The Irish rebellion Oliver Cromwell suppressed in 1649 was the later stage of an uprising that had been going on since 1641. On October 23, 1641, 40 years after the great rebellion of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, the Irish rose in revolt, first in Ulster, then later in the rest of Ireland. About 3,000 English and Scottish settlers were killed in the initial uprising. The numbers were inflated by Parliament to hundreds of thousands as a propaganda ploy to prevent King Charles I from making peace and using the Irish against Parliament during the Civil War.

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The English forces initially were commanded by James Butler, Duke of Ormonde and lord lieutenant of Ireland. In 1645, however, with Parliament in control of England, Ormonde took control of the rebellion and led the Confederacy, an alliance of all Royalists in Ireland. Others, such as Murrough O’Brien, Baron of Inchiquin, an Irish Protestant stationed in Munster opposed the Confederacy and laid waste to Munster, earning him the name Murrough of the Burnings and the hatred of his countrymen. Owen Roe O’Neill, nephew of Tyrone and a veteran of the Spanish army, kept his Ulster forces separate from Ormonde’s, representing a purely Irish Catholic element.

The years 1647 to 1649 were pivotal for the rebellion. First, in 1647 Inchiquin switched sides for no apparent reason and joined Ormonde. Second, Colonel Michael Jones landed with 2,000 troops, expelled Ormonde from Dublin and defeated him at Rathmines in August 1649. That broke Ormonde’s power. All that was left to do was capture the strongholds still in Confederate or Irish hands. Oliver Cromwell set out for Ireland to do just that.

Cromwell faced a bitterly divided Ireland. Native Irish, Old English (the descendants of the original English colonists), New English and Scottish, the more recent settlers, all distrusted one another almost as much as they did Cromwell, sometimes more so.

Cromwell’s greatest obstacles were not Irish or Confederate troops but the nature of Ireland itself, where conditions were terrible and the climate is even wetter than in England. Plague and influenza proved more devastating to Cromwell’s men than Irish arms.

Cromwell set sail for Ireland on August 13, 1649. He arrived in Dublin on the 15th and was greeted by the roar of cannons from the walls and a great, enthusiastic crowd. Cromwell was received so favorably because Dublin was the second city of the English empire and Colonel Jones had expelled all Catholics from the city.

Ormonde left Sir Arthur Aston, an English Catholic, at Drogheda with 2,200 infantry and 20 cavalry to delay Cromwell from marauding farther north. Aston was well aware of Cromwell’s superior numbers–8,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry–but he was confident that Drogheda’s superior position would enable him to survive the Cromwellian onslaught even if he could not hope to take the lord lieutenant in the field–or, as he put it, ‘He who could take Drogheda could take Hell. He also expected war’s partners, disease and famine, to weaken the Parliamentary army.

The geography of Drogheda was crucial to the siege. The town was totally contained within a formidable wall one and a half miles long, 20 feet high, and 6 feet wide at the base, narrowing to 2 feet on top. The main town lay north of the River Boyne. To the south, still within the impressive fortifications, was an additional urban area situated on a hill that had to be tackled first by any army coming from the south. In the extreme southeast corner, virtually embedded in the city wall, stood St. Mary’s Church. From its lofty steeple the defenders not only had a fine view of the city but were in a good position to fire upon attackers.

Flanking the church on the town side was a steep ravine called the Dale, then the heavily guarded Duleek Gate, the entrance to this southern outpost, and behind that an imposing artificial mound called the Mill Mount.

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