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4 - Mount Taragh's Triumph: Commitment and Organization in the Early Stages of the 1641 Rebellion in Meath
- from Part I - The Outbreak of the Rebellion
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- By Bríd McGrath, Trinity College Dublin
- Edited by Eamon Darcy, Annaleigh Margey, Elaine Murphy
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- Book:
- The 1641 Depositions and the Irish Rebellion
- Published by:
- Pickering & Chatto
- Published online:
- 05 December 2014, pp 51-64
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Summary
Welcome yee Peeres, yee Earles of our Shires
yee Viscounts, and Barons together.
Taragh the Mount, his ioyes doth account
Being grac'd with your greatefull presence.
The outbreak of the rebellion on 22 October 1641 was a reaction to cumulative economic, social and religious pressures on the part of members of the Catholic elite in Ulster, eagerly supported by their social inferiors. Parliamentary pressure for change had proved unavailing and men like Phelim O'Neill, Coll MacMahon, Rory O'More and others saw no other way out of their difficulties, although they consistently stressed their loyalty to the crown. The failure of the intended rebellion in Dublin presumably discouraged others who might have joined in, but despite this the rebellion spread quickly within and outside Ulster, including into Meath and Louth. The Old English gentry faced a dilemma, whether to join with their co-religionists or to maintain their traditional stance of loyalty. The administration's reaction – demanding but refusing to accept their loyalty, appointing key men like Lord Gormanston as governors of counties and issuing a small number of weapons for their defence, but then withdrawing them within a fortnight – left them mistrusted, defenceless and exposed. The violent actions of some members of the administration, such as Charles Coote, confirmed the worst fears of the Catholic population. Simultaneously, the Old English peers and gentry came under considerable pressure from the northern rebels to join them, and also saw the lower orders and towns joining in the rebellion. For Gormanston, the turning point appeared to be when the administration ignored his warning about the likelihood of troops which were being sent, under a very inexperienced officer, to relieve the siege of Drogheda, being attacked en route. When the rebels routed those troops at Julianstown on 29 November 1641, Gormanston decided to throw in his lot with the northern rebels and summoned his fellow Meathmen to a meeting at Duleek around 3 December 1641. This meeting, relocated to the Hill of Crofty, marked the Old English Meath community's formal commitment to the rebellion; a subsequent gathering at Tara four days later agreed the process for the conduct of the military campaign, including personnel and supplies, and also maintaining order in the county at a time of national upheaval.
9 - The Irish elections of 1640–1641
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- By Bríd McGrath, Information consultant Dublin
- Edited by Ciaran Brady, Trinity College, Dublin, Jane Ohlmeyer, Trinity College, Dublin
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- Book:
- British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland
- Published online:
- 31 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 06 January 2005, pp 186-206
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Summary
The Bishop of Rapho tells me your Ma[jes]tie was told all this Kingdom was disposed to trouble. It is wonderful how men are inclined nowadays to report all wherein I am concerned to ye worst possible source. For … there hath not been all this while the least appearance or complexion to any such thing, nor is there yett, or any likely to be, for any thing I can see. Nay Sir, after all their gaping upon me and after me, it will be found I have Estimation & Affection in the Places where I serve you.
The Irish parliament which met on 16 March 1640 was one that Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, wanted, and it acted in a manner that appeared to support this sanguine view of his happy position in Ireland. The Commons' 235 members, 161 Protestants and 74 Catholics, gave him the most comfortable Protestant majority ever, and the Irish council declared that ‘we observe the Persons returned to serve this Parliament all generally so well affected and disposed to reason’. It held a perfunctory opening session on Monday 16 March at which Sir Maurice Eustace was unanimously selected as Speaker, and adjourned for two days, awaiting Wentworth's arrival from England. On its first full day's legislative business on the following Monday it agreed to four subsidies, and on 26 March sat at three o'clock in the afternoon ‘for the reading of the act of four intire subsidies the third time, for expedition of the business of the House’.