Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish
And
The Fighting Irish
Owen Roe O' Neill
Background: The Great Owen Roe in Battle.
The
Confederation of Kilkenny proved to be perhaps more of a curse than a blessing to Ireland.
The establishing of the Confederation was the establishing of a Parliament for Ireland. As to please the Catholic Anglo-Irish ( the ' New Irish ' ) lords and gentry, the Confederation proclaimed its stand " for faith, country and king " - meaning King Charles of England - so also to please the same party the susceptibilities of their king was supposed to be saved from hurt, by naming it a Confederation instead of a Parliament.
In England Charles and his Parliamentary Government were now at bitter odds - beginning the great civil conflict there. Most of the Anglo-Irish, including all of the Catholic Anglo-Irish, espoused King Charles' cause. And though to appease his Puritan opponents he loudly proclaimed his hostility to property and refused to relax the anti-property laws, the Anglo-Irish whose affections for English royalty could seldom be shaken, held, not him, but the minions of the Parliamentary party, responsible for all of Ireland's woes. And they fostered the belief that Charles was a friend of Ireland and of the Catholic faith. It was the same absurd loyalty, which crossing Ireland's national claims, was, for centuries before handed down through all generations of this particular portion of the Irish public.
A portion of the Old Irish, the real Irish, now as always, taking this absurd loyalty by contagion, believed also in a crossed fealty. But the vast majority of these waisted no love and no reverence upon a foreign king who held them by force. Yet for unity's sake they yielded the point to the New Irish, and subscribed to the battle cry " for faith, for country, and for king. " The Confederation of Kilkenny then, which might have been a great blessing to Ireland, eventually proved to be Ireland's curse - in this, the country's greatest, fiercest struggle. Not entirely because the New Irish in it were given their way from the start; but more because a clique of the most unnational and reactionary of them secured inside control - the control of the Supreme Council of the Confederation's General Assembly.
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In England Charles and his Parliamentary Government were now at bitter odds - beginning the great civil conflict there. Most of the Anglo-Irish, including all of the Catholic Anglo-Irish, espoused King Charles' cause. And though to appease his Puritan opponents he loudly proclaimed his hostility to property and refused to relax the anti-property laws, the Anglo-Irish whose affections for English royalty could seldom be shaken, held, not him, but the minions of the Parliamentary party, responsible for all of Ireland's woes. And they fostered the belief that Charles was a friend of Ireland and of the Catholic faith. It was the same absurd loyalty, which crossing Ireland's national claims, was, for centuries before handed down through all generations of this particular portion of the Irish public.
A portion of the Old Irish, the real Irish, now as always, taking this absurd loyalty by contagion, believed also in a crossed fealty. But the vast majority of these waisted no love and no reverence upon a foreign king who held them by force. Yet for unity's sake they yielded the point to the New Irish, and subscribed to the battle cry " for faith, for country, and for king. " The Confederation of Kilkenny then, which might have been a great blessing to Ireland, eventually proved to be Ireland's curse - in this, the country's greatest, fiercest struggle. Not entirely because the New Irish in it were given their way from the start; but more because a clique of the most unnational and reactionary of them secured inside control - the control of the Supreme Council of the Confederation's General Assembly.
page being constructed.
