Post by Tamrin on Oct 23, 2010 22:46:46 GMT 10
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was so-called because it was mostly welcome and largely bloodless in England. In Ireland, however, it entailed a full-blown war, the most famous engagement of which was the Battle of the Boyne. To understand the vehemence with which both sides fought and, indeed, the later troubles, one needs to look at the previous generation and the massacre of thousand of Scottish and English Protestants in and around Dublin.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 (Irish: Éirí Amach 1641) began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions to Catholics. However, the coup failed and the rebellion developed into an ethnic conflict between native Irish Catholics on one side, and English and Scottish Protestant settlers on the other. This began a conflict known as the Irish Confederate Wars.
The rising was sparked by Catholic fears of an impending invasion of Ireland by anti-Catholic forces of the English Long Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters, who were defying the authority of the King Charles I. In turn, the rebels' suspected association with the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Charles I, helped to spark the outbreak of the English Civil War. The English and Scottish Parliaments refused to raise an army to put down the rebellion unless it was under their command rather than the King's.
The Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641 and was followed by several months of violent chaos before the Irish Catholic upper classes and clergy formed the Catholic Confederation in the summer of 1642. The Confederation became a de facto government of most of Ireland, free from the control of the English administration and loosely aligned with the Royalist side in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The subsequent war continued in Ireland until the 1650s, when Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army decisively defeated the Irish Catholics and Royalists, and re-conquered the country.
The rising was sparked by Catholic fears of an impending invasion of Ireland by anti-Catholic forces of the English Long Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters, who were defying the authority of the King Charles I. In turn, the rebels' suspected association with the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Charles I, helped to spark the outbreak of the English Civil War. The English and Scottish Parliaments refused to raise an army to put down the rebellion unless it was under their command rather than the King's.
The Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641 and was followed by several months of violent chaos before the Irish Catholic upper classes and clergy formed the Catholic Confederation in the summer of 1642. The Confederation became a de facto government of most of Ireland, free from the control of the English administration and loosely aligned with the Royalist side in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The subsequent war continued in Ireland until the 1650s, when Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army decisively defeated the Irish Catholics and Royalists, and re-conquered the country.
The number of planters killed in the early months of the uprising is the subject of debate. Early English Parliamentarian pamphlets claimed that over 200,000 settlers had lost their lives. In fact, recent research has suggested that the number is far more modest, in the region of 4,000 or so killed, though many thousands were expelled from their homes. It is estimated that up to 12,000 Protestants may have lost their lives in total, the majority dying of cold or disease after being expelled from their homes in the depths of winter.
The general pattern around the country was that the attacks intensified the longer the rebellion went on. At first, there were beatings and robbing of local settlers, then house burnings and expulsions and finally killings, most of them concentrated in Ulster. Historian Nicholas Canny suggests that the violence escalated after a failed rebel assault on Lisnagarvey in November 1641, after which the settlers killed several hundred captured insurgents. Canny writes, 'the bloody mindedness of the settlers in taking revenge when they gained the upper hand in battle seems to have made such a deep impression on the insurgents that, as one deponent put it, "the slaughter of the English" could be dated from this encounter.' In one incident after this battle, the planters in Portadown were taken captive and then killed on the bridge in the town (see the Portadown Massacre). In nearby Kilmore parish, English and Scottish men, women and children were burned to death in the cottage in which they were imprisoned. In County Armagh, recent research has shown that about 1,250 Protestants were killed in the early months of the rebellion, or about a quarter of the planter population there. In County Tyrone, modern research has identified three blackspots for the killing of settlers, with the worst being near Kinard, 'where most of the British families planted... were ultimately murdered'. The Shrule massacre in early 1642 involved the deaths of dozens of Protestants travelling under safe conduct, where all the local officials and escort were Catholics.
Modern historians have argued that the killings of 1641 had a powerful psychological impact on the Protestant settlers. Dr. Mary O'Dowd, 'To look at the long-term consequences of the Plantation, it's very difficult to do that without also taking into consideration the long-term implications of the 1641 rebellion: because the massacres of 1641, in the winter of 1641, really were very traumatic for the Protestant settler community in Ulster, and they left long-term scars within that community
The general pattern around the country was that the attacks intensified the longer the rebellion went on. At first, there were beatings and robbing of local settlers, then house burnings and expulsions and finally killings, most of them concentrated in Ulster. Historian Nicholas Canny suggests that the violence escalated after a failed rebel assault on Lisnagarvey in November 1641, after which the settlers killed several hundred captured insurgents. Canny writes, 'the bloody mindedness of the settlers in taking revenge when they gained the upper hand in battle seems to have made such a deep impression on the insurgents that, as one deponent put it, "the slaughter of the English" could be dated from this encounter.' In one incident after this battle, the planters in Portadown were taken captive and then killed on the bridge in the town (see the Portadown Massacre). In nearby Kilmore parish, English and Scottish men, women and children were burned to death in the cottage in which they were imprisoned. In County Armagh, recent research has shown that about 1,250 Protestants were killed in the early months of the rebellion, or about a quarter of the planter population there. In County Tyrone, modern research has identified three blackspots for the killing of settlers, with the worst being near Kinard, 'where most of the British families planted... were ultimately murdered'. The Shrule massacre in early 1642 involved the deaths of dozens of Protestants travelling under safe conduct, where all the local officials and escort were Catholics.
Modern historians have argued that the killings of 1641 had a powerful psychological impact on the Protestant settlers. Dr. Mary O'Dowd, 'To look at the long-term consequences of the Plantation, it's very difficult to do that without also taking into consideration the long-term implications of the 1641 rebellion: because the massacres of 1641, in the winter of 1641, really were very traumatic for the Protestant settler community in Ulster, and they left long-term scars within that community
