“1641”
By ARTHUR HOUSTON, K.C., LL.D.
“1641”
“On Friday, the 22nd of this month, after nine of the clock at night, this bearer, Owen Connolly, servant to Sir John Clotworthy, Knight, came to me, the Lord Justice Parsons, to my house, and in great secrecy (as indeed the case did require) discovered unto me a most wicked and damnable conspiracy, plotted and contrived, and intended to be acted, by some evil affected Irish Papists here.”
With these words begins the historic letter written on the 25th of October, 1641, by the Lords Justices, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlase, and thirteen members of the Irish Privy Council, to the Earl of Leicester, the absentee Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
The objects which those who planned this conspiracy had in view, the means by which they were to be accomplished, and the conduct of those who took part in the insurrection which resulted from it, are among the most controverted questions of Irish history. Those who have taken sides against the rebels represent the rising as an ebullition of blind hatred against the English and Protestant inhabitants of Ireland, entertained by the native and Catholic population, who were resolved on expropriating and exterminating them, and setting up a government independent of the Crown of England, and establishing the Catholic Church in Ireland. Those who have sided with the rebels argue that the conspiracy and the insurrection were the result of legitimate grievances, for the redress of which insurrection afforded the only means; that the insurgents were loyal to the Crown, sought, not religious ascendancy, but religious freedom; that, while it is true that one of the objects of the conspirators was the recovery of property of which they or their ancestors had been violently and unjustly deprived, they were averse to the unnecessary effusion of blood, and had no design of harming, much less murdering, their English and Protestant fellow-countrymen. As to the conduct of those who took part in the rebellion, English and Anglo-Irish writers have made charges of wholesale massacre and shocking cruelty against them. These charges have been not only repelled, but retorted on the Irish Government, and the officers and soldiers who acted under their orders.
In addition to sketching briefly the main incidents of the rebellion, I propose in this paper, so far as its necessary limitations will permit, to discuss these different questions, and to see if it be not possible, with the materials in our possession, to come to a conclusion upon them.
As a preliminary step it will be necessary to endeavour to place ourselves in the position of a native Irish Catholic in the year 1641, so as to see what was his lot, and of what, if any, grievances he had just cause to complain. A short historical retrospect will help to an understanding of this matter.