In the months following the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, news of atrocity, hardship, and crisis from Ireland assailed English audiences. The pamphlets of 1641 and 1642 saturated the print shops with news of the horrors facing victims of the Irish rebellion. by and large these published works echoed the sentiments in Nehemiah Wallington's commonplace book, stressing the Protestantism and fidelity of the war victims and the broad international threat posed by the popish enemy. The Act for a Speedy Contribution and Loan set in motion a national collection for those despoiled and victimized at the hands of the rebels in Ireland. Although parliament's relative slowness in drawing together the Act has been characterized as ‘niggling, unco-operative, suspicious, and ungenerous’, it is also true that this national project – which stressed an overtly anti-popish agenda and implicitly spoke to contemporary anxieties about English recusants and prelates – marked a rare moment of cooperation between Westminster and Charles I in the otherwise overheated political climate of January 1642.

Despite expressions of sympathy towards the survivors and victims of the 1641 rising, various factors also raised suspicions about those who arrived in English towns and parishes. Particularly in areas that absorbed large numbers of Irish poor and had long-term problems with local recusants, the arrival of displaced settlers triggered increased anxiety and vigilance. In correspondence to Westminster, local officials who dealt with the arrival of these individuals expressed fears that their sheer numbers could help cover the infiltration of popish agents into England.