Confederate Ireland - Significance

Significance

Confederate Ireland was arguably the only sustained attempt at Catholic Irish self-government between 1558 and the foundation of Irish Free State in 1922. Its style of parliament was similar to the landed oligarchy Irish parliament established by the Normans in 1297, but it was not based on a democratic vote. Given their large notional power base, the Confederates ultimately failed to manage and reorganize Ireland so as to defend the interests of Irish Catholics. The Irish Confederate Wars and the ensuing Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53) caused massive loss of life and ended with the confiscation of almost all Irish Catholic owned land in the 1650s, though much was re-granted in the 1660s. The end of the period cemented the English colonisation of Ireland in the so-called Cromwellian Settlement.