The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began on 23 October 1641. Initiated by Irish gentry and military officers, the rebellion sought to end English domination of Ireland, restore lands confiscated through the plantations of Ireland, and secure Irish control over the country's government and affairs. Planned as a swift coup d'état to gain control of the Protestant-dominated central government, it instead developed into the 1641–1653 Irish Confederate Wars, part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Despite failing to seize Dublin Castle, rebels under Felim O'Neill quickly over-ran most of Ulster, centre of the most recent land confiscations. O'Neill then issued the Proclamation of Dungannon, a forgery claiming he had been authorised by Charles I of England to secure Ireland against his opponents in England and Scotland. Many Royalist Anglo-Irish Catholics responded by joining the uprising, and the rebellion spread throughout Ireland.
In November, rebels besieged Drogheda and defeated a government relief force at Julianstown. Especially in Ulster, thousands of Protestant settlers were expelled or massacred, and Catholics were killed in retaliation. By April 1642, Royalist troops held Dublin, Cork, and large areas around them, with much of Ulster occupied by a Scottish Covenanter army and local Protestant militia. This left approximately two thirds of Ireland under rebel control.
In May 1642, Ireland's Catholic bishops met at Kilkenny, and declared the rebellion a just war. Along with members of the Catholic nobility, they created an alternative government known as Confederate Ireland. For the next ten years, the Confederacy fought a four-sided war against Irish Royalists, Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians.
Causes
The roots of the 1641 rebellion derived from the colonisation that followed the Tudor conquest of Ireland, and the alienation of the Catholic gentry from the newly-Protestant English state in the decades following. Historian Aidan Clarke writes that religion "was merely one aspect of a larger problem posed by the Gaelic Irish, and its importance was easily obscured; but religious difference was central to the relationship between the government and the colonists". During the decades between the end of the Elizabethan wars in 1603 and the outbreak of rebellion in 1641, the political position of the wealthier landed Irish Catholics was increasingly threatened by the English government of Ireland. As a result, both the Gaelic Irish, and the Old English communities increasingly defined themselves as Irish and were viewed as such by the newcomers.
The pre-Elizabethan population of Ireland is usually divided into the native Irish and Old English, many of whom were descendants of medieval English and Anglo-Normans settlers. These groups were historically antagonistic, with English settled areas such as the Pale around Dublin, Wexford, and other walled towns being fortified against the rural Gaelic clans. By the 17th century, the cultural divide between these groups, especially at elite social levels, was narrowing; many of the Old English spoke Irish, patronised Irish poetry and music, and have been described as being "More Irish than the Irish themselves". Writing in 1614, one author claimed that previously the Old English "despised the mere Irish, accounting them a barbarous people, void of civility and religion and [each viewed] the other as a hereditary enemy" but cited intermarriage "in former ages rarely seen", education of the Gaelic Irish and "the late plantation of New English and Scottish [throughout] the Kingdom whom the natives repute a common enemy; but this last is the principal cause of their union". In addition, the native population became defined by their shared Catholicism, as opposed to the Protestantism of the new settlers.
Plantations
The Tudor conquest of the late 16th and early 17th century led to the Plantations of Ireland, whereby Irish-owned land was confiscated and colonised with British settlers. The biggest was the Plantation of Ulster, which utilised estates confiscated from the northern lords who went into exile in 1607. Around 80% of these were distributed to English-speaking Protestants, with the remainder going to "deserving" native Irish lords and clans. By 1641, the economic impact of the plantations on the native Irish population was exacerbated because many who retained their estates had to sell them due to poor management and the debts they incurred. This erosion of their status and influence saw them prepared to join a rebellion, even if they risked losing more.
Many of the exiles, such as Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill, served in the Catholic armies of France and Spain, particularly the Army of Flanders. They formed a small émigré Irish community, militantly hostile to the English-run Protestant state in Ireland, but restrained by the generally good relations England had with Spain and France after 1604. In Ireland itself, resentment caused by the plantations was one of the main causes for the outbreak and spread of the rebellion, combined with Poynings' Law, which required Irish legislation to be approved by the Privy Council of England. The Protestant-dominated administration took opportunities to confiscate more land from longstanding Catholic landowners. In the late 1630s Thomas Wentworth, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, proposed a new round of plantations designed to expand Protestant cultural and religious dominance. Delays in their implementation caused by Charles' struggles with his political opponents in England and Scotland meant that Catholics still owned over 60% of land in 1641.
Religious discrimination
Most of the Irish Catholic upper classes were not opposed to the sovereignty of Charles I over Ireland but wanted to be full subjects and maintain their pre-eminent position in Irish society. This was prevented by their religion and the threat of losing their land in the Plantations. The failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 had led to further legal discrimination against Catholics.
The Protestant Church of Ireland was the only approved form of worship, although it was a minority even among Irish Protestants, many of whom were Presbyterians. Both they and the majority Catholic population were required to pay tithes to the church, causing great resentment, while practicing Catholicism in public could lead to arrest, and non-attendance at Protestant service was punishable by recusant fines. Catholics could not hold senior offices of state, or serve above a certain rank in the army. The Privy Council of Ireland was dominated by English Protestants. The constituencies of the Irish House of Commons gave Protestants a majority.
In response, the Irish Catholic upper classes sought 'The Graces', and appealed directly first to James I and then his son Charles, for full rights as subjects and toleration of their religion. On several occasions, they seemed to have reached an agreement under which these demands would be met in return for raising taxes. However, despite paying increased taxes after 1630, Charles postponed implementing their demands until 3 May 1641 when he and the English Privy Council instructed the Lords Justices of Ireland to publish the required Bills.
The advancement of the Graces were particularly frustrated during the time that Wentworth was Lord Deputy. On the pretext of checking of land titles to raise revenue, Wentworth confiscated and was going to plant lands in counties Roscommon and Sligo and was planning further plantations in counties Galway and Kilkenny directed mainly at the Anglo-Irish Catholic families. In the judgement of historian Pádraig Lenihan, "It is likely that he [Wentworth] would have eventually encountered armed resistance from Catholic landowners" if he had pursued these policies further. However, the actual rebellion followed the destabilisation of English and Scottish politics and the weakened position of the king in 1640. Wentworth was executed in London in May 1641.
Conspiracy
From 1638 to 1640 Scotland rose in a revolt known as the Bishops' Wars against Charles I's attempt to impose Church of England practices there, believing them to be too close to Catholicism. The King's attempts to put down the rebellion failed when the English Long Parliament, which had similar religious concerns to the Scots, refused to vote for new taxes to pay for raising an army. Charles therefore started negotiations with Irish Catholic gentry to recruit an Irish army to put down the rebellion in Scotland, in return for granting longstanding requests for religious toleration and land security. Composed largely of Irish Catholics from Ulster, an army was slowly mobilised at Carrickfergus opposite the Scottish coast, but then began to be disbanded in mid-1641. To the Scots and Parliament of England, this seemed to confirm that Charles was a tyrant, who wanted to impose his religious views on his kingdoms, and to govern again without his parliaments as he had done in 1628–1640. In early 1641, some Scots and English Parliamentarians even proposed invading Ireland and subduing Catholics there, to ensure that no royalist Irish Catholic army would land in England or Scotland.
Frightened by this, and wanting to seize the opportunity, a small group of Irish Catholic landed gentry (some of whom were Members of Parliament) plotted to take Dublin Castle and other important towns and forts around the country in a quick coup in the name of the King, both to forestall a possible invasion and to force him to concede the Catholics' demands. At least three Irish colonels were also involved in the plot, and the plotters hoped to use soldiers from the disbanding Irish army.
Economics
Unfavourable economic conditions also contributed to the outbreak of the rebellion. This decline may have been a consequence of the Little Ice Age event of the mid 17th Century. The Irish economy had hit a recession and the harvest of 1641 was poor. Interest rates in the 1630s had been as high as 30% per annum. The leaders of the rebellion like Phelim O'Neill and Rory O'Moore were heavily in debt and risked losing their lands to creditors. What was more, the Irish farmers were hard hit by the bad harvest and were faced with rising rents. This aggravated their desire to remove the settlers and contributed to the widespread attacks on them at the start of the rebellion. A creditor of O'Neill's, "Mr Fullerton of Loughal ... was one of the first to be murdered in the rebellion".
Rebellion
The rebellion was planned by a small group of Catholic landed gentry and military officers, many of whom were Gaelic Irish from Ulster who had lost lands and influence in the post 1607 Plantation. Due to take place on Saturday 23 October 1641, armed men led by Connor Maguire and Rory O'Moore were to seize Dublin Castle and its arsenal, then hold it until help came from insurgents in neighbouring County Wicklow. Meanwhile, Felim O'Neill and his allies were to occupy strategic points in Ulster.
The English garrison of Ireland was only about 2,000 strong and scattered around the country, but the plot relied on surprise rather than force to achieve their objectives, after which they would issue their demands, in expectation of support from the rest of the country. The plan to seize Dublin Castle was foiled when one of the ringleaders, Hugh Og MacMahon, revealed details to his foster-brother, a Protestant convert named Owen O'Connolly. He promptly informed one of the Lord Justices, and MacMahon and Maguire were arrested, while the remaining plotters slipped out of Dublin. Warnings of an imminent rising had also been communicated to Dublin by Sir William Cole.
Despite this failure, the rebellion in Ulster went ahead and Felim O'Neill and his allies, including Rory Maguire, quickly captured positions throughout the province, including Dungannon, Charlemont Fort, Newry, Tandragee, Portadown, Mountjoy Castle, Castleblaney and Carrickmacross. Those that did not surrender, such as Enniskillen Castle, were besieged and within two days the insurgents held most of counties Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Monaghan. The Proclamation of Dungannon, issued by O'Neill on 24 October, stated they had taken up arms only to defend their freedoms and meant no harm to the king's subjects. This was followed on 4 November by the Newry declaration which claimed Charles had approved the rising to secure Ireland against his opponents in England.
Although the declaration is now accepted as a forgery, many of the Anglo-Catholic gentry were dismayed by indiscriminate anti-Catholic measures taken by the Dublin authorities, including those who had initially condemned the rebellion. The suspension of the Irish Parliament on 17 November deprived them of the political means to resolve these issues and the declaration provided cover for moderates such as Nicholas Plunkett to make common cause with the rebels. Rumours also circulated that radical Protestants were seeking to replace Charles I with his exiled German nephew the Elector Palatine, paving the way for increased repression of Irish Catholics.