Liam's Irish Traditional Music - Irelands culture and tradition

Cromwell decided to deal with the threat of invasion by leading an army to Ireland in 1649, intending to subdue Catholic resistance and establish a Protestant regime. By his actions in Ireland he established an Image of cruelty, which has survived to the present day.

Cromwell remembered the massacres of the Protestants in 1641, and decided to wipe out Irish resistance in key areas. In order to prevent the outbreak of full scale war, which would cost the lives of more English soldiers, he decided to make an example of some towns in Ireland. One of these was Drogheda, which had a population of three thousand people at this time. Cromwell wrote to the President of the State Council, John Bradshaw, in September 1649:

It has pleased God to bless our endeavours at Tredah Droghedal.... I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody for Barbadoes.... And truly I believe that this bitterness will save much effusion of blood, through the goodness of God. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone. To whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs... I rest

Your most humble servant

Oliver Cromwell

Source: quoted In James Carty, (ed.), Ireland 1607 - 1782, C. J. Fallon Ltd 1949)

A new boundary line was devised. Catholic landowners, who held land in. the east side of the river Shannon, were forced to give up their land and move west of the river. Their land was confiscated and redistributed to Protestants. By 1658, 80 per cent of Irish land was owned by Protestants. Irish tenants and labourers had new landowners, and were forced to remain under Protestant control. Catholic landowners who resisted change faced the death penalty or slavery in the West, Indies.