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Cromwell in Ireland

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    No need to quote a secondary source like Wikki - not always reliable I agree - I have a copy of the letter that Cromwell sent to parliament after the Drogheda massacre and it leaves no doubt that it was a bloody affair and indiscriminate. It is also obvious that Cromwell's hatred of papists was a major driving force behind his actions and that he saw himself as God's emissary.

    Cromwell states that many "inhabitants" of the town were killed and that "I am persuaded that this [his massacre of Drogheda] is the righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbued their hands with so much innocent blood" - a reference to the 1641 killings.

    Further down he asserts that unarmed Catholic priests were "knocked on the head promiscuously" by his army.

    There are also contemporary descriptions by observers - some French- of orphaned children wandering the roads. Because while it is true that Cromwell's army was primary concerned with the land owners and the drive to the west was aimed at them - many tenants found themselves being rounded up and robbed, raped and even executed. Many fled their homes.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    You fail to mention those killed in Wexford and Drogheda were mainly English royalist forces, there is no evidence Cromwells troops engaged in rape, the were fanatical puritans, its another lie, without a shred of evidence.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    asdasd wrote: »
    Ending feudalism would actually end feudalism. That happened in the late 19th century when peasants bought their landsm under the land purchase system. Replacing one aristocrat with another is not the same as ending the system. The hiberno-normans had replaced a previous gaelic aristocracy but they didnt end feudalism.

    The whig view of history is total nonsense, CP. it is a myth, more myth than Irish nationalism.

    Cromwell :
    The Triennial Act of 1641 assured the summoning of Parliament at least every three years, a formidable challenge to royal prerogative. The Tudor institutions of fiscal feudalism (manipulating antiquated feudal fealty laws to extract money), the Court of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission were declared illegal by Act of Parliament later in 1641. A new era of leadership from the House of Commons (backed by middle class merchants, tradesmen and Puritans) had commenced.


    Cromwell ended Norman feudal privilege, fact.


    The problem is due to the demonisation of Cromwell in Ireland all this must be a shock.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    The problem is due to the demonisation of Cromwell in Ireland all this must be a shock.

    I dont think you are convincing anyone but yourself. Cromwell was a mass murderer. Both his,and his successors campaigns in Ireland were genocidal and with deliberation reduced the population of the country by 40%, destroying what remained of its ancient cultural elites.

    Nobody really gives a **** if, in taking away these rights from Irish people he granted some greater rights to English protestants ( while reducing all liberties to English Catholics).
    Cromwell ended Norman feudal privilege, fact.

    He abolished some antiquated laws. Most Irish people remained serfs and thus feudalism survived. They remained serfs, but not servants of their own ethnic group ( or culturally assimilated groups like the Anglo Normans) but an Alien, often absentee, and thoroughly debased and racist aristocracy whose reaction during the famine was to let the Irish starve, not something an native aristocracy would have countenanced.


  • Registered Users Posts: 897 ✭✭✭ilkhanid


    "...thoroughly debased and racist aristocracy whose reaction during the famine was to let the Irish starve, not something an native aristocracy would have countenanced."
    That assertion is questionable. In the past,Aristocracies in general were not known for being sentimental towards their tenants and serfs, even if they were of the same race or religion. Look at the utterly ruthless attitude of the Scottish lairds towards their tenants during the eighteenth century clearances.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,289 ✭✭✭dresden8


    ilkhanid wrote: »
    "...thoroughly debased and racist aristocracy whose reaction during the famine was to let the Irish starve, not something an native aristocracy would have countenanced."
    That assertion is questionable. In the past,Aristocracies in general were not known for being sentimental towards their tenants and serfs, even if they were of the same race or religion. Look at the utterly ruthless attitude of the Scottish lairds towards their tenants during the eighteenth century clearances.


    That's ok so.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    You fail to mention those killed in Wexford and Drogheda were mainly English royalist forces, there is no evidence Cromwells troops engaged in rape, the were fanatical puritans, its another lie, without a shred of evidence.

    Cromwell's letter is a indication and proof that civilian life was involved in the massacre - and yes, there were certainly English royalist forces there defending Drogheda but many of these were actually Irish also. The Catholic Irish were on the side of the King. One of the charges brought against Charles I at his trail was that there was a loyalist [Catholic] Irish army in Ireland ready to invade England on his behalf.

    On the issue of rape - it is mentioned in some contemporary documents but it does not necessary mean sexual rape I suppose. The meaning of the word could be open to another interpretation and while Cromwell was indeed a fanatical puritan not all in the army might be. On the other hand, frequently it is the strictly religious who transgress sexually more often than others. But I keep an open mind about it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    MarchDub wrote: »
    Cromwell's letter is a indication and proof that civilian life was involved in the massacre - and yes, there were certainly English royalist forces there defending Drogheda but many of these were actually Irish also. The Catholic Irish were on the side of the King. One of the charges brought against Charles I at his trail was that there was a loyalist [Catholic] Irish army in Ireland ready to invade England on his behalf.

    On the issue of rape - it is mentioned in some contemporary documents but it does not necessary mean sexual rape I suppose. The meaning of the word could be open to another interpretation and while Cromwell was indeed a fanatical puritan not all in the army might be. On the other hand, frequently it is the strictly religious who transgress sexually more often than others. But I keep an open mind about it.



    The civilians were mainly those who travelling with the English royalist army, army officers families travelled with them, Irish Catholics were not permitted into Irish towns. 80% of the army at Drogheda was English.

    Repeat, there is not a shred of evidence Cromwells troops raped natives and I challenge you to prove your claim or withdraw it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    asdasd wrote: »
    I dont think you are convincing anyone but yourself. Cromwell was a mass murderer. Both his,and his successors campaigns in Ireland were genocidal and with deliberation reduced the population of the country by 40%, destroying what remained of its ancient cultural elites.

    Nobody really gives a **** if, in taking away these rights from Irish people he granted some greater rights to English protestants ( while reducing all liberties to English Catholics).



    He abolished some antiquated laws. Most Irish people remained serfs and thus feudalism survived. They remained serfs, but not servants of their own ethnic group ( or culturally assimilated groups like the Anglo Normans) but an Alien, often absentee, and thoroughly debased and racist aristocracy whose reaction during the famine was to let the Irish starve, not something an native aristocracy would have countenanced.


    You obviosly dont know what feudalism was. Cromwell abolished it and started parlimentry democracy. This was also the case in Ireland.


    Cromwell :
    The Triennial Act of 1641 assured the summoning of Parliament at least every three years, a formidable challenge to royal prerogative. The Tudor institutions of fiscal feudalism (manipulating antiquated feudal fealty laws to extract money), the Court of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission were declared illegal by Act of Parliament later in 1641. A new era of leadership from the House of Commons (backed by middle class merchants, tradesmen and Puritans) had commenced.


    A member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights.

    ............Irish natives were not required to perform labour for customary or legal staus, which is what feudalism was.

    You are confusing economic poverty and religious opression with feudalism.

    As for the rest of your rant, go and read an objective history book about Cromwell.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    The civilians were mainly those who travelling with the English royalist army, army officers families travelled with them, Irish Catholics were not permitted into Irish towns. 80% of the army at Drogheda was English.

    .
    I would suggest that you consult the original letters of Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentary speeches and not rely on secondary and tertiary sources. And there are many other first hand accounts that also have survived. Cromwell’s letters from Ireland give first hand accounts of the massacres with reference to civilian and town “inhabitants” deaths. He also states that he captured many Irish “enemies” and shipped them to Barbadous. The letters also include insight into those infamous rages of his – Cromwell's behaviour could be very erratic and he may have had what we might now call a personality disorder. By his own account he was given to uncontrollable rages – this can be seen from both his own descriptions and others who witnessed him.

    As regards Drogheda – not only do we have Cromwell’s own account but there are other surviving accounts. One by the dean of St Peters church, Nicholas Bernard, who describes a gruesome incident in the church – some 60 people had taken refuge in the steeple and Cromwell’s men set fire to it killing all inside.

    Likewise Edmund Ludlow’s description of the siege of Limerick is horrific – as some people tried to leave the town Cromwell’s army randomly shot a few to discourage others from leaving.

    As for your assertion that no Catholics were allowed to live in Irish towns – I have no idea where you are pulling that from and the evidence is otherwise. Over and over again, in both the letters of Cromwell, his testimony afterwards before parliament and other eye witnesses speak of Catholic priests being killed in the towns under siege by Cromwell’s army. Cromwell was actually quite specific in this claim and considered it to be his duty to God.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    As for the rest of your rant, go and read an objective history book about Cromwell.

    By objective you mean revisionist Irish, or pro-British Whig.

    Fraid not. The wikipedia page has reference to 20 books on ethnic and cultural genocide carried out by Cromwell and none are from Ireland. why dont you read an objective book rather than one written by an English apologist.
    As for your assertion that no Catholics were allowed to live in Irish towns – I have no idea where you are pulling that from

    That was true. However the Irish lived outside the walls ( think the Liberties) and came in to defend when Cromwell attacked.

    The most obvious example is Clonmel where the part outside the walls - outside the West Gate ( still standing) is to this day called Irish Town.

    Of course all these people came in to defend the Anglo-Irish town when Cromwell attacked. he considered all Catholics in Ireland as Irish, and as subject of his racist scorn.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    asdasd wrote: »
    .However the Irish lived outside the walls ( think the Liberties) and came in to defend when Cromwell attacked.

    The most obvious example is Clonmel where the part outside the walls - outside the West Gate ( still standing) is to this day called Irish Town.

    Of course all these people came in to defend the Anglo-Irish town when Cromwell attacked. he considered all Catholics in Ireland as Irish, and as subject of his racist scorn.

    I think there is some confusion here about the terms "Irish" and"Catholic" and what both meant. Yes the Gaelic Irish settled for the most part outside of the towns - but this was not by any means a strict segregation as the Statutes of Kilkenny proved impossible to enforce and some did actually settle in the towns. Also within the towns were Catholics of Old English [original Norman] stock - many of these original Norman settlers were still Catholic in Cromwell's time. They would have considered themselves to be Irish - intermarriage had long ago done that - and would have been so considered by Cromwell.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Cherrypicker you're either a complete troll or a disingenuous revisionist. Taking your basic points:

    1. Cromwell didn't massacre Irish people, only English royalists.
    Utter tosh. His army didn't discriminate between Irish and English catholics. Not that many of the "English" were all that English anyway having been in Ireland for many generations. Indeed, some of the leaders may have been English royalists loyal to Charles I and his son Charles II for that was the alliance that pertained at the time. But the inhabitants of Drogheda, Wexford and other places were Irish in the main, by any reasonable definition of the term.

    2 Cromwell didn't dispossess the "Irish" only the land-owning Catholic aristocracy who were mainly of English origin.
    Well like so what? You're implying he didn't dispossess those who had no possessions in the first place so he's an OK guy? He removed from the majority of the population, ie the Catholic community, the educated moneyed elite leaving them largely leaderless, demoralised and fit only for serfdom. It's a common tactic. Pol Pot tried it in Cambodia. Bump off the intelligentsia and you'll find it easier to rule.

    Stalin did it in Poland too. In Katyn, he gathered together about 20,000 Polish army officers, most of them conscripts who in civilian life had been university professors, lawyers, doctors, bankers etc etc and bumped them off. Your interpretation, if consistent, would be that he didn't harm the "ordinary" Poles but he did remove their leaders thereby making them easier to rule. His apologists would say this was to liberate them from the clutches of the previous, superstitious corrupt oppressive elite to bring them the rewards of fraternalism, equality, socialist nirvana and the joys of the soviet state. You have said something similar, replacing equality socialism etc with "enlightenment, parliamentary democracy etc etc"

    Find me a Pole who thinks Stalin was a good guy. I'd be interested to meet them.

    3 Cromwell brought in democracy, abolished absolute monarchy
    Didn't he disband Parliament when he got fed up with them, bringing in the army to evict the unruly members from Westminster? Much as the King had tried to do before the Civil War. He assumed dictatorial powers because, well, because he could. HE had the muscle of the army to back him up if he wished. In other words Parliament could say what it liked as long as it was what he wanted. When they diverged, he showed them who was really in charge.

    Quite apart from the fact that 40 years after Cromwell's death the Parliament, having overthrown the Catholic king made it an offence for CAtholics to vote, sit in Parliament or even marry the monarch (the last restriction STILL applies). So much for freedom of religion and toleration of expression.

    Cromwell was a despot. Sure of his own beliefs, ruthless in their promotion and well able to put aside any of the supposed benefits for the population at large if it suited him.

    The last word should not be with the Irish whom he subjugated but with the English whom he supposedly liberated. Just after he died, they brought back the king as fast as they could and went after the Cromwellians who had killed his father. OVerturned much of the "reforms" he had brought in, like closing pubs, brothels and theatres, and generally enjoyed themselves for teh rest of the century.

    Fair play to them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭asdasd


    Didn't he disband Parliament when he got fed up with them, bringing in the army to evict the unruly members from Westminster? Much as the King had tried to do before the Civil War.

    Yeah. In any case the Whiggish fascination with the anti-Monarchical parliament reminds me of Ben Franklin on Democracy and Freedom

    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the decision"

    You dont need the well-armed bit, the lamb getting away is good enough. The English parliament was a sectarian nightmare. It reduced liberty for vast majority of it's Catholic subjects and the abosolte Kingdom was freer.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16 zaister


    there's another 2-part docu-drama starting on RTE next tuesday, this time about the Famine. it's by the same company that made the Cromwell docu-drama. Promo is on YouTube

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Flv0PF_-j8


  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Co Kildare abu


    I hope that if RTE do complete a documentary on Cromwell that it wont be in the fiction/documentary style that they have used in previous historical documentaries. The Hidden History programme on Coolacrease last year was akin to a soap opera.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,154 ✭✭✭Flex


    Anybody get the feeling Cherrypicker555 is actually Vesp (it wouldnt be the first time hes used a new account, he used to post under the username 'true' before he was banned)


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,255 ✭✭✭getz


    what is needed is a company who can give both the irish and the english view point of cromwells campaigns in ireland, that way we can find out the real story, not just one side of the story


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 259 ✭✭DublinDes


    Flex wrote: »
    Anybody get the feeling Cherrypicker555 is actually Vesp (it wouldnt be the first time hes used a new account, he used to post under the username 'true' before he was banned)
    Cherrypicker555 also claimed to be from the south but continually posted on the military forum regarding the brillance of the Britsh Army. He was eventually banned despite been asked many times not to continually post regarding joining the Brits while at the same time running down the Irish army. A nationalist from the south indeed.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 65 ✭✭Svenolsen


    Cromwell did not actually execute King Charles 1.

    The executioners were two Irishmen from Galway,
    Dean and Gunning.
    Gunning was the one who chopped the King's Head off.

    (English people wouldn't do it..understandably fearing Royalist retribution.)

    As a reward Gunning was given a mansion in Galway.

    It's still there at 15 High Street Galway.
    The Kings Head is one of the best pubs in Galway.

    You can enjoy a pint there to this very day:

    http://www.thekingshead.ie/history.php


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    Cherrypicker you're either a complete troll or a disingenuous revisionist. Taking your basic points:

    1. Cromwell didn't massacre Irish people, only English royalists.
    Utter tosh. His army didn't discriminate between Irish and English catholics. Not that many of the "English" were all that English anyway having been in Ireland for many generations. Indeed, some of the leaders may have been English royalists loyal to Charles I and his son Charles II for that was the alliance that pertained at the time. But the inhabitants of Drogheda, Wexford and other places were Irish in the main, by any reasonable definition of the term.

    2 Cromwell didn't dispossess the "Irish" only the land-owning Catholic aristocracy who were mainly of English origin.
    Well like so what? You're implying he didn't dispossess those who had no possessions in the first place so he's an OK guy? He removed from the majority of the population, ie the Catholic community, the educated moneyed elite leaving them largely leaderless, demoralised and fit only for serfdom. It's a common tactic. Pol Pot tried it in Cambodia. Bump off the intelligentsia and you'll find it easier to rule.

    Stalin did it in Poland too. In Katyn, he gathered together about 20,000 Polish army officers, most of them conscripts who in civilian life had been university professors, lawyers, doctors, bankers etc etc and bumped them off. Your interpretation, if consistent, would be that he didn't harm the "ordinary" Poles but he did remove their leaders thereby making them easier to rule. His apologists would say this was to liberate them from the clutches of the previous, superstitious corrupt oppressive elite to bring them the rewards of fraternalism, equality, socialist nirvana and the joys of the soviet state. You have said something similar, replacing equality socialism etc with "enlightenment, parliamentary democracy etc etc"

    Find me a Pole who thinks Stalin was a good guy. I'd be interested to meet them.

    3 Cromwell brought in democracy, abolished absolute monarchy
    Didn't he disband Parliament when he got fed up with them, bringing in the army to evict the unruly members from Westminster? Much as the King had tried to do before the Civil War. He assumed dictatorial powers because, well, because he could. HE had the muscle of the army to back him up if he wished. In other words Parliament could say what it liked as long as it was what he wanted. When they diverged, he showed them who was really in charge.

    Quite apart from the fact that 40 years after Cromwell's death the Parliament, having overthrown the Catholic king made it an offence for CAtholics to vote, sit in Parliament or even marry the monarch (the last restriction STILL applies). So much for freedom of religion and toleration of expression.

    Cromwell was a despot. Sure of his own beliefs, ruthless in their promotion and well able to put aside any of the supposed benefits for the population at large if it suited him.

    The last word should not be with the Irish whom he subjugated but with the English whom he supposedly liberated. Just after he died, they brought back the king as fast as they could and went after the Cromwellians who had killed his father. OVerturned much of the "reforms" he had brought in, like closing pubs, brothels and theatres, and generally enjoyed themselves for teh rest of the century.

    Fair play to them.


    It was mainly an English army in Drogheda my friend commanded by Sir Arthur Ashton, Drogheda was an English garrison town, even today some in this part of the world are still called "west Brits", repeat Irish Catholics were forbidden from living in towns under the statutes of Kilkenny.

    The royalist army in Drogheda were the foreunners of todays British army household division sworn to protecting the monarch.
    Infact the household cavalry trace there lineage back to fighting for the King in the civil war.


    "584. He first proceeded against Drogheda. It had been garrisoned by Ormond with 8,000 troops, chiefly English, under Sir Arthur Ashton. Cromwell began by battering down the steeple of St. Mary's church. Next day, the 10th September 1649, the cannonade continued, till towards evening two breaches were made. Two desperate attempts to enter were repulsed; but the third succeeded; and immediately, on Cromwell's order, the whole garrison, including the commander Sir Arthur Ashton, with many friars and townspeople, were massacred. "

    http://www.libraryireland.com/JoyceHistory/Cromwell.php

    ............Civilians killed were mainly their family members and travelling servants and those who supplied the army, it was the norm for families to travel with officers, although some Irish Catholics would have worked in the town as servants.

    Not revisionism simply the truth. Claiming Irish Catholics lived in English settler towns shows crass ignorance.




    Serfdom ? Go and look the word up, it has alot more to it then poverty and economics, serfs were those who paid compulsory taxes to Lords and were not free men. Cromwell abolished feudalism/sefdom, but sectarian laws were a feature of these centuries be they anti Catholic or anti Protestant, they are not connected in the way you believe to feudalism.

    Cromwell did not "remove the majority of the pop", another lie, infact they remained as needed labour on farms, he expelled those who fought for the king, most Irish were not involved in the conflict.

    Cromwell was a Puritan, he was rebelling against centuries of church and aristocratic priviledge and decadence also against the persecutions he saw of Protestants in England, as a boy he saw the Ispwich martyrs burn.

    Reality is sectarianism was the norm of the time, but in taking away feudal privilege and power from the king and giving it to Parliament, he was the more progressive force of the time, as Marx stated.

    The problem is he was a republican and has historically been over demonised by his arch enemy the RC church in Ireland, later Irish nationalists and landed class in England for political reasons.


  • Registered Users Posts: 463 ✭✭Shutuplaura


    Ah have you read that book by O'Reilly? What is it, Cromwell, the Honourable Enemy. Its a bit of a Parsons egg that, and ignores the salient point that Cromwells actions whether bog standard 17th Century warfare or ethnic clensing on an unprecedented scale was a disaster to the country. It for instance casues massive famine and political-economic disruption, creating the tensions that led to the intense Williamite wars a few decades later as the native landowning classes tried to win back what they lost (and backed the wrong stuart horse for a second time in a half century)

    Your claim that he only massacred English royalists is not 100% true at all. The Royalist forces in Ireland were a combination of Royalists and the forces of Confederation of Kilkenny which were native and/or old English catholic. Arthur Ashton was the English Garrison Commander at Drogheda but The commander of the Clonmel Garrison was the High Dubh O'Neill - the royalists were made up of both English and irish forces. What is the likelyhood that the new model army asked for people birth certs before putting them to the sword.

    A very real result of his actions was exile to Barbados - not the nice holiday destination it is these days. There is alarge number of Irish Surnames amung the population of Monserrat - proof that Irish were affected by his resettlement.


  • Registered Users Posts: 463 ✭✭Shutuplaura


    Cromwell ended Norman feudal privilege, fact.

    He may have done so but only in faavour of new mercantile privledge that was in no way more equitable - actually it was probably far less so. The loss of Feudal privledge (which was built up over centuries in a continuous cycle of dialoge and concession) was historically unpopular throughout Europe. The closure of monasteries which acted as welfare organisations caused popular rebellions in England and Germany. The Feudal system also had a provision for common landholding - enclosure was as you know profoundly unpopular. One of my faourite little hisorical ditties is

    "The Law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common, but leaves the greater villian loose who steals the common from the goose."

    There is a few villages in Englad where ther common land was never enclosed - historial anomalies I guess. Decisions affecting the common are all made on the basis of consensus as they would have been in the 16th century - instead of the local lord doing as he pleases with the land.
    The fact is that the irish landowning system, still in place in parts of the country in Cromwells time made even greater efforts to be equitable - the rotation of land holdings to ensure family held bad (or good) land for too long.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭luckat


    Ah have you read that book by O'Reilly? What is it, Cromwell, the Honourable Enemy. Its a bit of a Parsons egg that, and ignores the salient point that Cromwells actions whether bog standard 17th Century warfare

    Well, no. At the launch, the author said that the commonly held opinion that Cromwell's actions were no worse than the standard of the time is incorrect. He said Cromwell's methods in Drogheda, particularly, sent shock waves around Europe.


  • Registered Users Posts: 463 ✭✭Shutuplaura


    He didn't say that in his book though? I don't have it to hand but from what I remember he claimed that the sack of Drogheda fell within the normal rules of 17th century warfare.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭luckat


    I'd have to look it up; the book's crept into the shelves and is hiding.

    After reading it I went looking in Google Books for references to 'Tredagh' - as the British referred to Drogheda.

    Was baffled by this term until I noticed a signpost while driving north a week ago: Droichead Átha! Of course!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    luckat wrote: »
    Well, no. At the launch, the author said that the commonly held opinion that Cromwell's actions were no worse than the standard of the time is incorrect. He said Cromwell's methods in Drogheda, particularly, sent shock waves around Europe.


    There is a long list of reputable Irish historians who have pulled apart O'Reilly's work and revealed the serious flaws in his thesis. The most recent was historian Ciaran Brady of Trinity College on a radio programme on RTE last September in which he and O'Reilly faced off each other. O'Reilly clearly had nothing to answer with when challenged.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 65 ✭✭Svenolsen


    Europe would not have been "shocked" by anything Cromwell did.

    When Sweden invaded Germany in 1630 their armies destroyed one third of German towns and killed a good fraction of the inhabitants.

    It cost the Swedes dearly though.

    The adult male population of Sweden was depleted by the time of the Swedish defeat at the of the Battle of Nordlingen in 1634.
    .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    Ah have you read that book by O'Reilly? What is it, Cromwell, the Honourable Enemy. Its a bit of a Parsons egg that, and ignores the salient point that Cromwells actions whether bog standard 17th Century warfare or ethnic clensing on an unprecedented scale was a disaster to the country. It for instance casues massive famine and political-economic disruption, creating the tensions that led to the intense Williamite wars a few decades later as the native landowning classes tried to win back what they lost (and backed the wrong stuart horse for a second time in a half century)

    Your claim that he only massacred English royalists is not 100% true at all. The Royalist forces in Ireland were a combination of Royalists and the forces of Confederation of Kilkenny which were native and/or old English catholic. Arthur Ashton was the English Garrison Commander at Drogheda but The commander of the Clonmel Garrison was the High Dubh O'Neill - the royalists were made up of both English and irish forces. What is the likelyhood that the new model army asked for people birth certs before putting them to the sword.

    A very real result of his actions was exile to Barbados - not the nice holiday destination it is these days. There is alarge number of Irish Surnames amung the population of Monserrat - proof that Irish were affected by his resettlement.



    Exile to the new world had been going on since James Ist and was not unique to Ireland, infact senting political prisoners there was more progressive then executing all of them.

    As for Clonmel, yes its defenders were Irish but fled before Cromwells army took the town.

    I dont dispute Cromwells forces would have killed most of them, but we were discussing the false held belief he massacred mostly Irish Catholics and soldiers in Drogheda and Wexford.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 247 ✭✭cherrypicker555


    luckat wrote: »
    Well, no. At the launch, the author said that the commonly held opinion that Cromwell's actions were no worse than the standard of the time is incorrect. He said Cromwell's methods in Drogheda, particularly, sent shock waves around Europe.


    Do you dispute the fact Cromwell offered generous surrender terms at both Drogheda and Wexford ?


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