Confederate War (1641–53), also known as the Irish Civil War, the War of the Confederation, and the Eleven Years War. Developing out of the
rising of 1641, it was part of the ‘general crisis’ of the mid‐17th century, which saw subjects and subject peoples in revolt against absolutist monarchies, with religion often as a complicating or overriding factor. The civil wars in Britain 1642–51 (with which the Confederate War was linked in ‘the War of the Three Kingdoms’), and the Thirty Years War 1618–48 (which kept continental powers otherwise occupied), were crucial determinants of the outcome of the Irish struggle.
In December 1641 an alliance between the Ulster Irish and the
Old English of the
Pale saw a general Catholic rising across the country, culminating in the formulation of political demands, and an outline plan for a provisional civil administration, in March 1642. By this time the state and settler interest had regrouped. The sieges of Drogheda and Cork were raised and
Ormond defeated insurgents at Kilrush, Co. Kildare (15 Apr. 1642); a Scottish army landed at
Carrickfergus under Robert Munroe, beating off Sir Phelim
O'Neill and taking Newry. The Pale, east Ulster, and south Munster had been secured for the king, but the outbreak of war between king and parliament in England left royalists in Ireland undersupplied, underpaid, and on the defensive. Meanwhile the insurgents had organized themselves into the
Confederate Catholics of Ireland with an administrative centre at Kilkenny in order to secure law and order in their own areas, to galvanize their war effort, and to negotiate an advantageous resolution to the conflict. Owen Roe
O'Neill and Thomas
Preston, experienced generals, returned from continental exile with veteran soldiers and began training the confederate army.
The English Civil War forced parliament into alliance with the Scots and the king into negotiation with the Confederate Catholics. Ormond opened negotiations in June 1643 and a ceasefire came into operation in September. This allowed him to send the king 5,000 troops but divided the Protestants in Ireland, leaving Munro to fight separately in Ulster and leading to the subsequent defection to parliament of
Inchiquin in Munster and
Coote in Connacht. The confederates gained only limited political recognition from the truce while squandering their military potential. They failed to send Montrose, the royalist commander in Scotland, enough military aid to force Munroe's withdrawal from Ulster and then annoyed their best generals by making the earl of Castlehaven, a political appointee, overall commander. Their scope for action was, however, limited by a shortage of cash to pay troops. With rents and revenue already hit by the 1641 rebellion, the outbreak of the English Civil War and the activities of the parliamentary navy reduced exports to a trickle. The ceasefire enabled a limited trade recovery but not enough to facilitate full‐scale war.
The greatest confederate military success coincided with the breakdown of peace negotiations with the king. In 1646 a secret peace negotiated by the earl of Glamorgan was repudiated by the royalists and the first
Ormond peace by the confederates. Buoyed up with money brought from Rome by Rinuccini, O'Neill won a crushing victory over Munroe at
Benburb and Preston took Roscommon, but their successes were not followed up and they signally failed to co‐operate in a joint campaign against Dublin. The two generals had their equivalents at sea in the 40 to 50 confederate privateers who, in spite of considerable individual success, never managed the concerted strategy worthy of a navy. On 19 June 1647 Ormond handed Dublin over to the parliamentary command of Michael Jones. Jones in Leinster and Inchiquin in Munster went on the offensive, winning decisive victories over Preston at
Dungan's Hill and over the Munster army at Knocknanuss, Co. Cork (13 Nov. 1647), until their supplies dried up as a result of the recommencement of the English Civil War. O'Neil now detached himself from the confederacy over its truce with the Protestant Inchiquin.
Confederate coffers were empty and the economy at a standstill as famine in 1648 and then plague in 1649 ravaged the country. With Charles I condemned to execution and
Cromwell readying the New Model Army, the confederates and royalists concluded the second Ormond peace in January 1649. Ormond's assault on Dublin was defeated at
Rathmines and
Drogheda and Wexford had already fallen by the time he and O'Neill belatedly patched up their differences. The parliamentarians under Cromwell and later
Ireton and Ludlow made a steady advance across Ireland, facilitated by continuous resupply, naval control of the coasts, and artillery that battered down obstructing fortifications. During 1650 they won victories at Macroom, Co. Cork (10 Apr.), and Scarrifhollis, Co. Donegal (21 June). They gained Limerick in October 1651 and Galway in April 1652, by which time their occupying forces amounted to 30,000 men. Only in its dying embers did the Irish Catholic struggle receive foreign support, and then it was the desultory interest of a minor princeling, the duke of Lorraine.
More generally, the confederate‐royalist cause failed due to a narrow economic base, weak leadership, and religious divisions. The divisions were carried into exile and showed up in the differing histories of the confederacy by Bellings and
Lynch on the one hand and O'Ferrall and O'Connor (see
rinuccini) on the other. The country itself was left devastated—rent and population levels did not regain pre‐war levels until the 1670s.
Bibliography
Ohlmeyer, Jane (ed.), Ireland from Independence to Occupation, 1641–60 (1995)
Hiram Morgan
