Posted on 11/14/2006 8:32:32 AM PST by xzins
Massacre of Drogheda under Oliver Cromwell.
the Staff or associates of Christian History Institute.
After the massacre, Oliver Cromwell declared to the English Parliament, "I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent the effusion [shedding] of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret."
Oliver Cromwell, responsible for a massacre. Just what happened at Drogheda, Ireland on this day, September 11, 1649 is hard to pin down with certainty. Two groups stood to gain by issuing propaganda against Cromwell. The Irish hoped to inflame patriotic fervor by magnifying the event and certain Englishmen hoped to discredit Cromwell because they feared his growing power.
Parliament had sent the Protestant Cromwell into Catholic Ireland to subdue it and prevent Prince Charles from landing and preparing an invasion from the nearby Island (he used Scotland as his launch pad instead). Aware that previous armies had bogged down in Ireland, usually because of insufficient financing, Cromwell insisted on having the necessary money in hand before he sailed. That way he could pay for supplies as he needed them and not make enemies by robbing the common folk. Once in Ireland, he moved quickly, knowing that a drawn-out war favored the inhabitants, not the invaders.
The situation in Ireland was complex. The Irish were badly divided and several betrayed their own towns. They offered little effective resistance to Cromwell. In fact, he reduced opposition across most of the island within eight months, although subordinates required another decade to complete the work he had begun.
Drogheda was one of the first cities Cromwell faced. He offered fair terms and gave his men strict instructions against excessive violence. However, the situation fluctuated a good deal. As Drogheda's fortunes waned or waxed, the garrison alternately negotiated or stalled. Cromwell's troops broke through the wall before negotiations were complete (possibly with inside help) and rushed through the town, killing virtually everyone in the city. They set fire to St. Mary's church, burning alive those who had taken refuge in it and then butchered women hiding in the vaults below. Some accounts say they used Irish children as human shields and killed every priest, treating them like combatants, because they had encouraged the defenders. According to those tales, only thirty defenders survived and they were sold as slaves to Barbados. At least one of the English soldiers claimed that Cromwell himself ordered the slaughter.
Defenders of Cromwell say that not only did he not order the slaughter but that the massacre of the women never happened. Cromwell himself insisted (even before he left Ireland) that no one in arms was massacred, destroyed or banished. His statement fell short of denying that civilians were slaughtered. Tales of civilian massacres increased at the time of the restoration of the English throne when it was both politically correct and safe to say the worst things one could about the man who cut off the head of King Charles I.
Whatever the truth, Cromwell surely is to blame for not attempting to stop the massacre. By the brutal standards of the time, killing a defiant garrison was acceptable, but butchering civilians was not. By his own statement, it is clear Cromwell hoped that the events at Drogheda (and at Wexford a few days later) would shorten the war. At Wexford, his troops committed another massacre, although apparently without his approval. A priest writing over a century later claimed 300 women were slaughtered beside a cross at which they had taken refuge and seven friars were killed in the performance of their duty. Whether this is true or not, Cromwell considered the victory an unexpected providence and said he prayed that God would have all the glory.
The present religious troubles in Ireland were aggravated by the events at Drogheda and Wexford. British soldiers, for example, are called "Cromwell's lads." However, it would be unjust to leave the impression that Cromwell's campaign was the beginning of the Irish religious troubles. Eight years before Cromwell's invasion, for instance, Catholics slaughtered hundreds of Protestant civilians in Ulster.
Resources:
Allen, John. One Hundred Great Lives. New York: Journal of Living, 1944.
Coonan, Thomas L. The Irish Catholic Confederacy and the Puritan Revolution. New York: Columbia University, 1954.
Copeland, Lewis. World's Greatest Speeches. New York: Book League of America, p. 147ff.
"Cromwell." A History of the Irish Race.
(www.ireland.org/irl_hist/hist31.htm) "Cromwell, Oliver." Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
"Cromwell and the Drogheda Massacre." (www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist/ makhist7_prog5c.shtml)
"Cromwell Devastates Ireland." www.doyle.com.au/cromwell.htm).
( Drinkwater, John. Oliver Cromwell. New York: George H. Doran, 1927.
Hill, Christopher. God's Englishman; Oliver Cromwell and the English revolution. Harper and Row, 1970. Russell, Bertrand. Wisdom of the West. New York: Fawcett, 1964; p. 252.
Smellie, Alexander. Men of the Covenant. Revell, 1903. Source of the image.
'The English Civil War, called by some the Puritan Revolution, was a seminal event in world history, but the English themselves preferred to call back Charles II.'
May I respectfully suggest that the restoration was a good thing as Britain then went on to have the greatest empire the world has ever seen ruling directly one quarter of the worlds land area and one third of her people. I doubt that such a small country would have stood so stoically as one behind Cromwell as they did behind their monarchy.
xzins posted a non-theological Cromwell thread here. Thought you might like reading it.
The more striking parallel to Northern Ireland is in Gaza and the West Bank.
Wait until the Iraqi civil war is over.
Oops...I meant, "sectarian violence". Sorry.
Your Scots brother in law is right, when speaking of Scotlanders. But Scotch-Irish is an American term for an American ethnic group of a particular Irish provenance. They were not longer Scots at all. They were Irish, born in Ireland. But their religion, especially, and their lowlands border provenance didn't make them like the rest of the Irish (or the Scots, for that matter). In Ireland proper, they might have been referred to as "Scots-Irish", though they weren't. Orangemen, or later, Ulstermen, would suit; nothing with "Irish" in it really would do.
In America, they were always called "Scotch-Irish". They were never called Scots-Irish. Go back and look through the historires. "Scots-Irish" is a quite recent coinage, derived from the fact that the Scots don't like to be called "Scotch" anymore. But Scotch-Irish aren't Scots. they're Irish, and identifying them as "Scots-(Irish)" implies too much that they're Scots, which wasn't so.
Another great thing about the term "Scotch-Irish" is that using it inevitably brings the objection you raise, with then allows a deeper discussion of the history.
A more accurate term for the Scotch-Irish, if one objects to the "Scotch" part, is not "Scots-Irish". It's just plain Irish. Or perhaps "Irish Presbyterians". This, however, removes the specifically American reference "Scotch-Irish", which wasn't a term used over there for Orangemen at all.
Of all the possible terms, "Scotch-Irish" is the most historically informative, for a lot of complicated reasons.
Should I apologize about the non-theological thrust of this article? :>)
Seriously, the parallels with Iraq are striking.
Wait.
So Cromwell had "right on his die" taking the English into Ireland?
Why is that?
I wasn't arguing with history, just suggesting that by the end of the Interregnum the English had had enough of the Lord Protector's rule. General Monk was among those who welcomed Charles back to the throne.
But then came the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and what amounted to the beginnings of a real constitutional monarchy. The Stuarts' delusion of the divine right of kings was no longer an issue. Especially after the Hanoverians were brought in.
You might be right, but I'm afraid you're rather wrong. While lots of people are unhappy about it, I suspect that the current political status quo in Ireland will stand for the foreseeable future.
I suspect the Stuarts didn't invent that. =]
I suspect the Stuarts didn't invent that. =]
I suspect the Stuarts didn't invent that. =]
Whoa...a triple! Sorry folks...browser trouble.
Go John Knox!
Ah yes, the first recorded example of biological warfare when evil English scientists developed potato blight to destroy their own farms in Ireland and punish their Irish workers. Sir Robert Peel was so disinterested in helping Irelands plight that all he did was repeal the corn laws and spend £100,000 buying in American maize to feed the starving, which at the time was the largest amount ever spent by a govt on aid to a natural disaster. As for your forebears illiteracy, he was in good company - literacy amongst farm workers was not considered much of a requirement anywhere 150 years ago.
A more accurate description of Ireland during this period would be "a boiling pot constantly on the verge of blowing its lid."
There was continual violence and threat of violence, and the government was constantly enforcing various Coercion Acts and suspending habeas corpus. Confrontations with violent mobs and attempted uprisings (such as the Fenian risings) occurred with regularity.
'So Cromwell had "right on his die" taking the English into Ireland?'
I presume you mean 'on his side', not 'on his die'?
Cromwell was a very pious puritan and it never entered his head that God and right were not on his side. You and I may not agree with him, but because he felt so strongly he was right, he felt he needed no propaganda to support God's work.
My own take is that there are much more valuable lessons for us today in learning from the evolution of British Army tactics in dealing with the threat of terrorists among the civilian population in Northern Ireland during the 20th century than with circumstances in Ireland during the English Civil War.
'Scotlanders'? Good grief, some of these Americanisms are getting out of hand. Surely you mean the Scottish don't you Americaner? ;-)
As for the Scotch-Irish term, I will bow to your american subversion of the English language, but the warning stands - don't try to explain how complex yout theory is to a drunk Glaswegian on a Saturday night or you will be sure to receive a Glasgae Kiss for your troubles! :D
How do you think Genghis would have handled the MSM ?
BUMP
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