“It is not to be imagined,” wrote Ormond, “how great the terror is that those successes and the power of the rebels have struck into this people. They are so stupefied, that it is with great difficulty that I can persuade them to act anything like men towards their own preservation.”
Trim and Dundalk were abandoned by their garrisons, Ross opened its gates as soon as a breach was made in its walls, and Ormond’s English Royalists deserted in scores. But, in November, when Cromwell attacked Waterford, the spell was broken. Its stubborn resistance and the tempestuous winter weather obliged him to raise the siege, for the hardships of Irish campaigning had thinned his army, and a large part of it were “fitter for an hospital than the field.” Michael Jones, Cromwell’s second in command, died of a fever, and Cromwell himself fell ill.
Meanwhile, the inherent weakness of the coalition which Ormond had built up revealed itself. Between the Munster Protestants, whom Inchiquin had induced to declare for the King in 1648, and their Catholic Irish allies there was a gulf which no temporary political agreement could bridge over. Before Cromwell left England, he had opened secret negotiations with some of the commanders in Munster, and his intrigues now bore fruit. In October, Cork expelled Ormond’s garrison, and in November, Youghal, Kinsale, Bandon, and several smaller places hoisted the English flag. Thus, by the close of 1649, all the coast of Ireland, from Londonderry to Cape Clear, with the sole exception of Waterford, was in Cromwell’s hands: “a great longitude of land along the shore,” wrote Cromwell, “yet hath it but little depth into the country.”
The task of the next campaign was the extension of English rule inland. After wintering in the Munster ports, Cromwell led his army against the fortresses in the interior of Munster. Cashel, Cahir, and many castles fell in February, and Kilkenny, the seat of the Irish Catholic Confederation, capitulated at the end of March.
More and more the war became a purely national war between Celts and English. The last of Inchiquin’s Protestant officers made terms with Cromwell. On the other hand, the Ulster army of Owen Roe stood no longer neutral, and though Owen Roe himself died in November, 1649, his Celtic soldiers fought for the freedom of their race with unsurpassable courage and devotion. Owen’s nephew, Hugh O’Neill, defended Clonmel against Cromwell, and repulsed with enormous loss his attempt to storm it. The Ironsides confessed that they had found in Clonmel “the stoutest enemy this army had ever met in Ireland,” but though the garrison escaped by a skilful night march, the town itself was obliged to surrender (May 10, 1650).
By this time war between England and Scotland was imminent. Cromwell’s recall had been voted by the Parliament in January, and a fortnight after the fall of Clonmel he sailed for England, leaving his lieutenants to complete the conquest of Ireland. Ireton, who remained as President of Munster and commander-in-chief, captured Waterford (August 10th), but failed before Limerick, while Coote in the north defeated Owen Roe’s old army at Scarrifholis (June 21st). There was no longer any Irish army in the field, and the war became a war of sieges and forays. At the end of 1650, Ormond left Ireland in despair. His successor, Clanricarde,—distrusted and disobeyed as Ormond had been,—could neither unite the Irish factions for the last struggle, nor combine the scattered bands who still held out in their bogs and mountains. The nobility still clung to the House of Stuart, but the clergy turned for help to the Catholic powers, and offered to accept the Duke of Lorraine as Protector of the Irish nation, if he would come to their defence with his army. In June, 1651, Ireton again besieged Limerick, and after a siege of five months the city yielded to famine and treachery. Ireton himself died of plague fever in November, 1651, but his successors, Ludlow and Fleetwood, completed the subjugation of the country. Galway, the last city to resist, surrendered to Coote in May, 1652. During the year, the last Irish commanders capitulated, and their soldiers entered Spanish or French service.
So ended the twelve years’ war. The contest had been unequal, but the failure of the Irish to regain their independence was due not so much to the greater strength and wealth of England, as to their own divisions. As a contemporary Irish poet wrote:
“The Gael are being wasted, deeply wounded,
Subjugated, slain, extirpated,
By plague, by famine, by war, by persecution.