CROMWELL

Although he was present in Ireland for less than a year, and exercised control over the island for less than a decade, Cromwell made an impact on Irish society and history that has had few rivals. To the present he remains a figure of dread and tyranny, having the same ominous significance to the Irish that Hitler would have for the Jews of Europe. Even after his system was replaced and the monarchy restored in England and Ireland, the permanent social upheaval he imposed remained until the 20th century, for he guaranteed that the property and political power in Ireland would be in the hands of the "New English."

Within a few weeks of his arrival, Cromwell's army laid siege to the royalist position in Drogheda. The entire garrison, mainly royalists and high church Protestants, was slaughtered, as were any Catholic priests who were found and many among the civilian population. Fired by ideological zeal, directed partic-

Ularly at Roman Catholicism and at Irish rebels, Cromwell regarded the massacre as an act of divine retribution. At this point O'Neill and Ormond finally formed an alliance, but it was much too late, as O'Neill died a few weeks after, and Cromwellian forces gained dominance in most of Ulster. Cromwell himself moved south, taking Wexford, New Ross, Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, Kilkenny, and Clonmel over the next few months. On May 26, 1650, Cromwell left Ireland, leaving what would amount to a mopping-up operation in the hands of his son-in-law, Henry Ireton. Resistance of one sort or another persisted until the summer of 1652, although Ormond left Ireland in December 1650. Waterford surrendered in August of that year; Limerick, after a long siege, in October 1651; and Galway in May 1652. Many of the defeated soldiers retreated into the countryside and became guerrilla warriors, playing a "Robin Hood" role that would be invoked by later popular irregular forces in Irish history. Ironically, the nickname given to these "outlaws" by the authorities was "Tory," a name later associated with the "King's Friends" in England and to this day with the British Conservative Party. To inhibit a rebel presence as much as possible, the Cromwellian forces allowed many of those who had surrendered to leave the island and accept service in the armies of other nations. However, as will be seen, the treatment accorded the rest of the population, especially the Catholic landowners, was not as generous.

Ireton, who directed the military conquest, had been made lord deputy. For the civilian governance of the island four commissioners were appointed. Their main task in a land devastated by a decade of continuous warfare, undergoing famine in many areas and completely devoid of the structures of law and order, was to propagate the gospel, suppress popery, advance education, inquire about law enforcement, and secure public revenue. They eventually divided the country into a dozen regions under command of military governors, who imposed orders, raised revenues, and appointed preaching ministers. When Ireton died in 1651, the offices of lord lieutenant and lord deputy were abolished and the commissioners assumed full authority. However, by 1654 the Lord Deputyship was reestablished as Charles Fleetwood, the then military commander in Ireland, was appointed and the commissioners were replaced with a council.

The ultimate goal of the conquerors was plantation of the entire island with a thorough colonization. The drastic reduction of the population by almost a third because of the destruction and turmoil had created an opportunity to achieve this. The main instrument for plantation was an Act of Settlement passed by the English parliament in August 1652. This act would fulfill the Adventurers' Act of a decade earlier, which had allowed for private financing of the army of the parliamentary cause. Now the supporters were to be reimbursed with land seized in Ireland. Not only were the investors in the army to be reimbursed, but the soldiers had to be compensated as well. Lands that would be left would be available for the government's purposes. William Petty played a major role in the complicated process of determining what property was to be taken and how it was to be allocated, as he produced "the Down survey" of Ireland, the first scientific mapping of the island. He would be rewarded with substantial land himself in Munster, and his descendants would be elevated as the earl of Shelburne and later the marquis of Lansdowne.

Cromwell besieges and takes Drogheda, 1649. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

The property of all who had taken part in, assisted, or supported the rebellion, that is, those who had supported either the Confederates or the Royalists in the decade long war, was to be seized. Certain named individuals, such as Ormond, were subject to execution and ineligible for pardon, as was anyone active before November 10, 1642, when the Confederation of Kilkenny was formed. Others might be pardoned, but they would lose their lands, although they could be compensated with a proportionate share of seized land being made available in Clare or Connacht. Any Catholic landowner, even if a nonparticipant in the war, would receive similar treatment. Naturally, those who were landless laborers, probably the vast majority, and certain specified skilled workers essential for the working of the lands, were exempt from this expulsion process. On the other hand, certain tenants and servants of the dispossessed preferred to follow their old masters to Connacht. The total amount of landowners punished was about 3,000, and probably about 45,000 actually moved. The bulk of the population remained in place, although a certain number, particularly those apprehended as vagrants or beggars, were subject to transportation in various degrees of indenture or servitude to America or to the West Indies.

The effect of the Cromwellian settlement on the island was immense, for it meant that the landownership had changed from having being nearly 60 percent in Catholic hands in 1641 to less than 22 percent by 1660, and that primarily in Clare and Connacht. Furthermore, Catholics were excluded from the governance of towns in which they had played a large part. It was hoped that a large portion of the 35,000 soldiers of the Cromwellian army would settle on the land they received as compensation. However, not as many as had been expected did so, opting instead to sell their holding to speculators, who already held land in Ireland and thereby increased their holdings, or to remain absentees with all of the ominous implications that entailed in terms of fruitful land management. Many of the soldiers who did settle married local women and either they or their children assumed the Catholic religion of their wives or mothers.

The number of new settlers who came to Ireland was much smaller than had been hoped. The major beneficiaries of the transformation were not new settlers, but rather the "New English," that is, those with roots in Ireland from earlier in the 17th century. Many, even if adherents to the Church of Ireland, were not high church and were compliant with the religious revolution imposed by the Cromwellians. The Catholic Church was outlawed and priests were subject to execution, although their numbers, even as outlaws, continued to grow. But the property of the Church of Ireland was seized and most of its bishops, who had been appointed by the beheaded king, were dead or in exile. Some of its clergy agreed to accept positions as preachers in the state-established "Independent" church, while other preachers were recruited from England. The official "Independent" religious policy opposed both Papism (or Catholicism) and prelacy (what had been the Church of Ireland) and also Presbyterianism. There were also theological differences between the more congregation-based Independents (or Puritans) and the Presbyterians, who, while not Episcopal, had a more centralized church. There were serious political differences as well, as the Presbyterians of both Scotland and Northern Ireland had disapproved of the extremes to which the parliamentary revolution in England had gone, including the execution of the king. Some Presbyterian ministers were jailed, but tolerance was ultimately granted.

In economic and agricultural terms, the plantation had other significant effects. The process, which commenced with the New English in the early plantations, of enclosing property and increasingly resorting to tillage continued. There was also extensive deforestation of Ireland both to inhibit sanctuaries for outlaw groups and to provide charcoal for the industrial furnaces, such as those of the iron industries of the Blackwater in Cork and the Lagan valley near Belfast. That deforestation remains a landmark quickly noted by visitors to contemporary Ireland.

Another important characteristic of Cromwellian Ireland was Ireland's formal unification with Scotland and England under a united parliament. Since Cromwell had declined the Crown, an essentially republican form of government, the Protectorate, was set up and was governed by a written constitution. Cromwell was named Lord Protector. The Irish were allotted 30 members in the parliaments that met in 1654, 1656, and 1659, although most of the members were army officers. Paradoxically, Cromwell brought to Ireland for a brief time the two contradictory objectives that would be aspired to by the rival groups of later Irish history: union, championed by the predominantly Protestant unionists of the 19th and 20th centuries, and republicanism, the goal of the Fenians and Sinn Fein in the same periods.