Oliver Cromwell was born in England to a family in the lower gentry. When the English Civil War broke out, he organized a company of cavalry to fight with the Parliamentarians. He fought in many of the major battles of the war and quickly rose in rank. By the time that King Charles I surrendered in 1646, Oliver Cromwell was serving as second in command to Thomas Fairfax.
The Confederate War
In 1641, the Irish in Ulster rebelled against the English landowners, sparking a rising across the country. This rising quickly grew into a full scale war between the Irish and Old English of the Catholic Confederacy and the Protestant New English. This confusing struggle continued with little interference from England while it was in the grips of the Civil War. However, with the execution of King Charles, the English Parliament turned its eyes to Ireland. In 1649 it organized an expedition led by Oliver Cromwell to subdue Ireland.
Drogheda, September 11, 1649
Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland with 8,000 infantry; 4,000 cavalry, and a huge train of artillery. Bloodied in the Civil War, this New Model Army was the best army in Europe at the time and more than a match for any Irish force. Still, Cromwell decided he would have to act fast to keep the Catholic Irish and the Royalist English forces in Ireland from joining together. Cromwell marched his army to Drogheda, a walled town near the mouth of the river Boyne. Cromwell called upon the leader of the town to surrender, but when he refused, Cromwell unleashed his artillery. For three days the great guns battered at the walls of Drogheda until a large breach had been torn in the defences. On September 11, 1649 the English army poured through the walls and slaughtered all they found. Nearly 3,500 people died at Drogheda, a town that only contained 2,000 soldiers. Although such slaughter was not unusual in warfare at this time, it left a deep scar on the Irish psyche.
Wexford, October 11, 1649
A month after the destruction of Drogheda, the act was repeated at Wexford. This time, the city had agreed to talk about surrender, but during the negotiations, the English soldiers found a way to sneak over the walls. Again, the victory was accompanied by a great massacre.
Cromwell’s Irish Legacy
Oliver Cromwell showed little remorse for his actions in Ireland and later justified the massacres as righteous retribution for the crimes the Irish had committed during the 1641 rising.
Source:
The Oxford Companion to Irish History, Ed. S J Connolly, Oxford University Press, 1998.
Joseph Allen McCullough - Joseph A. McCullough was born in the town of Greensboro, NC, site of the Battle of Guildford Courthouse. In 1994, he graduated from the ...
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