The Irish Confederate Wars (1641 - 1653)

Written by Ben Kesp 

Irish Confederate Wars. Source: Britannica

Ireland has a very colourful and vibrant history, complex in nature and at times difficult to understand. Brian Ború was the first Irish king to take the title of Ireland’s High Kingship and make it what it was and not just that of a ceremonial position which it had been. King Brian Ború had instigated a plan to form a united Ireland under one rule, aligning himself as King with the church, similar to the system used in France and England. 

Following a very brief period when King Brian Boru successfully achieved a state unification, the power of the five kingdoms returned and it was not until King Dermot MacMurrough in 1167 was been dispossessed of his kingship of the Kingdom of Leinster over a disagreement with King Tiernan O’Ruark of Breffney, that King Dermot set out on a mission that would alter Ireland and its kingdoms forever. The union of marriage between Aoife, daughter of King Dermot, Lady of Leinster, and Richard de Clare, nicknamed Strongbow, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Wales would change Ireland and its ruling class along with it. The arrivals of the Normans to conquer Ireland failed, with many adopting to the Irish customs and marrying the daughters of Irish kings. 

Jump forward through the continuous onslaught from English kings and queens to conquer Ireland it leads us to the Irish Confederate Wars (Eleven Years’ War) that occurred between 1641 and 1653. It was a mighty war between the three kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland all under the rule of King Charles I. It all began with a rebellion by Irish Catholics against the English administration and in turn developed into a conflict with the Irish Catholics and the old English Catholics on one side against English and Scottish Protestant colonists. The war was to decide who would govern over Ireland – it was a both a religious and ethnic conflict. 

The rebellion of 1641 in Ulster started the war and it spread south. In 1642, the Confederate of Catholics Ireland was formed and they controlled most of the country and was comprised of both Irish and Old English. The Confederate of Catholics was an independent state ruling de facto until 1649. The wars raged on with heavy losses on both sides until Cromwellian conquest of Ireland began that ran from 1649 – 1653 under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. In 1653 the Irish Confederates were defeated and the English parliament confiscated the lands owned by the Irish Catholics and this marked the end of the old Catholic landed class. 

The next phase of Irish ruling class would be through the Anglo Irish and their golden era spanned the 18th and 19th centuries. The people maybe gone, the wars may be over but what remains is the shape of the landscape, buildings and monuments etched into every townland, village, town and city.