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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:21:Killed a great deal of Irishmen…(Alan Sinder)

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It not as if Cromwell was the only one killing the Irish.

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Young Ben Franklin: Oliver Cromwell killed alot of Irishmen.

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Wikipedia: English involvement in Ireland

The links between Ireland and England were established due to the complicated political alliances of the period. A national kingdom had gradually coalesced from the hundred or so tribal kingdoms that existed circa 500 CE and was disputed between three powerful regional dynasties. After losing the protection of Muirchertach MacLochlainn, a King of Ireland who was killed in 1166, a Leinster dynast named Diarmuid MacMorrough decided to invite a Norman knight to aid him against his local rivals. This invitation to Richard de Clare (known as Strongbow), which also involved the marriage to Strongbow of King Diarmuid's daughter, caused consternation to Henri II, the Frenchman who controlled mass lands in France and who reigned in England though he rarely lived there, as Henry II. To curb Strongbow's power, which he felt threatened his own security, King Henry invaded Ireland. Pope Adrian IV, the only English Pope, granted overlordship, but not the requested absolute ownership, of the island to King Henry. Henry then used the his new Irish lands to solve a family problem; he had divided up his various French and English territories among his sons, but one, Jean (or John) remained without any land, earning the name 'John Landless'. Henry 'awarded' his son his newly conquered territories in Ireland, with the title 'Lord of Ireland'. However by accident, namely the premature death of each of King Henry's older sons, notably King Richard the Lionheart, left his young son, Jean or John, as King John of England also. Thus Ireland fell by accident directly under the English Crown rather than, as Henry had intended, remaining an independent lordship under a minor Norman prince.

Www.wesleyjohnston.com-users-ireland-maps-historical-map1609.gif
Ireland c.1609

Initially the Normans controlled much of Ireland, but over time the native Irish regained some territory and outside the Pale, an area of English authority around Dublin, the Norman lords adopted the Irish language and customs, becoming, in a popular Irish historical soundbite, 'more Irish than the Irish themselves.' Over the following centuries they sided with the indigenous Irish in political and military conflicts with England and generally stayed Catholic after the Reformation.

The Reformation, in which Henry VIII broke English catholicism from Rome, over the pope's refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, fundamentally changed Ireland. As in England, monasteries were suppressed and those Catholic leaders of Church and state who remained loyal to Rome were deposed and executed. While Henry VIII broke English Catholicism from Rome, his son Edward VI of England moved further, breaking with Catholicism completely. These changes exacerbated the oppression of the Roman Catholic Irish, and, in the early 17th century, Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists to the north of Ireland and the counties of Laois (in older spelling Leix) and Offaly. The British dominance was total in the mid-17th century when Oliver Cromwell, with unspeakable cruelty, crushed an Irish rebellion. The terror of Cromwell deepened the hatred between the Irish and the British and gave the conquest a religious imprint. This was the beginning of an extensive discrimination of the Catholics, leaving a long row of rebellion years burning in the Irish history: 1690, 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916.CromwellIrishsoldiersMW.jpg

Cromwell's Soldiers
All ruthless veterans of the English Civil War
Artist: Angus McBride

Ireland had been upgraded from a Lordship to a full kingdom under Henry VIII. From the period of the original lordship in the twelfth century onwards, it had retained its own bicameral parliament of a House of Commons and House of Lords, though it was restricted for most of its existence in terms both of membership (Roman Catholics were barred) and powers, notably Poynings Law, whereby no Act could be introduced into the Irish Parliament without the approval of the English Privy Council. By the late eighteenth century, most such restrictions were removed, in part through a campaign led by among others Henry Grattan (hence the Irish parliament came to be known as 'Grattan's Parliament from 1782, when legislative independence was granted, until 1800. That legislative freedom was also known as the Constitution of 1782.) However in 1800, the Irish Parliament passed the Act of Union which in 1801 merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself a merger of England and Scotland in 1707) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Cromwell Killed a lot of Irishmen

In particular, Cromwell's suppression of the Royalists in Ireland during 1649 still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture -- comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests -- is one of the historical memories that has fuelled Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife for over three centuries. Cromwell felt justified in ordering the massacre because the city's defenders had continued to fight, in violation of what were then the norms of warfare, after the walls had been breached.

Cromwell sent Colonel Robert Venables to recover the north he had the support only of Sir Charles Coote, commander of the Derry garrison. These however were seasoned veterans of Naseby. Royalist Scots were cut to pieces at Lisburn in December 1649, and General Tam Dalyell then surrendered Carrickfergus castle. Skirmishing continued in Ulster for some time after Cromwell's expedition. Bishop Heber MacMahon was elected to lead Catholic resistance after the death of Owen Roe O'Neill in November 1649. The Protestants of Ulster realised that it was in their best interest to support Venables.

MacMahon was routed at Scarrifhollis near Letterkenny in June 1650, and hanged soon after. Sporadic guerrilla fighting lasted until Philip O'Reilly formally capitulated in April 1653 after a successful assault on Lough Oughter. After almost a decade of conflict, famine swept the island and wolves so increased that they had a price on their heads. Hundreds of people were executed, around 12,000 were transported to the West Indies, and millions of acres were confiscated. Only those landowners who could prove 'constant good affection' to the parliamentary cause were not punished.

In practice Protestants were absolved if they paid fines, but almost all Catholic landowners disappeared in Ulster, many obtaining smaller estates in Leitrim as compensation. In Ulster the biggest confiscations were in the east and south of the province: 41 per cent of the land of Antrim, 26 per cent of Down, 34 per cent of Armagh and 38 per cent of Monaghan. Only 4 per cent of Tyrone was confiscated, and Cromwell's charter restored Londonderry to the City of London, showing that the Ulster Plantation was largely undisturbed in those areas.[1]