In Munster, at the outbreak of the rebellion, the city of Cork and the towns of Youghal and Kinsale, true to their old traditions of loyalty to the English crown, had shut their gates against the rebels, and given every assistance to the government. To them flocked for refuge all the Protestants of the neighbouring counties. Most of these were descendants of the men to whom Queen Elizabeth had granted the estates forfeited in the Desmond rebellion. They came from parts of England where Puritanism was strong, and most of their descendants in 1641 were in entire sympathy with the English parliament and opposed to the King.[1]
The parliament managed to get control of the troops sent from England to the relief of the Munster garrisons; and when they had come to an open conflict with the King they won over the Munster Protestants to their side. The chief men of this party were the Norman Irish Earl of Barrymore, the English Boyle Earl of Cork and his numerous family of sons, and above all the celebrated Murrough O'Brien Baron of Inchiquin, whose atrocities earned him the name of "Murrough of the Burnings." He got complete control of Cork in 1644 by expelling the whole Catholic population.
The Scots had already formed considerable settlements in Down and Antrim in addition to those in the "Plantation Counties."[2] To protect
- ↑ That is to say such of them as were still Protestants. Many of the descendants of the Elizabethan settlers were Catholics in 1641.
- ↑ These settlements in Antrim and Down had, as I have said before, come about through peaceful penetration. It is curious to find that the MacDonnells and Magees from the Isles were now looked on as being Irish because they were Catholics.
