Confederate Catholics of Ireland

Confederate Catholics of Ireland, sometimes referred to, after the title of a book by C. P. Meehan (1846), as the ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’, formed in the aftermath of the rising of 1641 to administer Catholic‐controlled parts of the country pending a final settlement. A meeting of lay and clerical leaders at Kilkenny on 7 June 1642 established a confederation of Irish Catholics bound together by an oath of association asserting their rights as subjects of Charles I. They set up a provisional executive and called an election by sending out writs in customary fashion. The first of nine general assemblies met at Robert Shee's house in Kilkenny on 14 October 1642. Lords and clergy sat together in the same chamber as the commons, who were mostly landowners, lawyers, and merchants. This mix of Old Irish, Old English, and some New English, debating in English, announced that they were not a parliament. The first assembly wound up by appointing a supreme council to run its affairs and by calling for similar councils at provincial and country level. The motto on the confederate seal of office read Pro Deo, Rege et Patria, Hibernia Unanimis (For God, King and Fatherland, Ireland united).

In the supreme council the Old English and lawyers had greater influence and, being based at Kilkenny, the Butler connection was strong. As a result Lord Mountgarrett (Ormond's grand uncle) and Richard Bellings were president and secretary respectively of the first five councils. They established four provincial army commands rather than a unified command, minted money, set up a printing press, collected taxes, and raised supplies. Agents were sent to foreign courts for money and arms but the confederation received only some £70,000 in aid. More success was achieved by issuing letters of marque to foreign mariners who protected Irish Catholic trade while attacking English shipping. Administratively the confederation was considered bureaucratic and as the end neared its tax demands became unbearable.

Major divisions emerged over the first Ormond peace in 1646. The ‘Ormondists’ on the supreme council, headed by Muskerry (see clancarty) and Bellings, proclaimed the peace. The clerical faction led by Rinuccini, the recently arrived papal nuncio, along with those affected by the plantations, wanted the full restoration of Catholicism. A middle group, led by Patrick Darcy, Bishop French, and Antrim, emerged from the majority on the supreme council to repudiate the treaty in favour of confederate unity. After Owen Roe O'Neill had staged a coup in support of the nuncio in September 1646, this middle grouping got the imprisoned Ormondists released and called a general assembly in January 1647. This rejected the treaty but exonerated its proponents, and altered the confederate oath to give itself the final say in any future such agreement. After the military defeats of 1647, the moderates tried to maintain unity by further strengthening the assembly's power over the executive. Although the Inchiquin truce broke the confedracy, the last‐ditch second Ormond peace subsequently gave the middle group much of what it wanted.

Bibliography

Ohlmeyer, Jane (ed.), Ireland from Independence to Occupation 1641–60 (1993)

Hiram Morgan