The Rebellion of the 1641 and the ensuing occupation of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell would prove to have lasting effects on the modern Irish state. There were several distinct factors that ultimately led to the advent of the 1641 uprising, representing the independent interests of different factions within Ireland. The two most prominent were the almost complete disenfranchisement of the Native Irish Catholics and the increasing seizure of land and power from the established English settlers, or 'Old English'. The years directly preceding the outbreak of the Rebellion and the political climate of both England and Ireland at the time offer important insight into the inevitable course the Irish state took at the time of the uprising. The Rebellion was a time of sweeping turmoil throughout the British Isles, as Charles I attempted to maintain control over Ireland and his own parliament. The English Civil War would prove a mixed blessing for the Irish rebels, delaying the commitment of soldiers from England to Ireland, but at the same time ultimately bringing forth Cromwell and a government that was even more anti-catholic in sentiment than it had been under Charles I. Cromwell's recapture and occupation of Ireland would shape Irish sentiment for centuries to come and correspondingly influence the events that would follow.
One can trace the roots of the 1641 Rebellion back to the Reformation and the first English settlements, however the focus here will begin with the decade directly leading up to the insurrection. In 1632 Charles appointed Thomas Viscount Wentworth as deputy of Ireland, described as "a man of towering strength, courage and self-confidence, but insensitive and overbearing". He had an aggressive nature and an almost unparalleled political cunning. His "ruthless determination to push through government aims whatever the opposition or consequences...earned him the nickname of Black Tom Tyrant". Wentworth was a royalist and supported the New English plantation settlements in Ireland. It is, however, an overstatement to say that he sought to oppress the native Irish. The lord deputy established several acts through parliament to protect the poor from injustice and intimidation, as they were easy targets for the landowners in this respect. Regardless of his true intentions and his political skill, he could not balance the interests of the English Parliament and Protestant settlers with those of the Native Irish and Old English indefinitely. Finally in 1639, Charles I ordered Wentworth to return to England to assist him with rising tensions in Scotland. He had made several enemies within the ranks of the English government, and when Wentworth was named earl of Stafford he was impeached by Parliament. As tensions rose in England and mobs began to form in the streets, Wentworth became an early casualty of the ensuing civil war, and was executed by the King on 12 May 1641. (Somerset Fry 146-150)
Ireland was also on the verge of a great unrest. During Wentworth's absence there was a visible lack of strength in the government, providing a climate of instability. Scotland's "successful resistance of royal authority in the defence of national and religious claims" in 1639 and 1640 influenced Irish sentiment at this crucial time (Beckett 70). The plan for the uprising began to take shape over the summer of 1641. It called for an uprising in Ulster and the seizure of Dublin Castle to commence on 23 October 1641. The conspiracy to take the Dublin was betrayed and the Castle was fortified and the last moment, but the insurrection in Ulster began just the same. "Throughout Ulster the natives rose against the colonists, massacred thousands of them and seized upon some of the most important towns and strongholds; but the loyalists secured Londonderry, Enniskillen and Carrickfergus..."(Beckett 70-71). The rest of the province was overrun by Irish Forces. It is at this point in the history of the 1641 that there remains the most controversy. Depending on the source, the number of colonists "massacred" varies between 2500 and 10,000. There did exist several instances of revenge murders throughout the North, but these were not condoned by the leaders of the rebellion.
Subsequent research has added little of substance to...the charge that a wholesale massacre of Protestants was planned as a part of the rising. There was no such plan and no such massacre, but in the first months of the rising the insurgents committed many murders, often savagely. These murders were perpetrated because of lack of discipline, for private vengeance, or out of religious fanaticism. In most cases the leaders did their best to restrain the murderers... (Moody and Martin 291)
Regardless of the actual numbers, or the ruthlessness of the murders, propaganda of the events of the early days of the rebellion ran wild throughout England and Scotland, destroying any sympathy that the Irish could have sought from the English government.
As has been stated the Rebellion began with the Native Irish of Ulster, but they required the support of the Old English if they were to continue the uprising. The Old English, though harboring grievances of their own, had significantly more to lose and were far more reluctant to take up arms against the crown.
The fate of the insurrection hung upon the attitude of the Old English, and especially upon the Roman Catholic lords and gentry of the Pale. Some of them undoubtedly had known of the conspiracy, but in general were not actively involved. Their grievances were less acute than those of the Ulstermen...But they, like the Ulster insurgents, were alarmed at the attitude of the Long Parliament, which was showing itself aggressively Protestant in Irish as well as in English affairs; (Beckett 71)
The indecisiveness of the Old English could not last long, for the exaggerated stories of Irish atrocities that had spread through England and resulted in legislation condemning all Catholics in Ireland. By the end of 1641 the Old English joined the Native Irish. The Rebellion reached Munster and continued to propagate.
As the Irish resistance grew in strength, the English remained slow to organize against it. The
troops available in Ireland came under the command of the earl of Ormond. He secured Dublin
and desired at once to pursue the rebels and turn to the offensive. His request was refused by the
lords justices to ensure the safety of Dublin. (Somerset Fry 72) Ormond waited for
reinforcements while the English House of Commons debated. Finally in December 1641 a mere
1100 troops were dispatched to Dublin. However, there was a large compliment of Scots,
enraged by the stories of murder in Scottish settlements, who were willing to take arms against
the rebels, but it was not until 15 April 1642 that an advance party of 2500 troops landed at
Carrickfergus under the command of General Robert Monro and began to recapture lost ground.
(Moody and Martin 293) The Irish, under Owen Roe O'Neill continued to fight and secure
territory.
The Old English remained weary of the Rebellion, but saw their options disappear with every strike of the rebels' swords. They eventually turned and began to organize a provisional government that would serve as the Rebellion's political leadership and diplomatic voice.
...in August [1642] the government, taking the common Protestant view that all Catholics, even Old English, were traitors, summoned a parliament of Protestants only. The Old English found themselves cut off, lost in a sea of disorder, without even a voice to be heard; and in October they set up their own rival assembly, which came to be known as the Confederation of Kilkenny. (Somerset Fry 151)
The Old English were in many ways unwitting participants in an Irish initiated insurrection, and their loyalty was often under suspicion. When Charles I issued a proclamation for the surrender of all that had taken arms against him, many Old English who still had royal sympathies went to Dublin only to be imprisoned and tortured out of English vengeance. (Moody and Martin 295)
As the English Civil War began, the Rebellion in Ireland raged on. Ormond was instructed to settle the insurrection by seeking a truce with the confederacy. Between 1643 and 1646 there were several truces signed, but lasting peace was never established, partly because lack of stability in England and partly because of Ireland's papal nuncio, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, who "threatened to excommunicate anyone who accepted any terms which did less than confirm the supreme authority of Rome!" (Somerset Fry 152) The Rebellion, now referred to as the "War of the Three Kingdoms", continued, and in perhaps the most decisive Irish victory, Owen Roe O'Neill defeated a large English-Scottish force in June 1646, leaving 3000 royal soldiers dead. The Rebellion was all but won when 8000 parliamentarian soldiers landed in Dublin under the command of Colonel Michael Jones. Ormond surrendered Dublin to Jones and left Ireland. As O'Neill began to lost support the tide of the war began to shift. The final event that sealed the Irish's fate came in August 1649, when Oliver Cromwell arrived in Dublin with 3000 English Calvary. The Rebellion technically survived until the surrender of Galway in 1652, but it was effectively over the day Cromwell set foot in Dublin.
Oliver Cromwell spent only nine months in Ireland, but he had a lasting effect on the country's history. He aggressively set out to restore his nation's and his religion's control over Ireland, all the time with burning memories of the "atrocities" committed by the Irish in the Ulster insurrection.
...the vigor and cruelty of his campaigns and the ruthlessness of the settlement that he subsequently directed have left a mark and a memory that succeeding centuries have not been able to wipe out. He came to Ireland not only as a parliamentary commander pursuing the royalist enemy to his latest stronghold, but also as the avenger of blood, the minister (as he believed) of divine justice on those responsible for the cruelties which had been committed in the Ulster rising of 1641. (Beckett 77-78)
Cromwell mercilessly reconquered territory throughout Ireland and established heavy war settlements upon the defeated nation. In his first battle, at Drogheda, when Cromwell's offer of surrender was refused he opened fire on the city and his 12000 man army killed the 2000 defenders and an additional 1000 townspeople, and when a group sought refuge in the village church steeple, he simply burned them alive within it. When he continued on to Wexford his offer of surrender was again refused, this time by a virtually unguarded garrison. Cromwell order the siege resulting in the death of 2000 townspeople and with a loss of only 20 of his own men. His ruthlessness carried over to the political realm where he pushed legislation such as the Cromwellian Settlement Act, which turned out 40,000 land owners to begin a Protestant resettlement. He essentially stripped all rights from the Catholics, goings as far to offer the same reward of £5 for the head of a wolf or the head of a Catholic bishop. (Somerset Fry 158) In total the settlement of reparations for the war ravished country was set at £3,500,000. The brutality of Cromwell's occupation and the injustice he served Ireland would not be forgotten.
The lasting significance of the Rebellion of 1641 has more to do with the sentiments that persisted in both nations as a result of the conflict than with the particular political events that surrounded it. The memory of Cromwell remains at the heart of Irish history, and it was this memory that greatly determined the lingering climate within the nation after the Rebellion. There were several issues unresolved at the end of the Rebellion, many that would arise again, some in a rebellion that would begin four decades after this one ended.
Works Consulted
Perceval-Maxwell, M. The Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994
Somerset Fry, Peter and Fiona. A History of Ireland. London: Routledge, 1988
Beckett, J. C. A Short History of Ireland. London: Hutchinson, 1952
Moody, T. W., Martin, F. X. Byrne, F. J. A New History of Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976