The Irish Rebellion of 1641, an historical conspiracy theory

[scolaire bocht]

Just wondering if anybody out there woud be interested in the origins of the Irish Rebellion of 1641:


" I think that there are three stages in our understanding of this history, with some truth resting in each scenario:
1) The normal account of the time and since, which was that the Irish rebels were acting on their own iniative seeking to rid the wrongs of the Ulster Plantation.
2) That the King and the Royalist side of the upcoming English Civil War were somehow involved in the rebellion, which is now what a lot of Irish historians think.
3) I would contend that in fact the Parliamentarian side, and their national and international allies, were secretly involved in provoking and spreading this revolt.
Maybe it was like a triple tiered conspiracy with the second ring manipulating in a way the first, and the third manipulating both! I number each scenario below and have also added a few bits about the way the Irish people had great difficulty in setting the historical record straight."


Its written up at http://indymedia.ie/article/84054 .

[Catalpa]

Just wondering if anybody out there woud be interested in the origins of the Irish Rebellion of 1641:


" I think that there are three stages in our understanding of this history, with some truth resting in each scenario:
1) The normal account of the time and since, which was that the Irish rebels were acting on their own iniative seeking to rid the wrongs of the Ulster Plantation.
2) That the King and the Royalist side of the upcoming English Civil War were somehow involved in the rebellion, which is now what a lot of Irish historians think.
3) I would contend that in fact the Parliamentarian side, and their national and international allies, were secretly involved in provoking and spreading this revolt.
Maybe it was like a triple tiered conspiracy with the second ring manipulating in a way the first, and the third manipulating both! I number each scenario below and have also added a few bits about the way the Irish people had great difficulty in setting the historical record straight."


Its written up at http://indymedia.ie/article/84054 .

Nice bit of work there but will have to spend some time reading it in full to pass a decent opinion on what you have written - was Sir Phelim O'Neill actually one of the dispossed though or just down on his luck and a rebel with a cause?

Have you mentioned the Irish insurgents forging of King Charles Great Seal which the Puritans used to beat the monarch with?

I don't honestly think Charles was anything other than devastated by the Rising in Ulster and elsewhere - it was exactly what he didn't want and helped hasten his own downfall and bloody end.

[dunviller]

Just wondering if anybody out there woud be interested in the origins of the Irish Rebellion of 1641:


" I think that there are three stages in our understanding of this history, with some truth resting in each scenario:
1) The normal account of the time and since, which was that the Irish rebels were acting on their own iniative seeking to rid the wrongs of the Ulster Plantation.
2) That the King and the Royalist side of the upcoming English Civil War were somehow involved in the rebellion, which is now what a lot of Irish historians think.
3) I would contend that in fact the Parliamentarian side, and their national and international allies, were secretly involved in provoking and spreading this revolt.
Maybe it was like a triple tiered conspiracy with the second ring manipulating in a way the first, and the third manipulating both! I number each scenario below and have also added a few bits about the way the Irish people had great difficulty in setting the historical record straight."


Its written up at http://indymedia.ie/article/84054 .

Dude one of the most thought provoking posts ever. How come only 1 post though? Are you a barred poster coming back under a new name?

[scolaire bocht]

Thanks Dunville.....no no its just me. I just thought that since there was a pretty large history forum here that maybe ye might be intereted in the rebellion, its hard to find anybody out there with a knowledge of Irish history these days! We're a dying breed......lol

Catalpa
Believe it or not I think the commission was genuine. (Although I know an explanation was offered, many decades after the fact, about how they forged it, and I know Phelim was supposed to have admitted that before he was hung, but that is widely disputed.) I think its part of the Parliamentarians manipulating Charles, getting him to support the rebellion. The truth was that Charles was a bit conspiratorial like that, and the Puritans knew just what buttons to press, as witnessed by Charles' signature on Stafford's death warrant.

Phelim had land but he was heavily in debt (so was Connor Maguire and I think Rory O'More), which maybe raises the question of some party agreeing to pay off his debts and stuff. He was also Church of Ireland incidentally.

Absolutely the rebellion did destroy Charles in the end, I don't think he ever forgave Ireland for that!

Maybe people might be interested in the Glossory, which is just the usual stuff but some people might not be familiar with the overall period:

Antrim - Randal MacDonnell, Earl of (later Marquis). He had extensive estates in Antrim and Scotland so was the natural person to transport an Irish army to Britain to help Charles, and plans of that nature were in the works for a long time both before and after 1641. Eventually he managed to get some troops across in late 1643-44, and these helped Montrose a lot in his Royalist uprising in Scotland.

Carte - Thomas, he was the English Jacobite author of a very important and hugely researched 18th century biography of Ormonde. He had access to so many sources in writing this work that Carte's book is often looked upon as a primary, rather than a secondary, source of information on the period.

Charles - Charles Stuart, officially "Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England [and his son was Prince of Wales], Scotland, France [a bit hopeful that!] and Ireland" at this time. He eventually fought a Civil War against the Parliamentarians, but lost, losing his head in the process!

Clanricarde - Ulick Burke, Earl of (later Marquis). He was the Catholic head of the Burke family of Galway, a grandson of Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's famous spy chief, and half brother of the Earl of Essex an important Parliamentarian general. He succeeded Ormonde as Lord Deputy, technically Lord Lieutenant, but in the opinion of the Aphorismical Discovery kept up Ormonde's duplicitous practices of destroying the Irish, and royalist, cause.

Covenanting Scots - The Scots had revolted from Charles seeking greater toleration for the Presbyterian religion, and had organised a Covenant pledging themselves to these aims. Hence during these years Scotland was pretty much an independent country, and mostly allied to the Parliamentarians.

The Depositions - A large collection of contemporary statements collected by the government shortly after the revolt broke out and purportedly proving the existence of a widespread massacre. Their true veracity has been hotly debated ever since, with Gilbert for example saying that they were taken under threat of torture or imprisonment. They are now housed in TCD.

Glamorgan - Edward Somerset, Earl of, sent by the King in 1645 to patch up his differences with the Irish parliament and then gather an Irish army together to help him in England. He was quite successful in this until Ormonde threw him in jail accusing him of being a fraud and then the King disowned him.

Ormonde - James Butler, Earl of (later Marquis, then Duke). He was the Protestant head of the Butler family of Kilkenny who started off as commander of the cavalry in Strafford's Irish army, then its leader, then a long time Lord Deputy of Ireland. As such he was supposed to be representing the King's interests in Ireland but many Irish commentators pointed to episodes like his surrender of Dublin to Parliamentarian forces as proof of his underhand cooperation with the King's enemies.

Owen Roe O'Neill - A nephew of the Great O'Neill he fought at Kinsale and was exiled during the Flight of the Earls only to come back decades later after the rebellion had broken out. He had previously distinguished himself fighting in Belgium for the Spanish against the French. His brilliant conduct of the siege of Arras, for example, was observed by Richelieu in person. During these wars he is often considered the greatest military commander and created a formidable Ulster Catholic army which went on to defeat the Scots at Benburb, despite the huge supply problems that he faced.

Parliamentarians - This was a group in England who pressed the King seeking the abolition of the Anglican episcopacy, and other Protestant religious aims, the scrapping of the hated ship tax, and hoping to compel Charles to summon, and answer to, regular Parliaments. By 1641 they had compelled Charles to answer to most of their demands and dominated the machinery of government. Many of these figures like Pym, and sometimes even Cromwell, are considered in English historiography to be heroes in the ongoing struggle for a democratic constitution in Westminister, but Irish historians have never been that fond of them, especially in the case of the latter! During the Civil War this group split up into an Independent group, lead by Cromwell, and a Presbyterian group, but they were united during the period of the Irish rebellion. They are sometimes described as Puritans, or Roundheads.

Irish Rebels of 1641 - There were quite a few figures in the know like Phelim O'Neill, Rory O'More, Lord Maguire, and some Irish Colonel's then serving on the continent like Richard Plunkett (28), but I thought I would mention particularly some of the more 'conspiratorial' type figures involved in the Plot:
Philip MacHugh O'Reilly, before and after the Irish wars he was an officer in the Spanish army, who's mother was a close relative of Argyle's (29) and who might have been one of those Irish MP's who formed links to the English Parliamentarians, which possibly he kept up. He is the unpopular Colonel mentioned in O'Donovan's letters for Cavan (p.56), and the Aphorismical Discovery (p.697-703) notes his expeditious exit from the second battle of Finea in early 1651. Could he be the Colonel Reilly, an Irish rebel, in receipt of moneys from England in 1646? (30);
Fr.Iver (or Heber) McMahon, Catholic Bishop of Clogher, who was accused by Clarendon of being all along a Government spy (31). Fr.John Lynch in his writings hints that he believes this, (32) and I notice he was Ormonde's choice as leader of the Ulster army at the famous meeting at Belturbet (33);
Daniel O'Neill, Owen Roe's nephew, who was possibly in the know although jailed that summer, and who Commentarius Rinuccinianus accuses of being behind a plot to kill his uncle (34);
and Rev Patrick Crelly - or Creely - the Cistercian abbot of Newry who seems to have been involved in the early stages of the rebellion in Ireland.(35) He was later a leading agent for Cromwell's spymaster Thomas Scot:
"One of his best agents appears to be an Irish abbot called Father Creely. Creely also went under the name of Captain Holland. He was located in the Queen Mother's court in Paris but also worked in Flanders and had men in Vienna, as well as some intelligence interests in the Vatican amongst the cardinals."(36) He was earlier an agent of Rinuccini's, then married, became a Protestant, and died in 1652. Fr Anthony Geoghegan had recommended him to become Bishop of Meath in a letter he sent to Propaganda dated 4th of Feb.1652. (37)

Richelieu - The Cardinal who was effectively the Prime Minister of France throughout this period. He was succeeded in this job by his friend Cardinal Mazarin. Widely considered to be very unscrupulous and vindicative - as you can see even in fiction in the 'Three Musketeers' - in his foreign policy he always favoured the Protestant position, and was followed in that by Mazarin. This begs the question, for me anyway, as to whether or not a little corruption in these matters was evident in the Vatican at this time. I'm definitely not accusing the Pope, or any of the Irish clergy, but the very fact that these two unscrupulous gents got those red hats, despite their constant support for the Protestant side in the 30 Years War, would surely make one a little suspicious of some of these Vatican officials. Say the Berberini's for example, who were close to the French. This raises an issue about Rinuccini, who lingered a long time talking to Mazarin before he came across to Ireland, and who seems to have been somewhat pro-French.(38) Could he have been acting deliberately when he caused so much chaos at the Confederation of Kilkenny, so banjaxing the Irish cause in the interests of Cromwell, Mazarin's ally ?

Rinuccini - Rev Giovanni Battista, a Florentine Archbishop who came to Ireland as Papal Nuncio to the Confederation of Kilkenny. Second only to Ormonde in his marvellous capacity to divide and confuse the Irish Catholics. Later a former ally of his in Ireland, Fr Richard O'Farrell, and another Capuchin, Fr. Robert O'Connell, wrote a huge account of his time in Ireland called Commentarius Rinuccinianus.

Strafford - Thomas Wentworth, Earl of. Long time, and ruthless enough, Lord Deputy of Ireland before these events. He was a loyal adherent of Charles but was attainted by the English Parliament, sentenced to death, and executed on the 12th May 1641.