Irish Confederation

The Irish Confédération refers to one period of autonomy of the Ireland, located between the rebellion of 1641 and the reconquest of Cromwell in 1649. Two thirds of Ireland were then with the hands of the catholic Irish Confédération , known also under the name of Confédération of Kilkenny , because its seat was in this city. The remaining Protestant enclaves were in Ulster, with the Munster and in the Leinster, and were held, during the Guerres of the Three Kingdoms, by troops faithful to the Royalistes, the Parlementaires or the Covenanter S Scottish. At the time of the conflict called Irish confederated Wars, Confédérés could not overcome the British troops in Ireland between 1642 and 1649, and they ended up joining the royalists against the Parlement tail.

Rebellion and formation of the Confederation

It acts here of the political history. For the military history of this period, to see: Irish confederated Wars

The Irish Confederation was formed following the rebellion of 1641 at the same time to contain popular rising and to organize the effort of Irish war catholic against the British troops being in Ireland. While thus making, the catholic Irishmen hoped to be able to prevent the reconquest of the country by the English and Scottish troops. This initiative returned to the catholic bishop Nicholas French and to a lawyer Nicholas Plunkett. They presented this proposal of government to the catholic Irish nobility, the Vicomte of Gormanstown, the Viscount of Mountgarret and Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount of Muskerry, which reflects their troops with the service of the Confederation, and persuaded of others rebellious to join them. At the time of their adhesion, the members of the Confederation made the oath defend the catholic religion , the rights of the king and the freedom of Ireland.

Constitution

The constitution of the Confederation was written by another lawyer, a man of Galway called Patrick Darcy. In certain connections, the Confederation was rather democratic for its time. Its government was composed of a General meeting , a Parliament to some extent, elected by the Irish owners and catholic clergy, assembly which, in her turn, elected an executive government called Supreme council . The General meeting and the Supreme council met both in Kilkenny, the Parliament being called every year to examine the work of the Council. Confédérés reflects immediately places a vast system of taxation from there in order to finance the war, and sent representatives in the catholic States of continental Europe.

However, the Association of Confederated catholic of Ireland never claimed to be an independent government, because, in the context of the Guerres of the Three Kingdoms, she declared royalist, faithful to Charles Ier. And since only the king could name a Parliament, the General meeting of Confederated never asserted in being one, although it fulfilled the functions of them. During their negotiations with the royalists, Confédérés required that all the concessions which were then made to them be concretized after the war in the shape of an Irish Parliament, similar a little at their General meeting, and including some Protestants.

The declared objective of Confédérés was to manage an agreement with the king. Their aspirations were: full civic rights for the Catholics, the tolerance of the Catholic religion and the autonomy of Ireland. The currency of this Confederation was: Pro Deo, Rege and Patria, Hibernia Unanimis ( Ireland linked for God, the King and the Fatherland ).

The members of the Supreme council were mainly of the “Old English”, of which were wary much of Irishmen of stock, who had the feeling which the claims of the Council were too moderate. Most radical Confédérés made pressure for the cancellation of the Plantations and the introduction of Catholicism like Religion of State in Ireland.

Confédérés thought that their interests would be been useful better if they made alliance with the royalists, and consequently the support of the king was an essential share of their strategy. Indeed, before the war, the English Parliament and the Covenanter S Scottish had threatened to invade Ireland and to make disappear the Irish Catholic religion and landowners. The king, by contrast, had promised concessions many times to them. However, whereas the confederated moderate ones were anxious to manage an agreement with Charles Ier, and did not insist to obtain political reforms and radical nuns, others on the contrary wished to force the king to accept autonomous catholic Ireland before any agreement with him. That having failed, they recommended an independent alliance with the France or the Spain.

Truce with the royalists

In 1643, confederated negotiated with the royalists a suspension of hostilities in Ireland, and started discussions with James Butler, 1st duke of Ormonde, representing of the king in Ireland. This meant the stop of the combat between confederated and the royalist army of Ormonde with Dublin. However, the English garrison of Cork, which was ordered by Murrough O' Brien, 1st count d' Inchiquin, one of the rare Protestant Irishmen gaelic, refused this Cessez-le-feu, mutina and made allegiance with the English Parlement. The Covenanter S Scottish, which had unloaded an army in Ulster in 1642, remained the enemies of confederated, just like the army of the British colonists of this area.

In 1644, confederated sent approximately 1500 men under the command of Alasdair MacColla in Scotland in order to come to assistance of the royalists led by James Graham, 1st marquis de Montrose against Covenanters, starting the civil war in Scotland. It was there their only intervention in Great Britain in favor of the royalists during the civil wars.

Arrival of the apostolic nuncio

Confederated accepted modest subsidies on behalf of monarchies Frenchwoman and Spanish, which wished to recruit troops in Ireland, but their principal continental support came from papacy. The pope Innocent X firmly supported the Irish Confederation, in spite of the objections of Mazarin and of the queen-mother, Henriette de France, exiled with Paris. Innocent X accepted the emissary of the Confederation in February 1645, and it decided to send a extraordinary nuncio in Ireland in the person of Giovanni Battista Rinuccini. This one embarked with La Rochelle with Richard Bellings, the secretary of the Confederation. He brought with him a great quantity of weapons and military equipment and an important amount of money. These supplies enabled him to exert a very great influence on the interior policy of the Confederation, and it was supported by confederated the most pugnacious, like Owen Roe O' Neill. Rinuccini was accepted with great honors with Kilkenny, where he declared that the object of its mission was to support the king, but that he held over very helping the people of Ireland to obtain the free and public exercise of his religion, and to recover the churches and the goods of the Church.

The first peace of Ormonde

The nuncio considered that it was him the real one directing Confederation. However on March 28th, 1646, the Supreme council managed an agreement signed with Ormonde. According to the terms of this agreement, the Catholics were authorized to be useful in the public office, and to found schools; there were also verbal promises on future concessions as regards religious tolerance. It was envisaged a Amnistie for the acts made during the rebellion of 1641, and a guarantee against future ground expropriations of the Catholics. The Supreme council placed also a great hope in a secret treaty, concluded in the name of the king with the Count de Glamorgan, treated which promised additional concessions with the catholic Irishmen in the future.

But it was not mentioned abrogation of the Loi of Poyning, which fixed the Parlement of Ireland to that of England, not of suppression of the Protestant domination at the Parliament, not of cancellation of principal the plantations or the Colonisation in Ulster and to the Munster. Moreover, according to the articles of the treaty concerning the religion, all the churches taken again by the Catholics during the war were to be returned to the Protestants, and the public practice of Catholicism was not guaranteed.

In counterpart of the made concessions, Irish troops were to be sent in England to fight at the sides of the Royalistes in the English civil war. These terms were acceptable neither for the catholic clergy, neither for the Irish military commanders, in particular for Owen Roe O' Neill and Thomas Preston, nor for the majority of the General meeting. Rinuccini either did not join this treaty, which did not evoke the objects of its mission, and he persuaded nine of the Irish bishops to sign a denunciation of any arrangement with Ormonde or the king, which would not guarantee the maintenance of the Catholic religion.

Many thought that one could not make confidence at the Supreme council, since several of its members were parents of Ormonde or were related to him. Moreover, it became obvious that the English civil war turned in favor of the English Parliament, and that to send Irish troops in support of the royalists was an useless sacrifice. In addition, much had the feeling that after the victory of the army of Ulster, directed by O' Neill, over the Scot with the battle of Benburb, confederated were in position to reconquer all Ireland. In addition, all those which were opposed to the peace treaty were supported, as well spiritually as financially, by Rinuccini, which threatened to excommunicate the “party of peace”. The members of the Supreme council were stopped, and the General meeting voted the rejection of the agreement.

Military defeats and new peace treaty

After confederated had rejected the peace treaty, Ormonde delivered Dublin to the parliamentary army of Michael Jones. Confederated then tried to eliminate the last Protestant outposts in Dublin and Cork, but in 1647, they underwent a series of military disasters. First of all, the army of Leinster of Thomas Preston was destroyed by the members of Parliament of Jones to the battle of Dungans Hill. Then the confederated army of Munster undergoes the same fate vis-a-vis the British forces directed by Inchiquin with the battle of Knocknanauss.

These reverses returned confederated the more eager to lead to an agreement with the royalists, and the negotiations began again. The Supreme council obtained conditions more generous than previously on behalf of the king and of Ormonde, like the tolerance of the Catholic religion, an engagement to repeal the law of Poyning (and thus to grant the autonomy of Ireland), the recognition of the grounds taken by the catholic Irishmen during the war, and an engagement to cancel the Plantations partially. In addition, it was envisaged a Act off Oblivion , an amnesty, for all the acts made during the rebellion of 1641 and the Irish confederated Guerres, in particular the massacres of the Protestant British colonists of 1641, and the promise which the confederated armies would not be dissolved. However, Charles Ier had granted these provisions only in cause of despair, and besides he disavowed them later. According to the terms of this agreement, the Confederation owed autodissoudre, to place its men under the royalist command and to accept the royalist troops on its territory. Inchiquin, as for him, left the camp of the members of Parliament and joined the royalists in Ireland.

Civil war inside the Confederation

In spite of that, much of catholic Irishmen continued to refuse the agreement concluded with the royalists. Owen Roe O' Neill refused to join the new royalist alliance, and it fought against them and confederated during the summer 1648. The apostolic nuncio, Rinuccini, tried to defend O' Neill by excommunicating all those which would take share with the truce; but it could not convince the bishops on this point. February 23rd, 1649, it embarked with Galway on its clean frigate and turned over to Rome.

It was often marked that the scission in the rows of the Confederation corresponded to cleavage between the Irishmen gaelic and the “Old English”, suggesting that the first had lost much grounds and capacity since the English conquest of Ireland, making them radical in their requirements. There were however representatives of these two populations in each camp For example, Felim O' Neill, the Irishman Gaelic instigator of the rebellion of 1641, was side of moderate, whereas the south-Wexford, with prevalence “old man English” rejected the peace treaty. The catholic clergy itself was shared on this point.

Actually, the rupture existed between the land small holders who were ready with the compromise with the royalists since their grounds and their civic rights were guaranteed, and those which, like Owen Roe O' Neill, wanted to completely eliminate the British presence in Ireland. They wished catholic and independent Ireland, removed from final manner of the British colonists. Many combatants were especially interested to recover their ancestral grounds lost by their families at the time of the Plantations. After a not very conclusive war of skirmishes with confederated, Owen Roe O' Neill was withdrawn in Ulster, and joined his/her former comrades only at the time of the invasion of Cromwell in 1649. These internal conflicts obstructed the efforts of the coalition fatally royalist-confederated to push back the invasion of the New Model Army parliamentary.

The invasion of Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell invades Ireland in 1649 to crush the new alliance of confederated Irish and the royalists. The Conquête cromwellienne of Ireland was the bloodiest war which never occurred in the country, accompanied moreover by the Peste and the Famine. It was completed by the total defeat of the catholic Irishmen and the royalists. The majority of the principal members of the Confederation spent this period in exile in France, with the English royal Court. After the Restoration, those of confederated which had promoted an alliance with the royalists found in the good graces of the king and recovered their grounds. On the other hand, those which had remained in Ireland during the English Interrègne invariably had their confiscated grounds, and, in the majority of the cases, were carried out or off-set in penal colonies. The class of the Irish landowners of pre-war period was almost entirely destroyed at this period, as well as the institutions of the Catholic church.

Importance

The Irish Confederation was the only self government of Ireland which was maintained some time, before the foundation of the free State of Ireland in 1922. One can also say that it was an early example of State of a parliamentary type. However, confederated failed in their objective to defend the interests of the catholic Irishmen. The Irish confederated Wars and the conquest of Cromwell caused immense losses in human lives and were completed by the confiscation of almost all the grounds belonging to the catholic Irishmen. The end of this period cemented the British colonization of Ireland.

References

Random links: