150+ Year History Of War

Irish Rebellion of 1641

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Irish Rebellion of 1641 Part of the Eleven Years War Date 23 October 1641 – March 1642[under discussion] Location Ireland Result founding of the Irish Catholic Confederation and beginning of the Confederate War Belligerents Irish Catholics [under discussion] English army Scottish Army Protestant colonists Commanders and leaders Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Roger Moore, Donough MacCarty, Connor Maguire and others William St Leger, James Butler, Charles Coote, and others Strength ? ? Casualties and losses ? ?

[show] v t e Irish Confederate Wars or Eleven Years War Timeline 1641–1642 Julianstown – Portadown – 1st Drogheda – Kilrush 1642–1649 Glenmaquin – Liscarroll – 1st Limerick – 1st Galway – New Ross – Duncannon – Benburb – Dungan's Hill – Cashel – Knocknanuss – Rathmines 1649–1653 2nd Drogheda – Wexford –Waterford – Arklow – Lisnagarvey – Clonmel – Macroom – Tecroghan – Scarrifholis – 2nd Limerick – Charlemont – Meelick Island – Knocknaclashy – 2nd Galway

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 for the Catholics living under English rule. 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 act was passed on 12 August 1652 by the Rump Parliament of England, who had taken power after the Second English Civil War and had agreed to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The conquest was deemed necessary as Royalist supporters of Charles II of England had allied themselves with the Confederation of Kilkenny (the confederation formed by Irish Catholics during the Irish Confederate Wars) and so was a threat to the newly formed English Commonwealth. The Rump Parliament had a large independent Dissenter membership who strongly empathised with the plight of the Protestant settler community in Ireland, who had suffered greatly at the start of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and whose suffering had been exaggerated by Protestant propaganda, so the act was also a retribution against Irish Catholics who had participated in the initial stages of the war.
Also money to pay for the wars had been raised under the 1642 Adventurers Act, which paid creditors with land forfeited by the 1641 rebels. These and other creditors had mostly resold their property interests to local landowners who wanted these recent property transfers reconfirmed by an overriding Act, for the avoidance of doubt.

[edit] Preamble

Whereas the Parliament of England, after the expense of much blood and treasure for suppression of the horrid rebellion in Ireland, have by the good hand of God upon their undertakings, brought that affair to such an issue, as that a total reducement and settlement of that nation may, with God's blessing, be speedily effected...

—Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 Preamble ^[1]

Ten named leaders of the Royalist forces in Ireland, together with anyone^{[nb 1]} who had participated in the Irish Rebellion’s early stages and who had killed an Englishman other than in battle, lost their lives and estates. ^{[nb 2]}
The Act made a distinction between the rebels of 1641 – who were deemed unlawful combatants – as against those who had fought in the regular armies of Confederate Ireland, who were treated as legitimate combatants provided that they had surrendered before the end of 1652. The 1641 rebels and the above mentioned Royalist leaders were not included in the pardon given to soldiers who had surrendered: they were to be executed when captured. Roman Catholic clergy were also excluded from the pardon, as the Cromwellians held them responsible by fomenting the 1641 Rebellion.^[2]
The remaining leaders of the Irish army lost two-thirds of their estates. To have been merely a bystander was itself a crime, and anyone who had resided in Ireland any time from 1 October 1649, to 1 March 1650 and had not "manifested their constant good affection to the interest of the Commonwealth of England" lost one-third of their land. The Commissioners in Ireland had power to give them, in lieu thereof, other (poorer) lands in Connacht or Clare in proportion of value and were authorised "to transplant such persons from the respective places of their usual habitation or residence, into such other places within that nation, as shall be judged most consistent with public safety." ^[3]
This was interpreted by the English Parliamentarian authorities in Ireland who ordered all Irish land owners to leave for those lands before 1 May 1654 or be executed. However, in practice, most Catholic landowners stayed on their land as tenants and the numbers of those either transplanted or executed was small.^[4]