Cromwell & Co

By the 1640s, the descendants of the original Anglo-Norman and English settlers (the “Old English”) had mostly remained Catholic. Under the now Protestant administration, their prospects were curtailed which encouraged them to throw in their lot with the rebelling Irish natives to form the Catholic Confederation.

Meanwhile, the English Civil War pitched parliament against King Charles I, and the Scots were taking arms against the King’s policies there. The War of the Three Kingdoms plunged Ireland into a decade of destruction, ending with Oliver Cromwell’s [1] ten-month scorched earth campaign, long remembered for its brutality. The last remaining Irish forces were decisively beaten at the Battle of Scarriffhollis with over 2,000 fatal Irish casualties.

The Cromwellian campaign and its aftermath saw a huge drop in population due to war, famine and disease and almost all lands still owned by Irish Catholics was confiscated and given to British settlers and army veterans.

The small number of Catholics landowners who were permitted to retain property were transplanted to inferior land in Connacht, the western province. In the event, the much larger number of surviving poorer Catholics were not moved westwards; most of them had to fend for themselves as tenants of the new landowners.

Where the consequences of the Nine Years’ War and the Ulster Plantation in the early 1600s shattered the Gaelic social system in the north of the country, the Cromwellian conquest completed the British colonisation of the rest Ireland. It destroyed the native Irish Catholic land-owning classes and replaced them with colonists with a British, Protestant identity. The bitterness caused by the Cromwellian settlement was a powerful source of Irish nationalism from this time onwards.

The dispossessed landowners, especially those who had openly supported the Royalist cause, were hopeful that following his Restoration in 1660, King Charles II would reverse the Cromwellian land-grab. Most were to be disappointed, and only about a third of the confiscated land was returned to the former landlords.

A generation later, many of the former Irish Catholic landed class again tried to restore their estates and rights by supporting King James II in his conflict with William of Orange (1689–91). They were defeated once again, and many lost land that had been regranted after 1662. With no prospects at home, thousands of the officer and gentry class, known as the “Wild Geese”, took the opportunity to flee to Europe for service in the armies of France, Spain, Austria, and the Papacy.

A lucky few prospered and their descendants achieved fame and success – such as Leopoldo O’Donnell, 19th century Prime Minister of Spain, Richard Hennessy of French brandy fame, the Liberator of Chile Bernardo O’Higgins, or Joseph O’Rourke, much-decorated Russian General.

At the middle of the 16th century, Ireland comprised many autonomous Gaelic or Norman-descent Gaelicised principalities, with a small English administration whose writ did not run very far. But by 1700, all had changed. The native Irish and Old English gentry class had been dispossessed and replaced by a new set of masters who would become the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy.

To guard against future threats, a series of Penal Laws was enacted. Severe restrictions on owning land or property were imposed on Catholics, and entry to the professions was closed to them; for those who could still afford it, education had to be obtained on the Continent. The Catholic religion, still the faith of the vast majority, was outlawed and could operate only in secrecy. The Gaelic culture and language was in retreat and would survive only among the impoverished peasantry.

Oliver Cromwell by Robert Walker, National Portrait Gallery, London

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The dark 18th century