1641 — 1652

Confederate Ireland & Cromwell

The rising of 1641 turns into eleven years of war, fought four ways: Confederate Catholics, English royalists, English parliamentarians, and a Scots army in Ulster. From 1642 most of the country is governed from Kilkenny by the Catholic Confederation. Then Cromwell lands in 1649. Drogheda, Wexford, and a conquest that ends in the mass confiscation of land.

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📜 The chronicle — events of this age
1641
The 1641 Rising
Ulster explodes; massacre and counter-massacre begin eleven years of war.
1642
Confederation of Kilkenny
Catholic Ireland forms its own government, mint and army; Owen Roe O'Neill returns from Spain.
1646
Battle of Benburb
Owen Roe annihilates Monro's Scots army on the Blackwater.
1649
Cromwell at Drogheda
The storm of Drogheda and Wexford opens the most bitter conquest in Irish memory.
1652
Act of Settlement
Mass confiscation: Catholic landowners are ordered west — 'to Hell or to Connacht'.
Quick answers
When was Confederate Ireland & Cromwell in Ireland?

Confederate Ireland & Cromwell spans 1641 to 1652 in this atlas. The rising of 1641 turns into eleven years of war, fought four ways: Confederate Catholics, English royalists, English parliamentarians, and a Scots army in Ulster.

Who ruled Ireland during Confederate Ireland & Cromwell?

Power was divided: Confederate Ireland (28 counties); English Parliament garrisons (2 counties); Scottish Covenanter army (2 counties). County boundaries are modern approximations.

What is a lesser-known fact about Confederate Ireland & Cromwell?

For seven years Kilkenny was effectively the capital of an independent Catholic Ireland, with its own parliament, mint, printing press and ambassadors from Rome, Spain and France — a fact quietly absent from most schoolbooks.

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