Rolls the dirge of thy last and thy bravest O’More!”
CHAPTER IV
Proceedings of the Confederation of Kilkenny—Arrival of Owen Roe O’Neill and Rinuccini
OUT of the chaos of a popular uprising, and a number of minor councils, which could decide only for localities, there sprang into existence the National Synod, composed of clerics and laymen of the Catholic persuasion, because, at this period, few, if any of the Irish Protestants were in sympathy with the insurrection, or revolution, which is a more fitting term. The “oath of association” was formulated by the venerable Bishop Rothe, and, somewhat unnecessarily, seeing that the King of England was using all the forces at his disposal to crush “the rebellion,” pledged true faith and allegiance to Charles I and his lawful successors. The fundamental laws of Ireland and the “free exercise of the Roman Catholic faith and religion” were to be maintained. Then came the second, and most important, part of the solemn and, as some thought, stringent obligation, which bound all Confederate Catholics never to accept or submit to any peace without the consent and approbation of their own general assembly.
A constitution was framed which declared the war just and constitutional, condemned racial distinctions such as “New” and “Old” Irish, ordained an elective council for each of the four provinces, and a national council for the whole kingdom, condemned, as excommunicate, all who might violate the oath of association, or who should be guilty of murder, assault, cruelty, or plunder under cover of the war.
The bishops and priests, very wisely, decided that a layman should be elected president of the National Council, and Lord Mountgarret was so chosen, with Richard Belling, lawyer and litterateur, as secretary. Both were men of moderate opinion and free from any taint of prejudice.
It was decided that the Supreme, or National, Council should hold its first session in the city of Kilkenny on October 23, 1642, the anniversary of the rising; and “the choice of such a date,” says McGee, “by men of Mountgarret’s and Belling’s moderation and judgment, six months after the date of the alleged ‘massacre,’ would form another proof, if any were now needed, that none of the alleged atrocities (of 1641) were yet associated with that particular day.”
Between the adjournment of the National Synod, in May, and the meeting of the Council in October, many stirring events occurred. The confederate general in Munster, the aged Barry, made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Cork, but had better success at Limerick, which surrendered to the Irish army on June 21. Soon afterward the Anglo-Irish leader, General St. Ledger, died at Cork, and the command devolved upon Murrough O’Brien, Baron of Inchiquin, who had been brought up from an early age as one of Parsons’ chancery wards, and had, therefore, become a Protestant. Furthermore, he had grown to be an anti-Irish Irishman of the blackest and bloodiest type. In Irish history, he is known as “Black Murrough the Burner,” because the torch, under his brutal sway, kept steady company with the sword, and both were rarely idle. He served the king as long as the royal policy suited his views, but, when it did not, his services were at the disposal of the opposition. Murrough had served his military apprenticeship under Sir Charles Coote and was a past master in all the cruelties practiced by his infamous instructor. The curse of the renegade was strong upon him, for he hated his own kin more bitterly than if he were an alien and a Briton. Of the ancient royal houses of Ireland, those of MacMurrough and O’Brien present the strongest contrasts of good and evil.
The Irish forces succeeded in taking the castles of Loughgar and Askeaton, but Inchiquin inflicted a severe defeat upon them at Liscarroll, where the loss was nearly a thousand men on the side of Ireland, whereas the victor boasted that there fell only a score on his side. There were also some skirmishes in Connaught, where the peculiar inactivity of Lord Clanricarde produced discontent, and led to a popular outbreak in the town of Galway which General Willoughby speedily suppressed, with every circumstance of savage brutality. Affairs in Leinster continued rather tranquil. Ormond was raised by the king to the dignity of marquis, but does not seem to have been trusted by the Puritan Lords Justices, Parsons and Borlaise. The fall of the year was signalized, however, by the landing in Ireland of three able generals, all of whom fought on the national side—Right Hon. James Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, who had been imprisoned as a suspect in Dublin Castle, but managed to effect his escape; Colonel Thomas Preston, the heroic defender of Louvain, who debarked at Wexford, bringing with him 500 officers of experience, several siege guns, a few light field-pieces, and a limited quantity of small arms; and last, but most welcome to Ireland, arrived from Spain Colonel Owen Roe O’Neill, who made a landing on the Donegal coast with 100 officers, a company of Irish veterans, and a quantity of muskets and ammunition. He immediately proceeded to the fort of Charlemont, held by his fierce kinsman, Sir Phelim O’Neill, who, with commendable patriotic self-sacrifice, resigned to him, unsolicited, the command of the Irish army of the North, and became, instead of generalissimo, “President of Ulster.”