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The Confederate Catholics of Ireland: the personnel of the Confederation, 1642–9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Donol F. Cregan C.M.
Donol F. Cregan C.M.*
Affiliation:
Castleknock College, Dublin
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Extract

The term ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ is not of ancient lineage. It dates from the nineteenth century and, as Professor J. C. Beckett has pointed out, seems to have originated in the title of a book by Father C. P. Meehan first published in 1846. Those members of the confederacy which ruled the major portion of the country between the rising of 1641 and the advent of Cromwell officially designated themselves as ‘the Confederate Catholics of Ireland’. Their own description of themselves has been chosen to head this essay not because the pedigree of the term ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ is insufficiently old or respectable, but simply because their official title accurately describes what the essay is about. It is not concerned with the general history of the Confederate movement, nor with its prolonged diplomatic activities; still less does it deal with the ebb and flow of its military fortunes; nor even with the governmental structures of the Confederation. Of course I am relying on all these for background information and illustration, and, in particular, use has been made of the fact that I have been able to determine the number, and to identify almost the entire personnel, of the Confederation’s successive Supreme Councils. The history of the Confederation, political, diplomatic, constitutional and military, has been taken for granted. I want, then, to look at the people who individually bound themselves together by oath to form the confederacy; more particularly, to look at those who were members of the General Assemblies—constituting, in effect, the Confederate parliament; and more particularly still, to look at the members of the Supreme Councils, which virtually constituted the Confederate governments. This essay, therefore, is concerned with persons—with ‘the Confederate Catholics of Ireland’. It will briefly discuss their family origins, their educational and cultural background, their professions or occupations, and finally their political outlook.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 116 , November 1995 , pp. 490 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1995

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References

1 Beckett, J.C., ‘The Confederation of Kilkenny reviewed’ in Roberts, Michael (ed.), Historical Studies II (London, 1959), pp 29–30 Google Scholar; Meehan, C. P., The Confederation of Kilkenny (Dublin, 1846)Google Scholar.

2 Cregan, Donal F., ‘The Confederation of Kilkenny: its organisation, personnel and history’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University College, Dublin, 1947), pp 88–91 Google Scholar; see also idem, ‘Some members of the Confederation of Kilkenny’ in Sylvester O’Brien (ed.), Measgra i gcuimhne Mhichíl Uí Chléirigh (Dublin, 1944), pp 34–14; idem, ‘The Confederation of Kilkenny’ in Brian Farrell (ed.), The Irish parliamentary tradition (Dublin, 1973), pp 102–15. For the membership of the Supreme Councils see the appendix to this article.

3 Gilbert, Ir. confed., i, 1–2.

4 Jackson, Donald, Intermarriage in Ireland, 1550–1650 (Montreal, 1970)Google Scholar; Cregan, Donal F., ‘The social and cultural background of a Counter-Reformation episcopate, 1618–60’ in Cosgrove, Art and McCartney, Donal (eds), Studies in Irish history presented to R. Dudley Edwards (Dublin, 1979), p. 102.Google Scholar

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7 For details on Slane, Louth, Westmeath, Iveagh and Clanmalier see C[okayne, G.E.], The complete peerage (13 vols, London, 1910-59Google Scholar). The marquis of Antrim was another grandson and prominent Confederate (see Ohlmeyer, Jane H., Civil War and Restoration in the three Stuart kingdoms: the career of Randal MacDonnell, marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683 (Cambridge, 1993))Google Scholar.

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11 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 100–01. For Castlehaven see G.E.C., Complete peerage.

12 Cregan, ‘Some members’, pp 35–6.

13 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 348–50.

14 Ibid., pp 439–40; Cregan, ‘Some members’, p. 40.

15 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1574–85, p. 469.

16 Cregan, ‘Counter-Reformation episcopate’, p. 104.

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22 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 114–15. For Alexander MacDonnell and Antrim, who briefly served as president of the Supreme Council, see Hill, George, An historical account of the MacDonnells of Antrim (Belfast, 1873), chs 6–7 Google Scholar; Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration, pp 18, 27.

23 Bagwell, Stuarts, i, 177–8.

24 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 113–14.

25 Cregan, ‘Counter-Reformation episcopate’, pp 88–9, 103–17; see also Hammerstein, Helga, ‘Aspects of the continental education of Irish students in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I’ in Williams, T. Desmond (ed.), Historical Studies VIII (Dublin, 1971), pp 137–53.Google Scholar

26 Cal. Carew MSS, 1603–24, p. 280.

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28 Ibid., p. 23.

29 Cregan, ‘Counter-Reformation episcopate’, pp 107–17; idem, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 92–6.

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32 Cregan, Donal, ‘Irish Catholic admissions to the Inns of Court, 1558–1625’ in Ir. Jurist, v (summer 1970), pp 95–114 Google Scholar; see also idem, ‘Irish recusant lawyers in politics in the reign of James I’ in Ir. Jurist, v (winter 1970), pp 306–20.

33 Cregan, ‘Irish Catholic admissions’, pp 96–9.

34 Ibid., p. 98, citing SirFortescue, John, De laudibus legum Angliae, ed. and trans. Chrimes, S.B. (Cambridge, 1942), p. 119.Google Scholar

35 Ibid.

36 Cregan, ’Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1973), pp 109–10.

37 Cregan, ‘Counter-Reformation episcopate’, pp 99–103.

38 See note 10 for details.

39 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 98,432-3. For details on individual peers see G.E.C., Complete peerage.

40 Simington, R. C. (ed.), The Civil Survey, A.D. 1654–56 (10 vols, I.M.C., Dublin, 1931-61)Google Scholar. The books of survey and distribution for Counties Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Clare have been reproduced in idem (ed.), Books of survey and distribution (4 vols, I.M.C., Dublin, 1944–67); for County Kilkenny see Healy, William, History and antiquities of Kilkenny, i (Kilkenny, 1893), app. 1Google Scholar; for Westmeath see Lyons, J. C. (ed.), The book of survey and distribution (Ledestown, 1852)Google Scholar; for Cork see Waters, Anne, ‘A distribution of forfeited land in the county of Corke, returned by the Downe Survey. Copied from MS volume in the library of the Royal Irish Academy’ in Cork Hist Soc. Jn., xxxvii (1932), pp 83–9, xxxviii (1933), pp 39–45, 72–9, xxxix (1934), pp 33–7, 79–84, xl (1935), pp 43–8, 91–4, xli (1936), pp 37–41, 97–104Google Scholar.

41 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 106–8; see also Bradshaw, Brendan, The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1974), pp 231–47.Google Scholar

42 Massari, Dionisio, ‘My Irish campaign’ in Cath. Bull., vi (May-June 1916), pp 372-3, 403Google Scholar; Aiazza, Giuseppe, The embassy in Ireland, trans. Hutton, Annie (Dublin, 1873), p. 91.Google Scholar

43 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 106–8.

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45 Comment. Rinucc, i, 402–3.

46 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), p. 109; idem, ‘Irish recusant lawyers’.

47 See note 10.

48 This was the seventh Supreme Council; for details see note 10.

49 Cregan,’Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 110, 441.

50 Stone, Lawrence, The crisis of the aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), p. 31 Google Scholar; Keeler, M.F., The Long Parliament, 1640–1641: a biographical study of its members (Philadelphia, 1954), p. 21.Google Scholar

51 See Gilbert, Ir. confed., passim, esp. ii, 215, iii, 97–8, 174, 215, iv, 40,268, v, 226–7.

52 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 111,342-6.

53 Beckett, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’, pp 31–2.

54 McKenna, Lambert (ed.), Iomarbhaigh na bhfileadh (2 vols, London, 1918)Google Scholar; see also Riordan, Michelle O, The Gaelic mind and the collapse of the Gaelic world (Cork, 1990), p. 168.Google Scholar

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60 See, for example, ibid., iii, 3.

61 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 101,103-5.

62 For Rinuccini see Hynes, Michael J., The mission of Rinuccini, 1645–49 (Louvain, 1932)Google Scholar, which is essentially a summary of the Commentarius Rinuccinianus, and Corish, Patrick J., ‘Ireland’s first papal nuncio’ in I.E.R., 5th ser., lxxxi (1954), pp 172–83.Google Scholar

63 For the oath of association see Gilbert, Ir. confed., ii, 210–12; see also Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1973) pp 114–15.

64 This paper was read to the Irish Historical Society in 1971. The author would like to express his gratitude and appreciation to Dr Jane Ohlmeyer for her kindness and encouragement in preparing it for publication; he would also like to thank James I. McGuire and Micheál Ó Siochrú for their assistance.

[The editors regret to announce that Dr Donal F. Cregan, C.M., died on 13 October 1995.]

65 Cregan, ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ (1947), pp 88–91.

66 Ohlmeyer, Civil War & Restoration, pp 189–90.

67 As a result of the second Ormond peace, January 1649, the Supreme Council was replaced by twelve ‘commissioners of trust’ to administer those parts of the country under Catholic control (New hist. Ire., iii, 334).