Return To Royal Service
For a time Inchiquin was master of the south of Ireland, and no one dared meet him in the field. At the beginning of February 1647-8 he took Carrick with a small force, threatened Waterford, and levied contributions to the walls of Kilkenny. He returned to Cork at the end of the month, and persuaded his officers to sign a remonstrance to the English House of Commons as to its neglect of the Munster army. This was received 27 March, and it was at first decided to send three members to confer with the discontented general; but on 14 April came news that he had actually declared for the king. The three members were recalled, all commissions made to Inchiquin revoked, and officers and soldiers forbidden to obey him. He managed to keep his army together, while insisting on the necessity for Ormonde's return to Ireland, and even sent an officer to Edinburgh with a proposal for joining the Scots with six thousand men. Cork, Kinsale, Youghal, Baltimore, Castlehaven, Crookhaven, and Dungarvan were in his hands, and he so fortified these harbours that no parliamentary ship could anchor in any one of them.
In spite of Rinuccini, Inchiquin concluded a truce with the confederate Catholics on 22 May, and Ormonde converted this into a peace in the following January. Owen Roe O'Neill advanced in July as far as Nenagh, his object being to reach Kerry, whose mountains were suited to his peculiar tactics, and whose unguarded inlets would give him the means of communicating with the continent; but Inchiquin, forced him back to Ulster. Ormonde, who was still the legal lord-lieutenant, landed at Cork on 30 September, and he and Inchiquin thenceforth worked together, Clanricarde and Lord Preston siding with them as against the nuncio Rinuccini and the Ulster general O'Neill.
The Munster army had been buoyed up with the hopes of pay at Ormonde's arrival, but he had only thirty pistoles, and some of the disappointed cavalry left their colours with a view to joining either Jones or O'Neill. Inchiquin quelled the mutiny with great skill and courage; and Ormonde could only promise that the king would pay all arrears as soon as he could.
Read more about this topic: Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl Of Inchiquin
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