The Benburb campaign, summer 1646. Here we see a unit of Scots horse about to launch a charge against Confederate foot. Notice should be made of the distinctive tight woollen trews and short jackets or shirts worn by the Irish troops, as well as the unique ‘bodkin’-style pike heads on their primary armament, which would have had no problem punching through cavalry armour. Art by Seán Ó’Brógáín

Flag of the Ulster Confederates 1646–51. Combining the traditional Irish harp with a green background, Éoghan ‘Rua’ Ó Neíll’s standard has become synonymous with the struggle for Ireland and the national identity. Art by Seán Ó’Brógáín from the program “Gods Executioner”

James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond. More of a politician than a soldier, Ormond nonetheless created a pro- Royalist coalition from antithetical elements of Irish society and managed to hold it together in the face of unrelenting domestic and external opposition.

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Irish rebels vs. England

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Ireland

DECLARATION: None

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: The Irish rebelled against English despotism.

OUTCOME: The war ended with an Irish victory over English forces, but, subsequently, Oliver Cromwell brutally suppressed the rebellion.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS: At Rathmines, Irish rebels, 5,000; English and royalists, 19,000

CASUALTIES: At Rathmines, English and royalists, 4,000 killed or wounded, 2,000 captured; Irish casualties unknown

TREATIES: None

In 1641, 40 years after TYRONE’S REBELLION, the Irish rose once again in revolt, first in Ulster, then throughout the entire island. Some 3,000 English and Scottish settlers were killed in the initial uprising on the Plantation lands, though the Puritan-dominated English Parliament wildly inflated the figure in its propaganda to hundreds of thousands massacred by Catholic savages and refused to entrust King Charles I (1600–49) with an army to put down the rebellion. Fearing that Charles would not only make peace with the Irish, but use them against the Puritans in the First (Great) ENGLISH CIVIL WAR that broke out in 1642, Parliament recruited volunteers at large to quell the revolt, promising them Irish lands in return for their service. Parliament also sent Scottish troops into the country, which, by this time, had fallen almost entirely under the control of the rebels, who established a provisional government in Kilkenny. The English forces were at first commanded by James Butler (1610–88), duke of Ormonde and lord lieutenant of Ireland, whom King Charles ordered to negotiate an end to the rebellion. Both the Parliament in London and a newly constituted parliament in Dublin rejected the terms produced by the negotiations. In 1645, with Charles in the clutches of an Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)–dominated Parliament, Ormonde himself now was leading the rebellion as the head of the Confederacy, an alliance of all Royalists in Ireland. Some among the Irish chose not so to be led, such as Murrough O’Brien, baron of Inchiquin (d. 1551), who was an Irish Protestant stationed in Munster. He not only rejected the leadership of the Confederacy, but also laid waste to Munster for Parliament, which earned him the everlasting spite of his fellow Irishmen and the memorable if somber sobriquet “Murrough of the Burnings.” Some, however, such as Owen Roe O’Neill (1582– 1649), were simply pure Irish Catholic rebels and disliked riding with their former enemies, the English overlords. O’Neill, the nephew of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone (1540– 1616), and a veteran of the Spanish army, kept his Ulster followers from joining Ormonde. Then, in 1647, for no discernible reason, Baron Inchiquin switched sides and joined the duke of Ormonde.

A turning point came in 1649, when Colonel Michael Jones landed with 2,000 troops, expelled Ormonde from Dublin and defeated him and his Royalist-Catholic forces at the Battle of Rathmines on August 2. Ormonde’s power was broken, but there remained a number of rebel strongholds either in Confederate or Irish hands. It was to capture these and completely crush the rebellion that Oliver Cromwell set sail for Ireland on August 13, 1649.

Further reading: Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War, 1641–49 (Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 2001); John O’Beirn Ranelagh, A Short History of Ireland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).