Why were the events of the 1640’s so important in understanding what happened in 1649 in Ireland?
The Catholics were left weak after all of the attempts by the English to eradicate them, however after the revolts by scotts against King Charles I in the late 1630’s this then revoked the Catholics, and gave them the inspiration to start defending themselves and punish the Protestants for what they had done to them such as killings. There were many reasons for why the 1641 rebellion had begun, some believe it was the Ulster plantations from 1610 under the reign of James I “having got into economic difficulties, resorted to desperate measures to combat this situation”, during the Ulster plantations many Catholics were driven away from their homes, this would have caused the
Catholics more resentment against the English. Adding to this when the rebellion had started in 1641 Modern research “ calculates the actual number of deaths to be 12,000 out of a total Protestant population in Ulster at the time of 40,000” which suggests how devastating and intense the massacres of 1641 were. One event in particular occurred at Portadown where over 100 protestants were killed, the deposition of Elizabeth Price
1642 states that people were “instantly almost barbarically drowned and those that could swim and came to the shore they knocked on the head and so after drowned them, or else they were shot to death in the water” implying that the attacks on protestants were extremely violent and were done out of revenge, however Elizabeth
Price also stated she saw apparitions which stood in the water saying only the word
“revenge”. This could be seen as an illusion and could make her a reliable source. During the 17th century free printing press was becoming increasingly popular, news of the Catholic rebellions had traveled to the English press and was being read by majority of the people in London. The only problem with free printing press was that the news had traveled and therefore was not reliable. On December 1641 an English newspaper read “Bloudy News from Ireland”, “The barbarous crultie by the papfifts” suggesting the catholic followers of the pope had been mistreating the protestants. The news further goes on the say in what ways the people had been treated “deflowering of women, and dragging them up and downe the streets, and cruelly murdering them, and trusting speers through their little infants” this would have been an exaggeration at the massacres which took place in 1641, and would have been propaganda to get the
English to dislike the Irish catholic even further. Over time historians have found that the accusations of the events which occurred in 1641 were not true, historians have questioned the sources reliability, Dr. Mark Sweetnam “It’s very striking that it crops up regularly in hearsay accounts but I have never came across an example of it in
eyewitness evidence”. Adding to this Dr. Barbara Fennell states “the more lurid and appalling the ‘atrocity’ was, the less reliable is the evidence”. The statements from the historians suggest that the events were not as shown in the “bloudy news” but were exaggerated for propaganda purposes, and do not show the reality of the situation. t was already known that Oliver Cromwell had already suffered with “acute nervous depression” after the downfall of his uncle which resulted in Cromwells humiliation. This also implies that Cromwell would not have been in a good mental state around the 1640’s. Exaggeration of the newspapers would have been part of the reason the English and Cromwell were extremely outraged, as they were unaware of the actual facts of what had gone on in Ireland. The people would have believed false information and would have not known of the correct events which occurred. In addition to this the
