Oliver Cromwell, who landed in Ireland in 1649 to re-conquer the country on behalf of the English Parliament. He left in 1650, having taken eastern and southern Ireland, passing his command to Henry Ireton.
Date
15 August 1649 – 27 September 1653
Location
Ireland
Result
English Parliamentarian victory
English Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland
End of the Irish Catholic Confederation
Destruction of the Irish Catholic landed gentry
Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652
Belligerents
Irish Catholic Confederation
English Royalists
English Parliamentarian
New Model Army
Protestant colonists
Commanders and leaders
James Butler, Marquess of Ormonde (Aug. 1649 – Dec. 1650) Ulick Burke, Earl of Clanricarde (Dec. 1650 – Apr. 1653)
Oliver Cromwell (Aug. 1649 – May 1650) Henry Ireton (May 1650 – Nov. 1651) Charles Fleetwood (Nov. 1651 – Apr. 1653)
Strength
Up to 60,000 incl. guerrilla fighters, but only around 20,000 at any one time
~30,000 New Model Army troops, ~10,000 troops raised in Ireland or based there before campaign
Casualties and losses
Unknown; 15,000–20,000 battlefield casualties
~50,000 deported as indentured labourers[1][2]
8,000 New Model Army soldiers killed, ~7,000 locally raised soldiers killed
200,000–600,000 civilian casualties (from war-related violence, famine or disease)[3]
v
t
e
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
Bishops' Wars • Irish Confederate Wars • First English Civil War • Second English Civil War • Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms • Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
v
t
e
Irish Confederate Warsor Eleven Years' War
Timeline
1641–42 Irish Rebellion
Portadown
1st Drogheda
Julianstown
Kilrush
1642–49
1st Limerick
Glenmaquin
1st Galway
Liscarroll
New Ross
Cloghleagh
Clones
Portlester
Duncannon
Benburb
Dungan's Hill
Cashel
Knocknanuss
Dublin
Rathmines
1649–53 Cromwellian Conquest
2nd Drogheda
Wexford
Arklow
Waterford
Lisnagarvey
Kilkenny
Clonmel
Macroom
Tecroghan
Scarrifholis
Charlemont
Meelick Island
2nd Limerick
Knocknaclashy
2nd Galway
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland or Cromwellian war in Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell invaded Ireland with the New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in August 1649.
Following the Irish Rebellion of 1641 against King Charles I, most of Ireland came under the control of the Irish Catholic Confederation. In early 1649, the Confederates allied with the English Royalists, who had been defeated by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War. By May 1652, Cromwell's Parliamentarian army had defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, ending the Irish Confederate Wars (or Eleven Years' War). However, guerrilla warfare continued for a further year. As punishment for the rebellion of 1641, Parliament passed more Penal Laws against Roman Catholics (the majority of the population) and confiscated large amounts of their land, which was given to former Parliamentarian soldiers. It is a myth that the Catholic landowners were all transplanted to Connacht. The Act of Settlement 1652 formalised the change in land ownership. Catholics were barred from the Irish Parliament altogether, forbidden to live in towns and from marrying Protestants.
The Parliamentarian struggle with Royalists was brutal and in Nationalist ideology, Cromwell became a reviled figure in Ireland.[4] The extent to which Cromwell, who was in direct command for the first year of the campaign, was responsible for the atrocities is debated to this day. Some authors[5] have argued that the actions of Cromwell were within what many empires at the time viewed as accepted rules of war, while many academic historians disagree.[6]
The impact of the war on the Irish population was unquestionably severe and although there is no consensus as to the magnitude of the loss of life, most modern estimates generally fall in between 15 and 50% of the native population. The war resulted in famine,[7][8][9][10] which was worsened by an outbreak of bubonic plague. Older estimates of the drop in the Irish population resulting from the Parliamentarian campaign reach as high as 83 percent.[11] The Parliamentarians also transported about 50,000 people as indentured labourers to the English colonies in North America and the Caribbean.[1] Some estimates cover population losses over the course of the Conquest Period (1649–52) only,[12] while others cover the period of the Conquest to 1653 and the period of the Cromwellian Settlement from August 1652 to 1659 together.
^ abO'Callaghan 2000, p. 85.
^Higman 1997, pp. 107, 108.
^Mícheál Ó Siochrú/RTÉ ONE, Cromwell in Ireland Part 2. Broadcast 16 September 2008.
^"Of all these doings in Cromwell's Irish Chapter, each of us may say what he will. Yet to everyone it will at least be intelligible how his name came to be hated in the tenacious heart of Ireland". John Morley, Biography of Oliver Cromwell. Page 298. 1900 and 2001. ISBN 978-1-4212-6707-4.; "Cromwell is still a hate figure in Ireland today because of the brutal effectiveness of his campaigns in Ireland, although from the Irish perspective, the destruction of churches in England, and similiar religious oppression in Englisd, is rarely mentioned. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) British National Archives web site. Accessed March 2007; "1649-52: Cromwell's conquest of Ireland". Archived from the original on 11 December 2004. Retrieved 17 January 2006. From a history site dedicated to the English Civil War. "... making Cromwell's name into one of the most hated in Irish history". Accessed March 2007. Site currently offline. WayBack Machine holds archive here
^Philip McKeiver in his, 2007, A New History of Cromwell's Irish Campaign ISBN 978-0-9554663-0-4 and Tom Reilly, 1999, Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy ISBN 0-86322-250-1
^Coyle, Eugene (Winter 1999). "Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy, Tom Reilly [review of]". Book Reviews. History Ireland. 7 (4). Retrieved 10 October 2014.
^Prendergast, John Patrick (2 January 1868). The Cromwellian settlement of Ireland. P.M. Haverty – via Internet Archive.
^"Inventory of Conflict and Environment (ICE), Cromwell's Famine". mandalaprojects.com.
^"Historical Context - The Down Survey Project". downsurvey.tcd.ie.
^Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War (2001) p112, 'As late as 1650, provisions were cheaper in Ireland than in England; the famine of 1651 onwards was a man made response to stubborn guerrilla warfare. Collective reprisals against the civilian population included forcing them out of designated no man's lands and the systematic destruction of foodstuffs'.
^15–25%
Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War, p112
50%:
The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Redcliffe N. Salaman, Edited by JG Hawkes, 9780521316231, Cambridge University Press
How many died during Cromwell’s campaign?
83%:
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland by John Patrick Prendergast
^"Down Survey". Trinity College Dublin Department of History. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
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Global Information
English Royalists
Oliver Cromwell (Aug. 1649 – May 1650)