The Proclamation of Dungannon was a document produced by Sir Phelim O'Neill on 24 October 1641 in the Irish town of Dungannon. [1] O'Neill was one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion, which had been launched the previous day. O'Neill's Proclamation set out a justification of the uprising. He claimed to have been given a commission signed and sealed on 1 October by the King of Ireland Charles I that commanded him to lead Irish Catholics in defence of the Kingdom of Ireland against Protestants who sympathised with Charles's opponents in the Parliament of England.
Following the trial and execution of the Viceroy, the Earl of Strafford, in May 1641, Ireland was in a state of turmoil. There was growing tension between Catholics and Protestants (particularly those of a Puritan tendency) with the former generally sympathetic to King Charles while the latter supported the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters in the dispute that would shortly lead to the outbreak of the English Civil War. This formed part of the wider War of the Three Kingdoms.
On 23 October a major uprising broke out in Ulster organised by leading members of the Gaelic aristocracy. The rebels attacked Protestant plantation settlements as well as native Irish Protestants and took garrison towns held by the Irish Army. Irish government authorities in Dublin struggled to contain the insurgency with the limited number of troops they had at their disposal. A last-minute warning saved Dublin Castle from a surprise attack, although O'Neill was clearly unaware of the failure of the Dublin plot when he issued his proclamation. [2]
After seizing several key strategic points in Ulster over the previous twenty-four hours, Sir Phelim made his proclamation in Dungannon, a town that had symbolic importance as the traditional capital of the O'Neill dynasty. The text read:
In support of his actions, Sir Phelim claimed to have a document from King Charles commissioning him. The Commission was supposedly signed under the Great Seal of Scotland. By declaring their loyalty to the Crown and defence of the Catholic religion, O'Neill and his followers adopted a political stance which was taken up by the subsequent Irish Confederation which governed rebel-controlled territory in the name of the King from 1642 until 1649. The Proclamation encouraged many Catholics to believe they could lawfully join the rising with the King's blessing, while Protestants were left demoralised.
Sir Phelim's second and more trenchant proclamation was made "from our camp at Newry" on 4 November 1641 alongside Rory Maguire:
He also published the actual royal commission that gave authority for his earlier proclamation. It was subtly different, in that it empowered him to arrest and seize property from all of Charles's English Protestant subjects living in Ireland, but exempted his Irish and Scottish subjects. He was ordered to:
Part of the commission in the original spelling:
Until the late nineteenth century historians generally accepted that the commission was genuine, or at the very least Charles had secretly encouraged the Irish Catholics to launch a rising. Since then, for a variety of reasons, it has been considered to be a forgery produced by O'Neill and his associates without the knowledge of the King. They may well have acquired a copy of the Great Seal of Scotland when they captured the garrison town of Charlemont on 23 October. [7]
The historian David Stevenson notes that it would be unlikely that the commission would have been addressed to Sir Phelim O'Neill. Had it been genuine it would almost certainly have been issued to more senior Irish Royalists such as the Earl of Ormond or the leading Catholic noble of Ulster, the Earl of Antrim. It is also unlikely to have been issued at Edinburgh as Sir Phelim claimed. [8] However, King Charles was in Edinburgh on 1 October, dealing with Scottish political matters. [9]
Forgery or not, King Charles publicly proclaimed all the Irish rebels as traitors on 1 January 1642. [10]
That the Commission was genuine was widely accepted in England and Scotland by the King's opponents and even some of his own supporters. It seemed to tie in with earlier rumours of an army plot which had suggested that Charles might bring over the New Irish Army, made up largely of Ulster Catholics, to impose his will on England and Scotland. Anger at the King's alleged links with the insurgents grew – particularly as horror stories of atrocities committed, such as the Portadown Massacre, began to filter across the Irish Sea. Tensions arising from news of the Irish rebellion was a factor in the English push to Civil War in early 1642.
The Scottish authorities dispatched an Army which quickly retook much of Ulster from the insurgents. Once the English Civil War broke out in October 1642, Charles' emissaries began negotiations with the Irish rebels for their support, which seemed to present further evidence to his opponents of his links with the Catholic Ulster leaders. Many of these later dealings were exposed when Charles private letters were captured during the Battle of Naseby (1645) and published as King's Cabinet Opened .
When Phelim O'Neill was captured in 1653 following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, he was put on trial for his life. The authorities offered to spare him if he would repeat his earlier claims that Charles had ordered the Catholics to rise in 1641. O'Neill now refused to implicate the King, who had been executed four years earlier, and was put to death himself. [11] Nonetheless the English Republicans continued to use O'Neill's earlier claims of the King's involvement to justify their decision to commit regicide.
Owen Roe O'Neill was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster. O'Neill left Ireland at a young age and spent most of his life as a mercenary in the Spanish Army serving against the Dutch in Flanders during the Eighty Years' War. After the Irish Rebellion of 1641, O'Neill returned and took command of the Irish Confederate Ulster Army. He is known for his victory at the Battle of Benburb in 1646.
The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War, took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in the kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland – all ruled by Charles I. The conflict had political, religious and ethnic aspects and was fought over governance, land ownership, religious freedom and religious discrimination. The main issues were whether Irish Catholics or British Protestants held most political power and owned most of the land, and whether Ireland would be a self-governing kingdom under Charles I or subordinate to the parliament in England. It was the most destructive conflict in Irish history and caused 200,000–600,000 deaths from fighting as well as war-related famine and disease.
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation (plantation) of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James VI and I. Most of the settlers came from southern Scotland and northern England; their culture differed from that of the native Irish. Small privately funded plantations by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while the official plantation began in 1609. Most of the land had been confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule. The official plantation comprised an estimated half a million acres (2,000 km2) of arable land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Londonderry. Land in counties Antrim, Down, and Monaghan was privately colonised with the king's support.
Sir Phelim Roe O'Neill of Kinard was an Irish politician and soldier who started the Irish rebellion in Ulster on 23 October 1641. He joined the Irish Catholic Confederation in 1642 and fought in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms under his cousin, Owen Roe O'Neill, in the Confederate Ulster Army. After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland O’Neill went into hiding but was captured, tried and executed in 1653.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was an uprising in Ireland, initiated on 23 October 1641 by Catholic gentry and military officers. Their demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and return of confiscated Catholic lands. Planned as a swift coup d'état to gain control of the Protestant-dominated central government, instead it led to the 1641–1653 Irish Confederate Wars, part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms. By its end, up to 20% of the Irish population had become casualties.
Confederate Ireland, also referred to as the Irish Catholic Confederation, was a period of Irish Catholic self-government between 1642 and 1652, during the Eleven Years' War. Formed by Catholic aristocrats, landed gentry, clergy and military leaders after the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the Confederates controlled up to two-thirds of Ireland from their base in Kilkenny; hence it is sometimes called the "Confederation of Kilkenny".
The Battle of Liscarroll was fought on 3 September 1642 in northern County Cork, Munster, between Irish Confederate and Royalist troops. The battle was part of the Irish Confederate Wars, which had started in the north in 1641 reaching Munster in 1642. The Confederates, about 8,500 strong, were led by Garret Barry, an Irish veteran from the Spanish Army of Flanders. The Royalist forces, about 2,400 strong, were commanded by Murrough O'Brien, 6th Baron of Inchiquin, an Irish Protestant. Despite his numerical disadvantage Inchiquin routed his enemies by the strength of his cavalry and the firepower of his musketeers.
Sir Richard Bellings (1613–1677) was a lawyer and political figure in 17th century Ireland and in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He is best known for his participation in Confederate Ireland, a short-lived independent Irish state, in which he served on the governing body called the Supreme Council. In later life, he also wrote a history of the Confederate period, which is one of the best historical sources on the Confederation.
Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from Great Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, anglicising and 'civilising' Gaelic Ireland. The main plantations took place from the 1550s to the 1620s, the biggest of which was the plantation of Ulster. The plantations led to the founding of many towns, massive demographic, cultural and economic changes, changes in land ownership and the landscape, and also to centuries of ethnic and sectarian conflict. They took place before and during the earliest English colonisation of the Americas, and a group known as the West Country Men were involved in both Irish and American colonization.
Randall MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim (1609–1683) was a Roman Catholic landed magnate in Scotland and Ireland, son of the 1st Earl of Antrim. He was also chief of Clan MacDonnell of Antrim. He is best known for his involvement, mostly on the Royalist side, in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Hugh McShane O'Neill was an early modern Irish nobleman and rebel associated with the McShanes of Glenconkeyne and Killetra. This group was also called the "Wild Clan Shanes of Killetragh" or the "McShane-O'Neills". His parentage is disputed however he is claimed by some as being either a grandson or great-grandson of Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone, and Gearoid Mór Fitzgerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, and of the primary line of the O'Neill of Tyrone clan.
Clandeboye or Clannaboy was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, comprising what is now south County Antrim, north County Down, and the barony of Loughinsholin. The entity was relatively late in appearance and is associated partly with the Gaelic resurgence of the High Middle Ages. The O'Neill Clandeboy who reigned in the territory descended from Hugh Boy O'Neill, a king of Tyrone. His descendants took advantage of the demise of the Earldom of Ulster during the latter 14th century and seized vast portions of territory. Clandeboye's main seats of power were Shane's Castle and Castle Reagh.
Tír Eoghain, also known as Tyrone, was a kingdom and later earldom of Gaelic Ireland, comprising parts of present-day County Tyrone, County Armagh, County Londonderry and County Donegal (Raphoe). The kingdom represented the core homeland of the Cenél nEógain people of the Northern Uí Néill and although they ruled, there were smaller groups of other Gaels in the area. One part of the realm to the north-east broke away and expanded, becoming Clandeboye, ruled by a scion branch of the O'Neill dynasty. In one form or another, Tyrone existed for over a millennium. Its main capital was Dungannon, though kings were inaugurated at Tullyhogue Fort.
Presented below is a chronology of the major events of the Irish Confederate Wars from 1641 to 1653. This conflict is also known as the Eleven Years War. The conflict began with the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and ended with the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53).
The Confederate Oath of Association was an oath of allegiance made by Irish Confederate Catholics during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638–1653).
Henry Leslie was a Scotsman who became the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor from 1635 to 1661 and briefly Bishop of Meath from January to April 1661.
The Battle of Glenmaquin was a brief battle on 16 June 1642 during the Eleven Years' War. It was fought between the Royalist Laggan Army commanded by Sir Robert Stewart and Irish Confederate forces commanded by Sir Felim O'Neill. The battle ended in a decisive victory for the Laggan Army with the Confederate forces suffering heavy losses.
Robert Hovenden or Robert Hovendon was an Irish figure who participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Hovenden was the half-brother of Sir Phelim O'Neill, a prime instigator in the Ulster-centred rebellion. Although Hovenden was of New English descent, he was a Roman Catholic like many of the other Hovenden settlers in Ireland. His father had in 1613 married the widow of Turlough Og O'Neill of County Tyrone who had been killed while serving on the Crown's side in O'Doherty's Rebellion. The family acquired property in Kinard some of which was Hovendon's, although Sir Phelim as the heir to his father was the dominant figure in the area and sat in Irish Parliament as member for Dungannon.
Richard O'Farrell was an Irish soldier of the seventeenth century most notable for his service in the Irish Confederate Wars from 1642 to 1651. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant General.
The Laggan Army, sometimes referred to as the Lagan Army, was a militia formed by Protestant settlers in the fertile Laggan district in the east of County Donegal in Ulster, during the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
First [on 1 January 1642] he issued a proclamation denouncing the Irish as traitors ...