The 1 May declaration was as close as the Irish Convention could prudently come to proclaiming its support for the king's restoration without breaching the understanding that England should lead the way ‘least to much haste heere might have done harm in England’. That there was no disposition to conceal the realities behind the appearance is suggested by the record in the minute book of the corporation of Dublin which described 4 May not, in the official circumlocution, as a day of blessing for the parliament, but as a day ‘putt apart by authoritie, and to be kept and observed as a thanksgiveing day for the restauration of his majestie to his crowne’. Two days later news of the parliamentary votes to end the republic reached Dublin in the pacquet. Bishop Williams of Ossory, who also arrived from Holyhead on The Harp early that Sunday morning, went straight to St Bride's where he ‘publickly prayed for the King, I am sure the first man in the Kingdom of Ireland’.

The inconvenience of suspending Irish political activity to give the English parliament a clear run became apparent at once, for there was no collective mechanism for receiving and responding to this intelligence. The result was that it was the army which reacted first.