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OLIVER CROMWELL AND THE ‘CROMWELLIAN’ SETTLEMENT OF IRELAND*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2010

JOHN CUNNINGHAM
JOHN CUNNINGHAM*
Affiliation:
National University of Ireland, Galway
*
The Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Irelandjfacunningham@gmail.com
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Abstract

Oliver Cromwell remains a deeply controversial figure in Ireland. In the past decade, his role in the conquest has received sustained attention. However, in recent scholarship on the settlement of Ireland in the 1650s, he has enjoyed a peculiarly low profile. This trend has served to compound the interpretative problems relating to Cromwell and Ireland which stem in part from the traditional denominational divide in Irish historiography. This article offers a reappraisal of Cromwell's role in designing and implementing the far-reaching ‘Cromwellian’ land settlement. It examines the evidence relating to his dealings with Irish people, both Protestant and Catholic, and his attitude towards the enormous difficulties which they faced post-conquest. While the massacre at Drogheda in 1649 remains a blot on his reputation, in the 1650s Cromwell in fact emerged as an important and effective ally for Irish landowners seeking to defeat the punitive confiscation and transplantation policies approved by the Westminster parliament and favoured by the Dublin government.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 919 - 937
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

I would like to acknowledge funding received for this research as an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Postgraduate Scholar and the support provided by the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies. I am also grateful to Professor Nicholas Canny for his comments on an earlier draft of the article.

References

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10 Morrill, ‘The Drogheda massacre’, p. 265. My italics.

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40 Firth and Rait, eds., Acts and ordinances, ii, pp. 1015–16.

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44 Further instructions unto Charles Fleetwood esq., lieutenant general of the horse, Miles Corbet esq., and John Jones esq. (London, 1653).

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46 Oliver Cromwell to the commissioners of parliament, Whitehall, 29 Mar. 1654, in Dunlop, ed., Ireland under the commonwealth, ii. p. 414.

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48 Extract of a petition from persons, evidently Old English proprietors of rank, in McNeill, Charles, ‘Report on the Rawlinson collection of manuscripts’, Analecta Hibernica, 1, (1930), pp. 12–178Google Scholar, at p. 20.

49 Charles Fleetwood to John Thurloe, Dublin, 2 June 1654, in Thomas Birch, ed., A collection of the state papers of John Thurloe (7 vols., London, 1742), ii, p. 343.

50 Ibid.

51 Peter Talbot to the bishop of Clonmacnoise, Antwerp, 3 July 1654, in Patrick Moran, Historical sketch of the persecutions suffered by the Catholics of Ireland under the rule of Cromwell and the puritans (2nd edn, Dublin, 1884), pp. 297–8.

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54 Order of the council of state for the release of Nicholas Netterville, taken in the late general search, 25 July 1654, in Calendar of State Papers (CSP) Domestic: Interregnum, 1654, p. 263.

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57 The state of the case touching the manor of Merrion, ibid., fos. 252–8; report on the case of Oliver Fitzwilliam of Merrion, 6 Apr. 1654, ibid., fos. 299–312.

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62 Ibid.; Richard Bellings to Ormond, 18 Feb. 1651, in J. T. Gilbert, ed., History of the confederation and war in Ireland, 1641–1649 (7 vols., Dublin, 1882–91), vii, pp. 362–7.

63 Ordinance of the lord protector for John Grace, 30 Aug. 1654, in Shaw Mason, A statistical account, iii, pp. 585–6.

64 Henry Lawrence to the Irish council, Whitehall, 21 Dec. 1655, in ibid., pp. 587; ibid., p. 588; Oliver Cromwell to Charles Fleetwood, Whitehall, 9 Aug. 1655, in Sheffield Grace, Memoirs of the family of Grace (London, 1827), p. 39.

65 Instructions to the lord deputy and council, 17 Aug. 1654, in Dunlop, ed., Ireland under the commonwealth, ii, p. 442.

66 Order concerning the Kilkenny articles, 30 Nov. 1654, in ibid., pp. 462–3.

67 Speech of Oliver Cromwell, 3 Sept. 1654, in Lomas, ed., Letters and speeches, ii, p. 359.

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69 The great case of transplantation in Ireland discussed (London, 1655).

70 Charles Fleetwood to John Thurloe, Dublin, 7 Feb. 1655, Thurloe state papers, iii, p. 139.

71 Ibid.

72 Letter from Dublin, 6 Feb. 1655, in Mercurius Politicus, 15 Feb.–22 Feb. 1655, pp. 5,136–7; Charles Fleetwood to John Thurloe, Dublin, 7 Feb. 1655, Thurloe state papers, iii, p. 139.

73 Charles Fleetwood to John Thurloe, 28 Feb. 1655, in Thurloe state papers, iii, p. 183.

74 Ibid.

75 Charles Fleetwood to John Thurloe, 5 Mar. 1655, in ibid., p. 196.

76 Order of the lord deputy and council concerning the Leinster officers, Dublin, 3 Apr. 1655, NLI, Bellew of Mountbellew papers, MS 31,966.

77 Order of the lord protector on the humble petition of the inhabitants of the Towne of Fethard, Whitehall, 7 Aug. 1655, NLI, D 7,404.

78 Order on the petition of Nicholas Barnewall, 5 Apr. 1655, King's Inns Library (KIL), Prendergast MS 1, p. 260; order on the case of Lady Frances Butler, 20 July 1658, KIL, Prendergast MS 2, pp. 682–4; order on the case of John Prendergast and Widow Brookes, 2 May 1654, ibid.; letter of the lord protector on behalf of Viscount Ikerrin, 27 Feb. 1656, ibid., p. 479; letter of the lord protector on behalf of Thomas Walsh, 15 July 1656, ibid., pp. 481–2; letter of the lord protector on behalf of Edmund Plunkett, 21 Oct. 1656, ibid., p. 482; letter of the lord protector on behalf of Mr. Prendergast, 4 July 1657, ibid., p. 491.

79 Prendergast, Cromwellian settlement, pp. 116–17; W. F. T. Butler, Confiscation in Irish history (Dublin, 1917), pp. 138–9; Pádraig Lenihan, Consolidating conquest: Ireland, 1603–1727 (Harlow, 2008), p. 140.

80 Cunningham, ‘The transplantation to Connacht, 1641–1680’, pp. 224–5.

81 Further instructions unto Charles Fleetwood esq., lieutenant general of the horse, Miles Corbet esq., and John Jones esq., pp. 25–6.

82 Letter of the lord protector on behalf of Lord Courcy, Whitehall, 26 Apr. 1655, in Lomas, ed., Letters and speeches, iii, p. 465.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 Patrick Adair, A true narrative of the rise and progress of the presbyterian church in Ireland (Belfast, 1866), pp. 201–2.

86 James Seaton Reid, The history of the presbyterian church in Ireland (3 vols., London, 1834–51), ii, p. 275; Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland, passim; Moran, Historical sketch of the persecutions, passim.

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