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39-496: The agreement was widely accepted by Catholics across Ireland, many of whom believed their previous rising had been authorised by the old King . However it was opposed by Owen Roe O'Neill and much of his Ulster Army who instead formed a temporary alliance with the Anglo-Irish Parliamentary forces, relieving their besieged garrison at Derry . When this agreement expired O'Neill's forces then changed sides. In

78-910: A Puritan tendency) with the former generally sympathetic to King Charles while the latter supported the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters in the dispute that would shortly lead to the outbreak of the English Civil War . This formed part of the wider War of the Three Kingdoms . On 23 October a major uprising broke out in Ulster organised by leading members of the Gaelic aristocracy. The rebels attacked Protestant plantation settlements as well as native Irish Protestants and took garrison towns held by

117-700: A guerilla war . Ormonde and a group of leading Irish Catholics went into exile along with a number of troops. Four regiments that fought at the Battle of the Dunes were broadly drawn from former members of the Allied forces of 1649, topped up by fresh recruits from Ireland. Ormond was ultimately restored as Lord Lieutenant while many Catholics successfully appealed to the Court of Claims to have land returned to them that had been confiscated by Cromwell due to their service in

156-535: A "favoured minority" of Irish Catholics – mostly Old English Royalists – recovered all or most of their pre-war estates. Examples of this include Ormonde and his relatives, and supporters like Richard Bellings or Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim . The people who had been militant Irish Confederates during the wars – who had rejected an alliance with the Royalists, or sought better terms from Charles I in return for an alliance – got little or nothing from

195-658: A new Act of Settlement 1662 which ordered that the Cromwellian settlers give up a portion of their allotted land to "Old English" and "innocent Catholics", as would be determined by Commissioners. However, the Irish Parliament was still Protestant only, until the session of 1666, as Catholics had been barred from voting or standing for election under the Commonwealth. As a result, the Parliament amended

234-583: A town that had symbolic importance as the traditional capital of the O'Neill dynasty . The text read: In support of his actions, Sir Phelim claimed to have a document from King Charles commissioning him. The Commission was supposedly signed under the Great Seal of Scotland . By declaring their loyalty to the Crown and defence of the Catholic religion, O'Neill and his followers adopted a political stance which

273-699: The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , its purpose was two-fold. First, it was to provide for summary execution of the leaders and supporters of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 . Second, it was to confiscate sufficient land in Ireland as was necessary to repay the loans advanced by the City of London under the Adventurers' Acts of the 1640s to pay for the war, and to reward the soldiers who had engaged in

312-794: The Irish Army . Irish government authorities in Dublin struggled to contain the insurgency with the limited number of troops they had at their disposal. A last-minute warning saved Dublin Castle from a surprise attack, although O'Neill was clearly unaware of the failure of the Dublin plot when he issued his proclamation. After seizing several key strategic points in Ulster over the previous twenty-four hours, Sir Phelim made his proclamation in Dungannon,

351-953: The Irish Confederate Wars to 8–9% during the period of Commonwealth rule (mostly in Connacht). A number of formerly Catholic landowners also saved their land by converting to the state religion . On the Irish Restoration of the Monarchy, those (notably the Duke of Ormonde ) who had taken the Royalist side pleaded with the King for the injustices to be undone. Accordingly, the Parliament of Ireland (in Dublin) passed

390-625: The King of Ireland Charles I that commanded him to lead Irish Catholics in defence of the Kingdom of Ireland against Protestants who sympathised with Charles's opponents in the Parliament of England . Following the trial and execution of the Viceroy , the Earl of Strafford , in May 1641, Ireland was in a state of turmoil. There was growing tension between Catholics and Protestants (particularly those of

429-696: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms by the wholesale confiscation of their lands and property. The Act describes itself An act for the better execution of His Majesty's gracious declaration for the Settlement of his Kingdom of Ireland , and the satisfaction of the several interests of adventurers, soldiers, and other his subjects there. When the Rump Parliament in London passed the Act of Settlement 1652 after

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468-469: The Act of Settlement 1652 so that land could be returned to "innocent Catholics" – that is ones who had been Royalists in the civil wars and had not carried out massacres of Protestant settlers – but only on the condition that the Cromwellian settlers be compensated with an equal amount of land elsewhere in Ireland. Since there was simply not enough land available for this to work, only

507-661: The English Civil War broke out in October 1642, Charles' emissaries began negotiations with the Irish rebels for their support, which seemed to present further evidence to his opponents of his links with the Catholic Ulster leaders. Many of these later dealings were exposed when Charles private letters were captured during the Battle of Naseby (1645) and published as King's Cabinet Opened . When Phelim O'Neill

546-818: The Irish Catholics and Royalists and the Scottish Covenanters had all come to see the London Parliament as their greatest threat. Following the defeat of his supporters during the Second Civil War , Charles I was executed by the English Parliament who declared both England and Ireland to be a republic . In Ulster, O'Neill moved to relieved the besieged troops of Charles Coote who were trapped in Derry . Meanwhile

585-535: The Irish Restoration of 1660 had occurred without bloodshed because of their approval. Historian Jane Ohlmeyer argued that the matter of religion was not as important as one's rank in the 1660s. Richer and grander families tended to be supported by King Charles, regardless of religion. Some Protestant landed families were crypto-Catholics. Other grantees included the King's brother James, Duke of York , who

624-506: The Irish people to Connacht, they only ever got around to the land-owning class. The 1652 Act ordered that all confiscated lands east of the Shannon ( Ulster , Leinster and Munster ) be cleared and the inhabitants transplant themselves to the west (to Connacht and County Clare ), to be replaced by Puritan settlers (who were later to be known as Dissenters ). As a result of this Settlement, Irish Catholic landholding fell from 60% before

663-585: The Irish rebels as traitors on 1 January 1642. That the Commission was genuine was widely accepted in England and Scotland by the King's opponents and even some of his own supporters. It seemed to tie in with earlier rumours of an army plot which had suggested that Charles might bring over the New Irish Army , made up largely of Ulster Catholics, to impose his will on England and Scotland. Anger at

702-581: The King's alleged links with the insurgents grew – particularly as horror stories of atrocities committed, such as the Portadown Massacre , began to filter across the Irish Sea . Tensions arising from news of the Irish rebellion was a factor in the English push to Civil War in early 1642. The Scottish authorities dispatched an Army which quickly retook much of Ulster from the insurgents. Once

741-603: The King's involvement to justify their decision to commit regicide . Act of Settlement 1662 The Act of Settlement 1662 (14 & 15 Chas. 2 Sess. 4. c. 2 (I)) was passed by the Irish Parliament in Dublin. It was a partial reversal of the Cromwellian Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 , which punished Irish Catholics and Royalists for fighting against the Parliamentarians in

780-817: The Moderate and Clerical factions of the Irish Confederacy. The former Spanish mercenary Owen Roe O'Neill who commanded the Ulster Army , had intervened on behalf of the anti-Treaty forces which thwarted the implementation of the agreement. Meanwhile the situation of Charles in Britain had declined. He surrendered to the Scottish Covenanters in 1646 who then handed him over to the English Parliamentary forces. By late 1648

819-495: The Royalist alliance. Proclamation of Dungannon The Proclamation of Dungannon was a document produced by Sir Phelim O'Neill on 24 October 1641 in the Irish town of Dungannon . O'Neill was one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion , which had been launched the previous day. O'Neill's Proclamation set out a justification of the uprising. He claimed to have been given a commission signed and sealed on 1 October by

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858-412: The actual royal commission that gave authority for his earlier proclamation. It was subtly different, in that it empowered him to arrest and seize property from all of Charles's English Protestant subjects living in Ireland, but exempted his Irish and Scottish subjects. He was ordered to: Part of the commission in the original spelling: Until the late nineteenth century historians generally accepted that

897-510: The allies secured many of the town and cities across Ireland and Ormonde's troops advanced to lay siege to the capital Dublin . However even before the arrival of Oliver Cromwell 's reinforcements, his local Irish commander Michael Jones routed the coalition forces at the Battle of Rathmines . Cromwell then took the offensive, storming Drogheda and then Wexford . In the north the Catholic Ulster Army now changed sides to join

936-535: The commission was genuine, or at the very least Charles had secretly encouraged the Irish Catholics to launch a rising. Since then, for a variety of reasons, it has been considered to be a forgery produced by O'Neill and his associates without the knowledge of the King. They may well have acquired a copy of the Great Seal of Scotland when they captured the garrison town of Charlemont on 23 October. The historian David Stevenson notes that it would be unlikely that

975-535: The commission would have been addressed to Sir Phelim O'Neill. Had it been genuine it would almost certainly have been issued to more senior Irish Royalists such as the Earl of Ormond or the leading Catholic noble of Ulster, the Earl of Antrim . It is also unlikely to have been issued at Edinburgh as Sir Phelim claimed. However, King Charles was in Edinburgh on 1 October, dealing with Scottish political matters. Forgery or not, King Charles publicly proclaimed all

1014-750: The government. Meanwhile a Civil War broke out in England between the King and his opponents. In 1643 a truce with the Confederates known as the Cessation of Arms had freed Anglo-Irish Royalist troops to fight in the English Civil War. After lengthy negotiations the First Ormonde Peace was agreed in 1646 between Charles' envoy and the Irish Confederates. This however provoked a civil war in Catholic Ireland between

1053-426: The newer landowners would be dispossessed without compensation. The Cromwellian Settlement of 1652 was repealed and all lands taken after the 1641 Rebellion would revert to the heirs of the former owners. The supporters of William III and Mary II , who won the war, proposed to indict over 3,900 of their enemies and confiscate their property, and in the ensuing "Williamite Settlement" over 2,000 lost their property to

1092-737: The number fell further to just 5 per cent. However, many of the 95% in 1800 had been Catholic and changed religion to keep their lands, such as the Barons of Dunsany . Many Protestants in Ireland felt that the Restoration Settlements were far too lenient towards those Irish Catholics who had rebelled against the sovereignty of King Charles in 1641 and had been justly punished for it by the loss of their property and power. They had bought their new properties at market rates, competing against other bidders, and expected that privity of contract would apply as usual. As in England and Scotland,

1131-603: The other allies, but were routed and virtually destroyed at the Battle of Scarrifholis . The Scottish Covenanter Army in the North had previously been smashed at the Lisnagarvey . Ormonde left Ireland, turning over command to the Catholic Royalist Lord Clanricarde . However organised resistance effectively ceased following the loss of Galway and further resistance was largely carried out by

1170-604: The richer or grander Catholic landowners recovered their estates under this act. These included the Viscount Dillon , Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty , Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin , Luke, the heir of Christopher Plunket, 2nd Earl of Fingall and Edmund , the heir of Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret . A further complication arose as the buyers of confiscated land in 1652–59 were third parties who expected that their purchases for cash were legal and were protected by privity of contract . This act

1209-658: The settlement. Many of them regarded it as a betrayal by the Stuart monarchy, which they all had fought for at some point in the Civil Wars. The Catholic poet Dáibhí Ó Bruadair concluded that the Restoration was "Purgatory" for Irish Catholics, while the former Confederate and Catholic Bishop Nicholas French wrote a pamphlet about Charles II titled, The Unkind Deserter of Loyal men and true Friends . In 1600, Catholics had owned 90 per cent of land in Ireland, by 1641, this

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1248-613: The wake of the vigorous Cromwellian conquest of Ireland the combined forces of the alliance were comprehensively defeated and Ireland was under republican control until the 1660 restoration . A number of the surviving soldiers loyal to Charles II later served in his Royalist Army in Exile . While proclaiming their loyalty to Charles I , the Catholic Confederates had followed the 1641 Rebellion by seizing strongholds throughout Ireland and seeking to secure concessions from

1287-600: The war, almost all of whom sold on their interests to third parties. By 1652 the policy was achieved by the confiscation of almost all Catholic-owned land in Ireland, something that also served to punish Irish Catholics for their resistance to the Parliamentarians . The Act of 1652 said (paragraphs VI, VII VIII) that anyone who fought against the parliament in Ireland during the civil wars would lose some lands. In practice, Protestant Royalists in Ireland could avoid confiscation by paying fines, while Catholics could not. Although some Parliamentarians talked about deporting all of

1326-537: Was 41 per cent (the fall due largely to the rise of the Plantation of Ulster ) but by the time of the accession of James II in 1685, after the Cromwellian Settlement , the proportion of Irish land owned by Catholics had fallen to 22 per cent; after the restrictive Treaty of Limerick (1691), that number had been reduced to 14 per cent, and by 1800, after more restrictive anti-Catholic Penal Laws ,

1365-405: Was awarded 130,000 acres in Ireland and became a Catholic. The final awards of land were not concluded by King Charles until about 1670. As neither "side" was happy with the outcome, and as the Irish gentry remained divided, the next conflict engendered much more radical proposals by each side. In 1689 James II's Patriot Parliament approved an Act of Attainder in which 2,000 (some say 3,000) of

1404-559: Was captured in 1653 following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , he was put on trial for his life. The authorities offered to spare him if he would repeat his earlier claims that Charles had ordered the Catholics to rise in 1641. O'Neill now refused to implicate the King, who had been executed four years earlier, and was put to death himself. Nonetheless the English Republicans continued to use O'Neill's earlier claims of

1443-535: Was needed to find a workable solution. The Act of Explanation stated that Cromwellian settlers (with some named exceptions) had to give up one-third of the lands they had received after 1652 to compensate innocent Catholics. This was a very complicated process, as most of the new owners had bought their land from the Cromwellian grantees, and so numerous contracts had to be unwound. Many of these buyers were not settlers but people who had already been living in Ireland before 1641. By this measure, what has been described as

1482-432: Was passed on 30 May 1662. Also in 1662 the Irish version of the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 was enacted, that formally ended Feudalism in Ireland. A Court of Claims, headed by Sir Richard Raynsford , was set up to investigate who was eligible for recovery of their lands. Unfortunately, the Commissioners found that too many Catholics were "innocent" and a further Act of Explanation 1665 (17 & 18 Chas. 2. c. 2 (I))

1521-452: Was taken up by the subsequent Irish Confederation which governed rebel-controlled territory in the name of the King from 1642 until 1649. The Proclamation encouraged many Catholics to believe they could lawfully join the rising with the King's blessing, while Protestants were left demoralised. Sir Phelim's second and more trenchant proclamation was made "from our camp at Newry " on 4 November 1641 alongside Rory Maguire : He also published

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