oliver Cromwell during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, originally settling in County Londonderry.
Curran is educated at Midleton College, County Cork, before studing law at Trinity College Dublin. He continues his legal studies at King’s Inns and the Middle Temple. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1775. Upon his first trial, his nerves get the better of him and he cannot proceed. His short stature, boyish features, shrill voice and a stutter are said to have impacted his career, and earn him the nickname “Stuttering Jack Curran.”
However, Curran can speak passionately in court on subjects close to his heart. He eventually overcomes his nerves and gets rid of his speech impediment by constantly reciting Shakespeare and Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in front of a mirror, becoming a noted orator and wit. His championing of popular Irish causes such as Catholic emancipation make him one of the most popular lawyers in Ireland. He is also fluent in the Irish language which is still the language of the majority at the time. He writes a large amount of humorous and romantic poetry.
The case which cements Curran’s popularity is that of Father Neale and St. Leger St. Leger, 1st Viscount Doneraile at the County Cork Assizes in 1780. Having a passion for lost causes, he represents the priest and wins over the jury by setting aside the issue of religion.
A liberal Protestant whose politics are similar to Henry Grattan, Curran employs all his eloquence to oppose the illiberal policy of the Government, and also the Union with Britain. He stands as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kilbeggan in 1783. He subsequently represents Rathcormack (1790-98) and Banagher from 1800 until the Act of Union in 1801, which bitterly disappoints him, forcing him to contemplate emigrating to the United States.
In 1798, Ireland rebels against the British House of Commons and lack of reforms on Catholic emancipation. The British defeat the Irish rebels in numerous battles and soon establish their control over the country by 1799. Many of the Irish ring leaders are charged with treason and are facing death sentences. Curran plays an important role in court defending the leaders of the United Irishmen.
Curran’s youngest daughter Sarah‘s romance with United Irishmen leader Robert Emmet scandalises Curran, who had tried to split them up. He is arrested and agrees to pass their correspondence on to Standish O’Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore, the Attorney-General for Ireland. In the circumstances he cannot defend Emmet. He is suspected of involvement in Emmet’s Rebellion, but is completely exonerated. However, his friend Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden, is killed by the rebels, and he loses any faith in the beliefs of the United Irishmen. Emmet is found guilty of rebelling against the Crown and the union between Great Britain and Ireland and is hanged in 1803. Curran disowns Sarah, who dies of tuberculosis five years later.
Curran is appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland in 1806, following William Pitt the Younger‘s replacement by a more liberal cabinet.
Curran retires in 1814 and spends his last three years in London. He dies in his home in Brompton on October 14, 1817. In 1837, his remains are transferred from Paddington Cemetery, London to Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, where they are laid in an 8-foot-high classical-style sarcophagus. In 1845 a white marble memorial to him, with a carved bust by Christopher Moore, is placed near the west door of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
seamus dubhghaill 