A 19th century poem, in the voice of a 1641 rebel, mentions Islandmagee and, implicitly, Portadown. Those who perished [says Mr. Gardiner] were for the most part those who were driven naked through the cold November nights amongst a population which refused them a scanty covering, or a morsel of food in their hour of trial. Within months of the outbreak of rebellion in October 1641, Protestant refugees began pouring into Dublin with tales of bloodshed and other cruelties. In the reign of Charles I, the 'whirlwind was reaped.' Modern research calculates the actual number of deaths to be 12,000 out of a total Protestant population in Ulster at the time of 40,000, a massacre by any scale even if some thousands of these occurred as a result of military combat rather than the slaughter of the defenceless. On the 30th of November, Ormonde wrote to the King, 'the rebels are in great numbers, for the most part merely armed with such weapons as would rather show them to be a tumultuary rabble, than an army.' This Rebellion is often spoken of as if English and Irish stood on a footing of perfect equality with reference to it. 'From the very beginning,' says Mr. Lecky, 'the English Parliament did the utmost in its power to give the contest the character of a war of extermination.' XVII, No. Their sole object was to drive out the settlers and to recover the lands. The Portadown massacre in late 1641 in which several hundred Protestants were killed. Well, these figures, can easily be disposed of. The pictures of the condition of Ireland at this time are as terrible as anything in human history. Says Clogy:—. But we do not hear that any of the refugees were killed. The actual rebellion of 1641 and the mass death of Protestants is still discussed and debated to this day. The Scots defended themselves bravely, but they were overpowered, and men, women, and children were mercilessly slaughtered. Memory of 1641. Related Internet Links. The children of the land were thrust forth to find what sustenance they could on the leavings of the intruders, and were debarred even the poor privilege of serving the new settlers for hire, lest they should be tempted to fall upon their masters unawares. The rector who accompanied them tells us what happened:—. In 1643, there was a cessation of hostilities. The Irish, apparently, desired to have no quarrel with them. The Speaker addressed the House of Commons in Irish; and his speech was translated into English by the Earl of Ormonde. They set out for Dublin. In response to such reports of violence, eight Protestant The actual rebellion of 1641 and the mass death of Protestants is still discussed and debated to this day. Irish sentiment was not wholly ignored, Irish views were more or less considered. But Bill Sykes must not come forward as the accusing angel. The 1641 Rebellion. . The English settlers were driven out, as the natives had been driven out thirty years before. There were festivities in his honour. No doubt fugitives were robbed, and sometimes killed by wandering bandits and starving and infuriated peasants; but, in the main, as Mr. Lecky says, 'there appears to have been no general attempt to destroy the fugitives.' The sheer volume of deaths associated with the 1641 rebellion is a contentious issue, not least because the number of Protestant fatalities was soon inflated to several hundreds of thousands by contemporary and subsequent Protestant writers. The 1641 rebellion remains a controversial event in Irish history. . The so-called 1641 rebellion actually lasted for almost ten years, spreading to other areas of Ireland when the native Irish of Ulster were joined in revolt by their Old English co-religionists. The Government [continues Mr. Lecky] believed that the one effectual policy for making Ireland useful to England was, in the words of Sir John Davies, to root out the Irish from the soil, to confiscate the property of the septs, and to plant the country systematically with English tenants. The English came as conquerors. There is another cause which has helped to "nail this particular lie to the mast" (as a member of the House of Commons once said). The 1641 rebellion remains a controversial event in Irish history. I am myself prepared to accept Mr. Lecky's statement of the case, that, 'probably by far the greater number of those who were represented as massacred died in this manner [driven from their homes in the winter nights] from cold, and want, and hardship. By 1641, Ireland faced several problems besides the guys living next door. He was absolutely at their mercy. Nevertheless, it is a curious fact, that, in this Commission there is no direction to inquire into the 'murders' committed by the Irish. The historiography of the 1641 rebellion has suffered from serious shortcomings. Seven thousand Irish were destroyed in that province by one disciplined English regiment, acting under the orders of an authoritative English commander, who manifestly gloried in his work. There were not 300,000 English in all Ireland in 1641. Publication date 1920 Topics Ireland -- History Rebellion of 1641, Ulster (Ire.) 449, May 1905]. When the 1641 rebels began seizing the property of settlers a number of massacres by settlers took place, including Islandmagee where the Catholics had not joined any rebellion. A second Commission was issued on the 18th of January, 1642, and 'murders' were included in it; but the fact that 'murders' were not included in the first seems to show that murders were not a prominent feature at the outbreak of the Rebellion. The outrages committed by the English were committed by disciplined armies, stimulated by authoritative commanders, and provoked or sanctioned by the English Government; 7. . Again they fought for their homes. The warfare of extermination was carried on in the North as well as in the South. 'I am persuaded,' he wrote to the Parliament from Drogheda, 'that this is a righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood.' The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was a result of Protestant plantations taking over Irish lands. Before them lay the gloomy and almost certain prospect of banishment from the land which remained to them [and] of the extirpation of the religion which was fast becoming the passion as well as the consolation of their lives. He continues:—. Lord Castlehaven says that 'orders were issued to the parties sent to every quarter to spare neither man, woman, nor child.'. The Portadown massacre in late 1641 in which several hundred Protestants were killed. 'Well would it have been both for England, and Ireland,' says Mr. Joyce, 'if a similar policy had been followed in the succeeding reigns.'. The policy of extermination and confiscation — the policy of 'stamping out the Irish,' as if, to use the language of Mr. Froude, they were of 'no more value than their own wolves' — was at once adopted, and rigorously enforced. Cromwell himself, in fact, took this view of the case. Northern Ireland has begun to grapple with the question of how to represent the 1641 rebellion to a new generation of visitors to 1641 massacre sites, including Portadown. Lord Caulfield was shot at Clongorth Castle by one of the 'rabble;' but O'Neil was absent at the time, and knew nothing of the business. A Catholic Archbishop fell into the hands of the English authorities, and before they sent him to the gallows they tortured him to extort a confession of treason by one of the most horrible torments human nature can endure — by roasting his feet with fire. 'The warfare which ensued,' says Mr. Richey, 'resembled that waged by the early settlers in America with the native tribes. Henry's English advisers in Ireland and in England urged him to give the Irish no terms. The Irish were not left in a position to make estimates; and the English writers cared not to reckon the number of 'wolves,' or 'worms' that were destroyed. The idea which, in the main, still exists in the English mind about the Rebellion of 1641 is, that it was a wanton massacre of the English settlers in Ulster having its origin in the murdering propensities of the Irish race. It is possible, indeed, that a people, in defending their own territory, may commit excesses; and for these excesses they must stand at the Bar of History. On the 24th of October, he issued a proclamation 'denouncing the penalty of death against any who committed outrages,' and declaring that the 'rising was not against the King,' but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves, and the Irish natives of this kingdom.' They did so to strengthen their hand in prospective negotiations with the king, Charles I, on issues relating to … In 1547, the Chiefs of Leix and Offaly were attacked. Henry refused to adopt this policy. But he was not only left unmolested, but he was allowed to protect the refugees who flocked to him from all quarters. O'Reilly captured Belturbet. The plot failed and several conspirators were arrested in Dublin. He was laid in the grave, according to his desire in his last will and testament, hard by his wife's coffin that had been buried there four years before. There is yet another matter on which I must touch by way of introduction. Mr. Lecky mentions the fact that 'numbers of Protestants were sheltered by the mother of Sir Phelim O'Neil;' and Mr. Walpole — an Englishman — in his history of Ireland, says:—. The 1641 Rebellion broke out in Ulster on 22 October and was marked by attacks on the English and Scottish Protestant settlers who had arrived in Ulster in the Ulster Plantation.The Gaelic Irish of the province, led by Sir Phelim O'Neill captured a string of defensive towns in county Armagh. Far different was the conduct of the great Irish leader, Owen Roe O'Neil. Why, the answer is obvious: What business had you in the house? Provoked by the 'accumulated wrongs and anomosities' of generations, the people rose against the foreign oppressors who had robbed them of their lands and planned the destruction of their race. To the Irish it seemed mercy enough when no actual blow was struck against the flying rout. The 1641 Depositions constitute the chief evidence for the sharply contested allegation that the 1641 rebellion began with a general massacre of Protestant settlers. The rebellion of 1641 and particularly the killings of Protestant civilians, was the justification for the Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland in 1649-53, ... the narrative that peaceful Protestants were the subject of an unprovoked and pre-planned massacre in 1641 still has emotional force in the context of sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland. The Irish — the O'Moores, the O'Lalors, the O'Kellys, the O'Donnellys — came with their retainers to the number of 200. He was treated with royal hospitality. 1641 Depositions. In reprisal the rebels massacred Protestants in Portadown and elsewhere. As the English had sown, so had they reaped. The 'wolves' on this occasion were the O'Neils of Clandeboy. What'… His lurid picture of the massacre in October 1641 is very much calculated to evoke such feelings as anger, hatred and indignation against the Catholic rebels. . The settlers were left to shift for themselves as the natives had been left to shift for themselves, the natives recovered their own. Behind them [says Mr. Lecky] lay the maddening recollections of the wars of Elizabeth, when their parents had been starved by thousands, when unresisting peasants, when women, when children, had been deliberately massacred, and when no quarter had been given to the prisoners. At last, as the mob swelled to larger dimensions, the guard was rushed, and the refugees plundered:—. The policy of wholesale extermination and confiscation (urged upon the King) was utterly repudiated. Added to this, the rise of a puritan dominated English portended the onset of religious persecution in Ireland. His first act was to send all the English prisoners whom he found in camp to Dundalk; his next to issue a proclamation condemning outrages, and making the awful threat that he would rather join the English than tolerate excesses. They were met by the English settlers — the Cosbeys, the Hovedens, the Hartpools. It had become clear beyond all doubt to the native population that the old scheme of rooting them out from the soil was the settled policy of the Government; that the land which remained to them was marked as a prey by hungry adventurers, by the refuse of the population of England and Scotland, by men who cared no more for their rights and happiness than they did for the rights and happiness of the worms which were severed by their own spades. The wrongs inflicted on Ireland had not been done by Scotland, but by England. This is a sentiment which we can all admire. In 1573, Smith sent his son to take possession of the territory and to drive out the 'wolves.' First it was said that 30,000 were 'murdered.' The Protestant settlers were being marched east from a prison camp at Loughgall. Of the other half who were Irish, there is not a particle of evidence to show that any of them were concerned in the Rebellion. Men hardly beyond middle life could remember the days when Mountjoy had harried Ulster, and when the sunken eye, and the pallid cheek of those who had been dearest to them had told too surely of the pitiless might of the Englishman. No intelligent person now attempts to justify Cromwell's operations in Ireland. Cromwell is a hated figure to the Irish memory. In response to such reports of violence, eight Protestant Whatever cruelties are to be charged upon the Irish in the prosecution of their undertaking — and they are numerous and horrid — yet their first intention went no further than to strip the English and Protestants of their power and possessions, and, unless forced to it by opposition, not to shed any blood. Some of the Irish priests, and Jesuits, were especially conspicuous for these acts of Christian mercy, hiding terrified suppliants under the altar cloths, and striving to stop the bloodshed at the risk of their own lives. 1. It is certain [says Mr. Lecky] that there was nothing resembling a massacre in the first days of the Rebellion. The question for the Irish was whether they should carry on the war to the bitter end, or, being worsted in the field, accept honourable terms of peace. The native population was driven from the rich lands to the poor, and English and Scotch tenants were imported instead. The Rebellion broke out after ninety years of untold wrongs and miseries inflicted on the native race; 2. Instead of showing him quietly to the door, you seize him neck and crop, pitch him into the street, and fracture his skull. The land that was a little before like a garden of Eden was speedily turned into a desolate wilderness. 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