Ireland and the War of the Three Kingdoms

Introduction

The growth of central government, as a result of economic expansion and the demands of early modern warfare, created new tensions. The situation in Ireland, where England had recently completed a military conquest, was further complicated by the official policy of plantations. In the early decades of the seventeenth century, a large number of native Irish landholders (particularly in Ulster) had been replaced by New English and Scottish protestant settlers, who totally dominated the colonial administration in the kingdom. They viewed their catholic neighbours with distrust and disdain, and actively discriminated against them.

New sense of national identity

The bulk of the original Anglo-Norman settlers, resident in Ireland since the thirteenth century, still controlled almost 50% of the land. However, they had remained catholic, and as such were out of favour at the protestant Stuart court. Already excluded from public office by a series of penal laws, they faced the prospect of losing their valuable estates, along with any remaining political influence, through a renewed policy of plantation. At the upper levels of society, the Old English, as they now called themselves, increasingly made common cause with their native Irish co-religionists. This alliance, cemented through inter-marriage, gradually blurred the ethnic distinctions between the two groups. By the early 1640s, the insecurity of catholic landholders combined with the common threat to their religion, helped them overcome many traditional ethnic and political boundaries, to forge a new sense of national identity.

Creation of confederate association

The Ulster rebellion of October 1641, a limited pre-emptive strike by Sir Phelim O'Neill and other disgruntled catholic landowners, sparked a nation-wide uprising. Catholic peasants, already in difficulties as a result of the economic slump of the late 1630s, vented their frustrations at a system which discriminated against them on many different levels. The colonial administration in Dublin responded with savage attacks on the civilian population, which exacerbated an already volatile situation.

Caught between the violent counter measures of the state and an increasingly populist uprising, which threatened the existing social order, the catholic élite struggled to regain the initiative. In 1642, the landowners, assisted by the clergy, created an alternative power base in Kilkenny. The primary function of this confederate association was to restore order, and negotiate a settlement with the king. For the next six years the confederates functioned as the de facto government of Ireland, controlling vast tracts of the island, apart from enclaves in Dublin, Cork and north-east Ulster.

Administrative structures

They established elaborate administrative structures at national, provincial and local levels. Ultimate authority lay with the legislative general assembly, but the executive supreme council, whose membership consisted primarily of lords, large landowners, lawyers and catholic bishops, gradually assumed a dominant role. The catholic élite sought an agreement with Charles I which would safeguard their property, admit them to the benefits of public office and bring to an end official religious discrimination. The peasantry, who provided the backbone of the confederate forces, were to be controlled and exploited, not liberated. Despite the conservative nature of their aims, the war in Ireland forced the confederate leadership to adopt increasingly radical measures, with the association in effect functioning as an independent state.

Scottish covenanters

Developments in the other two Stuart kingdoms also impacted on events in Ireland. From 1637, the armed opposition of Scottish Presbyterians (known as covenanters) to the religious and political policies of Charles I helped destabilise both England and Ireland. Their initial success in defeating the king's forces in 1639 and 1640 encouraged those in Ireland who favoured military action to prevent the further erosion of catholic political and social rights. The anti-catholic posturing of the covenanters, however, intensified feelings of insecurity among Irish catholics, particularly in Ulster where large numbers of Scots had recently settled. After the outbreak of the Ulster rebellion, and the subsequent reports of large-scale massacres of protestants in the province, the covenanters decided to intervene militarily in Ireland. The army of 10,000 men, which arrived from Scotland during the course of 1642 commanded by Robert Monroe, soon emerged as the single greatest threat to the new confederate association.

English civil war

Meanwhile, from 1640 Charles I faced growing opposition from the parliament at Westminster to the authoritarian nature of his rule in England. The two sides clashed on the issue of who was to control the army being raised to subdue the rebellion in Ireland. The outbreak of the English civil war in August 1642 forced the king, initially hostile towards Irish catholics, to moderate his position. He hoped that a compromise settlement with the confederates might enable him to utilise Irish military resources in England. Parliamentary leaders, however, espoused an uncompromising anti-catholic position and advocated total victory in Ireland, using confiscated catholic land in that kingdom to pay for the cost of the war. Throughout the 1640s, both royalists and parliamentarians maintained armed forces in Ireland, primarily in Dublin and Cork, while the Scots controlled north-east Ulster.

Confederate campaigns

From the confederate perspective, the war from 1641 until the Cromwellian invasion in 1649 can be divided into a number of distinct phases. The first stage consisted of a confused populist uprising, which rapidly spread throughout the country. After some initial success, the rebels soon found themselves on the defensive as a result of a savage counter-offensive by the colonial administration in Dublin. Large numbers of troops were drafted from England, while in Ulster Monroe's Scottish army gained the upper hand. Confederate fortunes improved with the outbreak of the English civil war in August 1642, which diverted military supplies away from Ireland. The colonial government's offensive ground to a halt, enabling the confederates to organise their armies, assisted by veterans such as Owen Roe O'Neill and Thomas Preston who returned from the continent with men and equipment. In early 1643 confederate and royalist representatives initiated talks, which resulted in a cessation agreement in September. Thereafter, the bulk of royalist troops were shipped to England, and those who remained did not engage in further fighting.

September 1643 also witnessed the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant between the Scottish covenanters and the English parliamentarians. The covenanters committed themselves to intervening in the English civil war against the king. They also rejected the cessation agreement in Ireland. Between 1644 and 1646, the confederates mobilised their forces in a number of abortive campaigns against the Scots in Ulster and parliamentarians in Cork, while at the same time attempting to negotiate a permanent peace with the king's representative in Ireland, James Butler, marquis of Ormond.

A papal nuncio

In late 1645, with the confederate/royalist peace talks stalled on the issue of religious concessions to catholics, a papal nuncio, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, arrived in Ireland advocating a full restoration of the Catholic Church. He also brought much needed cash to re-energise the war effort. In June 1646, Owen Roe O'Neill and his Ulster army won the greatest confederate victory of the war at Benburb, in eastern Tyrone, against Monroe and the covenanters. At this very moment, the confederates were plunged into crisis over the proposed peace terms with Charles I.

The king had surrendered to the Scots earlier in 1646, bringing to an end the first English civil war. Nonetheless, the confederate leadership in Kilkenny, anxious to rid itself of the stigma of rebellion, finally agreed to a treaty with Ormond which simply ignored the contentious issue of religion. The dominant peace faction hoped that a grateful monarch would grant generous concessions after he had recovered his authority in England. Rinuccini and the catholic bishops condemned the treaty and excommunicated those who supported it. The clerical faction staged a coup d'état in September 1646, seizing control in Kilkenny and imprisoning the leaders of the peace faction. The nuncio decided to attack the royalist headquarters at Dublin in an effort to bring the war in Ireland to a rapid conclusion. This would have enabled the confederates to negotiate from a position of strength with whoever controlled England. Rinuccini appointed Owen Roe O'Neill and his great rival Thomas Preston as dual commanders of this winter offensive. However, a combination of harsh weather, lack of supplies and bitter animosities between O'Neill and Preston served to undermine the campaign.

War and peace

With the clerical faction temporarily thwarted, a group of moderates in Kilkenny took control of the executive supreme council and attempted to re-open negotiations with Ormond. The marquis, however, surrendered Dublin to the forces of Westminster under Colonel Michael Jones in June 1647, and eventually fled to France. The confederates now faced a dual threat from English parliamentary forces in Cork and Dublin and decided once more to take the offensive. They suffered two catastrophic reverses at Dungan's Hill in August, where Colonel Jones virtually annihilated the Leinster army of Thomas Preston, and then at Knocknanuss in November, where Lord Inchiquin defeated the Munster army. In desperation, the confederates signed a truce in May 1648 with Inchiquin, who had switched sides to the royalists. The Scottish covenanters, disillusioned with Westminster over the peace talks with the king, also abandoned the parliamentarians. They launched an invasion of England that summer to coincide with various local royalist uprisings, in what became known as the second English civil war. The parliamentarians emerged victorious and in December decided to put the king on trial.

Meanwhile in Ireland, the Inchiquin truce had split the confederates, as Rinuccini, supported by Owen Roe O'Neill, bitterly opposed the move. They feared - with some justification - that the truce was the pretext for another unsatisfactory peace with the royalists. Throughout the summer of 1648 confederate factions engaged in a bitter civil war, with O'Neill eventually being forced to retreat into the vast waste of the Irish midlands. News of the impending trial of the king speeded up the negotiations between the confederate peace faction and the royalists, represented once more by Ormond. On 17th January, 1649, two weeks before the execution of the king, the two sides signed a second peace treaty. Rinuccini left Ireland the following month, but O'Neill refused to be reconciled with this new confederate/royalist alliance. Ormond now directed his forces against the sole remaining parliamentarian stronghold in Ireland, at Dublin, but on 2nd August, 1649 Colonel Jones defeated his army at Rathmines, on the outskirts of the city. This victory enabled Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army to land unchallenged at Ringsend two weeks later.

Find out more

Books

Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641-1660 by Jane Ohlmeyer (Cambridge, 1995)

Reformation and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Ireland: The Mission of Rinuccini, 1645-49 by Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (Oxford, 2001)

Confederate Catholics at War, 1642-1649 by Pádraig Lenihan (Cork, 2001)

Confederate Ireland, 1642-49: A Constitutional and Political Analysis by Micheál Ó Siochrú (Dublin, 1999)

Kingdoms in Crisis: Ireland in the 1640s by Micheál Ó Siochrú, ed. (Dublin, 2000)

The Outbreak of the Irish rebellion of 1641 by Michael Perceval-Maxwell (Dublin, 1994)

Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates: Scottish-Irish Relations in the mid Seventeenth Century by David Stevenson (Belfast, 1981)

Cromwell in Ireland by James Scott Wheeler (1999)

About the author

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Micheál Ó Siochrú lectures in history at Aberdeen University. He is the author of Confederate Ireland, 1642-49: A constitutional and political analysis (Dublin, 1999), and recently edited a collection of essays entitled Kingdoms in Crisis: Ireland in the 1640s (Dublin, 2000).