As the civil war developed in Britain, Charles I made several attempts to obtain Irish support for his fight against the Parliamentarians. Daniel O'Carroll the great grandson of Teíge and Chief of Ely died in the service of Charles I as did many of his countrymen.
In 1649 after the English rebels had executed the King and ended the civil war with the establishment of the Commonwealth, the pacification of Ireland was given priority by the new government. In August 1649 Oliver Cromwell with twenty thousand men of the New Model Army landed in Dublin. A month later, on 11 September, he stormed Drogheda, entering Irish history with a vengeance still not forgotten. The entire garrison and all the townspeople were ruthlessly slain. From Drogheda Cromwell went on to Wexford where two weeks later he conducted another slaughter as ruthless as the first. New Ross surrendered to him without a fight and by July 1650 Commonwealth armies were in command of all Ireland except Connaught.
After returning to England in 1650 Cromwell turned his attention to Ireland's legislation. In 1653 the Westminster 'Rump Parliament' voted to unify Ireland with Britain and abolish the Irish Parliament. In a further series of acts it was decreed that Irish landowners were to be transplanted to the inhospitable terrain of Connaught and County Clare and their lands forfeited to the adventurers and demobilised soldiers of Cromwell's armies. More than eleven million acres of land were confiscated. Native Irishmen found east of the River Shannon after 1 May 1654 faced the death penalty or transportation to slavery in the West Indies. "To Hell or Connaught" became a proverbial phrase among Irishmen.
John O'Carroll (the son of Daniel) was, at the age of five, removed from his ancestral lands into Connaught "thereby to destroy the interests of the family who were in all ages known to stand for the liberties of their country." In the original Connaught certificate (IV, 60) "the lands of Beagh, etc. are granted to John Carroll, grandson and heir to Donnough O'Carroll, as a transplanted person."
As in previous plantations, it proved impossible to enforce the Cromwellian land settlement. It is thought that fewer than a quarter of the soldiers granted Irish lands actually settled in Ireland; most preferred to sell their lands instead. The new owners who did settle found that they needed a supply of cheap labour in order to farm their new fields. So in practice, despite the dangers, many native Irishmen drifted back across the Shannon. These planters became the new ruling class in Ireland and, like the Normans before them, gradually changed into Irishmen themselves. Only in the North did differences remain were the new element of strong anti-Catholic Protestantism was added.
After the monarchy was restored in Britain in 1660, Charles II refused to reinstate most of the original landowners, although diplomatically, he did not enforce the laws against Catholics. When James II succeeded his father in 1685, only 22 per cent of the land of Ireland was in the hands of Catholics. However any lingering differences between the native Irish and the various groups of Englishmen outside the Pale who had come to Ireland during the previous centuries were by now largely forgotten.
The succession of the professedly Catholic James II could have led to settled relations between England and Ireland however his insistence upon his prerogative at the expense of Parliament generated another English civil war with an even greater Irish involvement.
After the defeat of the Scots by William of Orange in 1689, James turned to the Irish for help. The Irish once again united in supporting the English king but were defeated, as all Orangemen could tell you, on the banks of the river Boyne on 12 July 1690. For over a year the Irish army continued to resist William until in September 1691 they finally surrendered and the war ended with the Treaty of Limerick.
Daniel
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John = Margaret O'Crean
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Sir Daniel (d 1750) Redmund (d 1755)
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Sir Daniel (d 1758) Sir John Remy
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Sir John Whitley O'Carroll Redmund Peter
| Bart. (d 1818) |
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Sir Jervaise O'Carroll |
Bart. (d 1831) |
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Rev John James, SJ Rev Francis Augustine
the Oratory, South Kensington
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