Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin - Cromwellian Invasion

Cromwellian Invasion

Cromwell landed on 18 August 1649, and stormed Drogheda on 12 September. It was evident that nothing could resist him, and the Munster garrisons, who had Protestant sympathies, began to fall away from Inchiquin. A conspiracy of certain officers to seize his person was frustrated, and he gained admission to Youghal while the conqueror was busy at Wexford. Inchiquin returned to Leinster at the end of October, and on 1 November was at the head of some three thousand men, chiefly horse, and he advanced through the hills from Carlow to attack about half that number of Cromwell's soldiers who had been left sick in Dublin.

The Cromwellians, many of whom had but imperfectly recovered, had a hard fight on the shore at Glascarrick, between Arklow and Wexford ; but their left was covered by the sea, and they succeeded in beating off their assailants. At this moment Munster revolted from Inchiquin. Admiral Robert Blake's blockade having been temporarily raised by bad weather, Rupert escaped from the Irish coast, and on 13 November. Cromwell wrote that Cork and Youghal had submitted. The other port towns followed suit, and Broghill succeeded to most of Inchiquin's influence in Munster. The English or Protestant inhabitants of Cork, "out of a sense of the good service and tender care of the Lord Inchiquin over them," asked Cromwell to see his estate secured to him and his heirs ; but to this the victor "forbore to make any answer".

On 24 November 1649 Inchiquin, at the head of a force consisting; chiefly of Ulster Irish, made an attempt upon Carrick-on-Suir, but was repulsed with great loss. He then retired westward, and obtained possession of Kilmallock, but had only some four hundred men with him. On 19 December he wrote to Ormonde concerning the Clonmacnoise bishops : "I am already condemned among them; and I believe your Excellency has but a short reprieve, for they cannot trust you unless you go to mass". In January 1650 he withdrew into Kerry, and raised some forces there, with which he returned to the neighbourhood of Kilmallock about the beginning of March. Henry Cromwell joined Broghill, and defeated these new levies which consisted chiefly of Englishmen towards the end of the month; and Inchiquin, after plundering most of the county Limerick, crossed the Shannon into Clare "with more cows than horses".

Neither Ormonde nor Inchiquin had now much to do in Ireland, and neither henceforth appeared to the east of the Shannon. The Roman Catholic hierarchy had met in December 1649 at Clonmacnoise; but they could never work cordially with a Protestant chief like Ormonde, and their object was to obtain the protection of some foreign prince. In their declaration made at Jamestown on 12 August 1650, they accused Inchiquin of betraying Munster, and charged both him and Ormonde with spending their time west of the Shannon "in play, pleasure, and great merriment". As neither Ormonde or Inchiquin had an army, and the walled towns refused to admit them, there was little they could do. Ormonde was told that he was distrusted solely on account of his relations with Inchiquin, while the latter was assured that he alone, as of the "most ancient Irish blood," could fill O'Neill's place in the popular esteem. Bagwell wrote that Clarendon not unfairly summed up the case by saying that "when these two lords had communicated each to other (as they quickly did) the excellent addresses which had been made to them, and agreed together how to draw on and encourage the proposers, that they might discover as much of their purposes as possible, they easily found their design was to be rid of them both."

The choice of Heber MacMahon, bishop of Clogher, as O'Neill's successor brought disaster, and Ormonde, accompanied by Inchiquin and some forty other officers, left Ireland, and, after three weeks' tossing, landed safely at Perros Guirec, in Brittany.