Oliver Cromwell and Wexford

A 1656 Samuel Cooper portrait of Cromwell

SOURCE

Cromwell

On a rainy day in October of 1649, another foreign army arrived at the outskirts of Wexford Town. This army, which was led by the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, Oliver Cromwell, set up camp to the north of the town, close to where Carcur and Spawell Road are today.

Two months earlier, Cromwell and his New Model Army had landed in Ireland with the intention of crushing the Irish Catholic Confederation – an alliance of Irish Catholic nobles, clergy members and military leaders that had been in control of Ireland for a number of years. This alliance was considered to be a military threat to the newly-established parliament of England. Throughout the years that preceded Cromwell’s arrival, Wexford’s port had been used as a base by Confederate vessels, many of which had been attacking and stealing from ships belonging to the English Parliament.

A few days after his arrival at Wexford, Cromwell encircled the town to the west before setting up a new camp in ‘The Rocks’, which was located to the south of the town. While negotiations between Cromwell and the garrison of Wexford were still ongoing, Cromwell’s New Model Army managed to capture Wexford Castle. The capture of Wexford Castle panicked the town’s garrison, causing them to flee (the sight of Cromwell’s men turning the guns of Wexford Castle on the town wall would have shocked and dismayed them, especially considering the fact that stories of Cromwell massacring the people of Drogheda would have been at the forefront of their minds). From that point onward, it seems as though Cromwell’s soldiers decided to seize the opportunity to breach the walls of Wexford Town.

Once the walls were breached, Cromwell’s New Model Army rampaged through the streets of Wexford, killing the town’s defenders and massacring its civilians. One such massacre is believed to have taken place at The Bullring, where the townspeople had huddled together (the truth behind this part of the story is hotly contested, as some historians believe that no such massacre took place). However, in his letters, Cromwell did write that his army had entered a marketplace and that they had put ‘all to the sword’ that ‘came in their way.’ He also recalled how boats of people trying to escape the town had capsized in Wexford Harbour, causing the deaths of 300 people. Over a decade later, during the 1660s, Wexford Town requested compensation from England, arguing that over 1,500 townspeople had been killed during the sacking.

Regardless of whether any such massacre took place, there is no denying that the town of Wexford had been left in a terrible state. In fact, the town had been so badly damaged that Cromwell and his men expressed their regret at not being able to use it as a quarters for the winter period. In the aftermath of the sacking, many of the remaining Catholics in Wexford decided to flee; choosing to hide-out in the countryside until the following spring. After returning, many of them learned that they were now tenants in their own homes; their lands and their houses having been confiscated.

In the period that followed, the land around Wexford was seized and handed over to a Protestant minority; marking yet another change in the history of the town. For centuries to come, Catholicism was repressed and the town of Wexford was placed under the control of an English elite. This would explain why many of the old Catholic churches of Wexford were allowed to fall into ruination, with many of them being plundered for building supplies (St. Peter’s Church being one such example).