Irish Rebellion (1641)

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 ( Irish Éirí Amach 1641 , English Irish Rebellion of 1641 ) began with an attempted coup d'état by the Irish Catholic nobility against the English administration, but quickly developed into a bloody battle between native ( Catholic ) Irish and Irish English or Scottish ( Protestant ) settlers. The uprising was sparked by the Irish fear of an impending invasion of Ireland by anti-Catholic forces of the Long Parliament or Scottish Covenanters and is considered part of the Irish Confederation Wars .

The rebellion broke out in October 1641, followed by several months of violence, before in the summer of 1642 the upper class and clergy formed the Confederation of Ireland , a de facto government of Ireland.

Reasons for the rebellion

The roots of the 1641 rebellion lie in the failure of the English state in Ireland to win over the Gaelic nobles. The pre- Elizabethan Irish population is usually divided into two groups: the "Old Irish" (ie the Gaelic Irish) and the "Old English", the descendants of the Norman settlers in Ireland. Both groups are historically opposed; the mainly English-populated areas around Dublin (" The Pale "), in South Wexford and other fortified cities on the one hand, and the Gaelic clans, which are more in rural areas, on the other.

But in the 17th century the cultural differences between the two groups, especially in the upper social classes, had become smaller. For example, many of the Old English Lords not only spoke the Irish language but were also deeply attached to Irish poetry and music, which led to the term Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis - more Irish than the Irish themselves . The interfaith marriage , at the same time almost always a cross-cultural marriage was common and as a result of the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland early 17th century, the population was therefore rather divided according to their faith: the Roman Catholic faith of the native Irish against the Protestantism of the British settlers and the British Government in Ireland. The Catholic Irish felt more and more threatened and discriminated against .

The plantations

The conquest of Ireland by England in the 16th and early 17th centuries was accompanied by the so-called Plantations , i.e. large-scale land expropriations by Irish landowners with the aim of settling English and Scottish settlers. The conditions of these plantations, especially in Ulster, were very strict, so that the local population was not allowed to own or rent land in these areas. Furthermore, they were not allowed to work on the settlers' lands. This led to the disappearance of once powerful families such as the O'Neills and the O'Donnells ( see also: Flight of the Counts ). Many Irish refugees who went into exile joined the Catholic mercenary armies of Spain and France and a militant stance developed against the British government in Ireland.

The question of religion

Many of the upper Irish classes were ideologically not averse to the sovereignty of the English king over Ireland, but did not want to lose their status within society. This, however, was very jeopardized by two facts: their religious ancestry and the expansion of the plantations. Protestantism was the official religion of the three kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland. All medieval cathedrals and parish churches were owned by the Anglican Church of Ireland . Failure to attend church was punished with fines and openly practicing another religion was even punished with imprisonment. Catholics were not allowed to hold state offices or serve in the military. The Irish State Council was dominated by English Protestants (and thus settlers) and Parliament was subordinated to the English Parliament through Poynings' Law . Through this Parliament, which tried to expropriate more and more land from the Irish landowners by not recognizing the Irish titles of nobility, the Irish Catholics finally turned to the English King (first James I , then Charles I. ). There were some agreements that complied with the demands of the Irish, but after the payment of the higher taxes (promised in return) the recognition of the religion was repeatedly postponed. In the late 1630s, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (the representative of Charles I in Ireland) threatened to carry out further expropriations in order to further weaken the upper class. It is likely that this threat would have led to armed resistance anyway, but the rebellion was fueled by the destabilization of British politics.

conspiracy

In 1640, Scotland rebelled against the religious policies of Charles I, fearing the same fate for Ireland. The King's attempt to get the so-called Episcopal Wars under control failed when the Long Parliament did not approve the increase in taxes to support the army. Charles I then negotiated with the Irish Catholics, who helped him through soldiers to bring the rebellion in Scotland under control. For the Scots and the English parliament, Charles I was now considered a tyrant who tried to rule without parliament. In early 1641 the Scots and parliament threatened to invade Ireland and finally subjugate Catholicism. Fearing this invasion, a small group of Catholic rebels (among them Felim O'Neill and Rory O'Moore ) planned to take over Dublin and other important cities (e.g. Derry ) on behalf of the English king.

Economic factors also favored the outbreak of the rebellion, as the Irish economy was in recession and the harvest was poor in 1641, but at the same time the rent continued to rise.

The rebellion

The rebels who wanted to carry out the coup consisted mainly of Irish landowners from Ulster, which was hardest hit by the Plantations. Hugh Oge MacMahon and Connor Maguire belonged to the unit that should take Dublin Castle , the group of Rory O'Moore and Phelim O'Neill should become active in the north and conquer Derry, among other things.

The plan, which was to be carried out on October 23, 1641, was based on the use of surprise rather than military strength. It was hoped for broad support from the population. But the plan (a possible non-violent takeover of power) already failed when the authorities in Dublin learned of the plan from an informant (Owen O'Connolly, who had converted to Protestantism) and had Maguire and MacMahon arrested. O'Neill was able to take some forts in the meantime , claiming to be acting in the name of the king. But the situation got out of hand, as the authorities in Dublin suspected that it was a general uprising by the Irish Catholic people who wanted to massacre British and Protestant settlers. Commanders like Sir Charles Coote and William St Leger (both Protestant settlers) were sent to bring the population back under control, which, however, led to attacks against Irish civilians.

In the meantime, the collapse of state authority in Ulster also led to attacks by Irish residents on English and Scottish settlers. Phelim O'Neill and the other insurgent leaders tried to prevent these attacks, but they did not get against the ethnically motivated rural population, who had been oppressed for decades. Over the next few months, violence spread across the island. Many Irish lords who had lost land or feared expropriation joined the rebellion and helped in the attacks on Protestant settlers.

Blood baths

The number of Protestants killed in these early months of the rebellion is controversial. Parliamentary pamphlets from this period speak of over 100,000 settlers believed to have lost their lives - but recent research strongly suggests that the actual number is much lower. It is believed that up to 12,000 Protestants were killed throughout the rebellion - most of whom died from the cold or from disease after being evicted from their homes in the middle of winter.

The longer the rebellion lasted, the more violent the attacks became. Where at first there was only beating and robbery, houses later burned and in the end there was murder - especially in Ulster. The worst incident occurred in Portadown , where its Protestant residents were rounded up and massacred on the city's bridge. The latest findings show that in County Armagh alone around 1,250 Protestants were murdered in the first months of the rebellion - that was a quarter of the Protestant population.

The bitterness these acts sparked ran deep - Ulster Protestants still commemorated the anniversary of the rebellion (October 23) two hundred years later. Images of these atrocities can still be found today on the banner of the Orange Order . Even today, many see the acts of that time as an example of genocide . Modern historians emphasize that the 1641 rebellion left an overwhelming psychological impact on Protestant settlers. While relations between Protestants and Catholics improved before the rebellion, there was no trust in each other after the rebellion. On the contrary, many settlers took revenge on the Catholic Irish just as violently when given the opportunity. Mass executions of Irish civilians and prisoners took place in 1641/1642 in the forests of Kilwarlin (near the city of Newry ), on Rathlin Island and near Strabane . The English Parliament also contributed to this escalation by ordering all Irish prisoners to be killed. The events of the rebellion for the first time effectively separated Ireland into two faith-dependent camps - a separation that still exists in Northern Ireland today.

The widespread killing of civilians could not be contained to some extent until 1642 when Owen Roe O'Neill took over the leadership of the Irish troops in Ulster and left some rebels hanging for attacks on the civilian population. After that, the fighting was still brutal, but within the framework of military rules and avoiding civilian losses - a fact that both O'Neill and the Scottish commander Robert Munro had learned in Europe.

literature

Nicholas Canny: Making Ireland British. 1580-1650. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2001, ISBN 0-19-820091-9 .
John Kenyon, Jane Ohlmeyer, (Eds.): The Civil Wars. A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638-1660. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-866222-X .
Pádraig Lenihan: Confederate Catholics at War, 1641–49. Cork University Press, Cork et al. 2001, ISBN 1-85918-244-5 .
Michéal Ó Siochrú: Confederate Ireland 1642–1649. Four Courts Press, Dublin 1999, ISBN 1-85182-400-6 .