URING THE CIVIL WAR (1 641 -1 653) BY THOMASFITZPATRICH, LL. D. The author of this xork was bo~ii5z CO. DOWE iiz 1845 a?zd died in Dublin on Janzsary 4th, 1912. 1% 1876, xhile he zoas Head- master of Birr School he married the Nead&tress, ilfiss XQ~ Dowling, a native of Waterford. IN Dr. Fztzpatrick his coz~ntryloses me of the most zndustrio:ls amd painstaking students of the Primary sactrces of her history. For many years he had devoted himself to study of the original docume~zts relati~zg to the 17th ce&try aud from these he unearthed the mass of information enshrined in his books n+zd in the present series of papers. Dr. Fztzpatrick was one of oz:r Irish zeaiters-their number is all too few-wlao are not content uith materials extracted from already prir~ted volumes. He sought the original sources and he brought to their ivmestigation a trained, sym$atlzetic and analytic intellect. 1 NTRQDUCTQRY THE purpose of this work is to set forth certain incidents and aspects of the great rising of 1641 and the civil war in Ireland, so far as contemporary records, little if at all known to historians, may aid in arriving at a clearer conception of that much mis- represented movement. (1) 9 have transcribed about two-thirds of the documents contained in the large volume of depositions (T.C.D. MS. F. 2.13.) relating to the County and City of Waterford, as well as of portions of the adjoining counties. As pointed out by the late Sir John T. Gilbert these documents have, for the most part, been greatly reduced by cancelling. The meaning of this I treat of further on. (2) 1 have added a remarkable statement from the pen of Urban Vigors, Lord Broghill's chaplain. Some passages from this manuscript may be found in the introduction to my former work (a). The document is now printed entire for the first time (so far as I know). In my opinion, no more clear and forcible exposition of the tactics then pursued by the State forces in Ire- land has ever been given to the public. The particular inlportance of '<Urban Vigors his account" is that he gleefully relates many instances of "execution done upon the rebels'Lin most cases, the unresisting and unarmed peasantry,-and glories in exploits of which there is no mention in the depositions. One striking instance will be found on the first page of his manuscript : "Sir William Saintleger, knight, Lord President of the said Province, with 200 horse firiday the third of December (1641), killed 200 of them between Clonmell and Waterford, besides a great number that were drowncd, many persons were then taken, whereof forty of the ringleaders were hanged at the Citty of M'ater- ford the Nunday following" (6 Dec). The significance of this passage can hardly be over-rated, when we come to consider the origin of the so-called rebellion in Waterford and the neighbouring counties. (a) "The Bloody Bridge, and other papers relating to the Insurrection of 1641." Dublin: Seal?, Bryers R- Walker, 1903. vi. INTRODUCTORY NOTES (3) The trial of Captain Edmond Fennell before the Crom- wellian High Court sitting at Cork (6th to 14th December, 1652) which I transcribe from the notes of the presiding judge- Mr. Justice Donnellan-as fully as I can make out from the very difficult and much contracted scrawl (T.C.D. MS., F. 4-16). A cursory glance through the depositions hereinafter set out will show how much attention this Confederate officer receives from the commissioners who were appointed to colIect accusations (rather than to take evidence) against all who had part in the insurrection or the twelve years' civil war that followed. I devote a section of this article to the particulars of Fennell's career, and to the charges brought against him, arising out of his connection with the County Waterford in the year 1642. 2.-THE OBJECTOF THE DEPOSITIONS. It is important to note at this stage that the authors of those documents were by the terms of their commission restricted to the taking of charges against "the rebels," as the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland were indiscriminately described. It was no part of the commissioners' duty to take note of outrages committed upon the Irish people. Hence, we find represented, in those sworn statements, on the one hand, the Irish people acting as demons at large, while, on the other hand, the British settlers are the embodiment of suffering innocence and pitiable helplessness : they never do anything beyond meekly awaiting martyrdom or fleeing from "the fury of the rebels." These "rebels" never receive any provocation (that we hear of). AB1 the crimes and cruelties attributed to them come of their own innate wickedness or from the still more wicked dictates of the religion to which they are so strangely attached. In short : all the wrong-doing is on the side of the Irish ; all the suffering is on the side of "the superior race." How comes it that no deponent of the County Waterford- or of any other county-ever heard of that slaughter of the Irish, between Clonmel and Waterford, on Friday the third of December, 1641, which Chaplain Urban Vigors glorifies to his friend Henry Jones, Dean of Kilmore, the chief of the commissioners for taking the sworn recitals known as the depositions ? And how comes it that not even one of the many deponents connected with the city of Waterford has a word about the hanging of forty-Canon Gimlette says, sixty-nine-of the so-called rebels in that city on Monday the sixth of the same December? On the contrary, we hear much of the hanging of one of Saintleger's soldiers, a Waterford man named Flabin or Flavin, who, falling into the hands of the people whose friends he had, in all likelihood, helped to hang, or cut down on that Friday,-had himself the fate of the INTRODUCTORY NOTES vii. renegade and betrayer of his kindred. The fact is that it suited not the object of the depositions to have such matters recorded thereon. If any deponent did heedlessly touch upon Saintleger's exploits, the commissioners would rule that out as irrelevant to the purpose of their 'inquiry.' During the first ten years of the war in Ireland there was no Government notice taken of such outrages upon the natives, except as "services upon the rebels" -the sort of service enjoined on "all good and loving subjects" by the Lords Justices and Council in Dublin Castle. Dean Jones and the seven dispossessed ministers associated with him in the commissioil of 23rd December, 1641, took examina- tions in Dublin from the many refugees who fled thither in the first panic of "the rebellion.)) On the 5th of March, 1641-2, a special commission was issued to Archdeacon Bisse to take the statements of the English who had found refuge in the garrisons and castles within the province of Munster. It will be seen that the greater number of the depositions in the present collection are signed "Phil. Bisse" and by one or more of the local magistrates or commanders. It will dso be observed that by far the greater part of the statements taken by Bisse and his colleagues relate to "spoil." There are some eighty similar examinations which I have not transcribed, as they contain little beyond the one unvarying plaint that the deponent was robbed, despoiled, deprived, etc., by the rebels of such and such goods, chattels, etc. The details of these statements are in most cases very much reduced by cancelling. And here I may notice that Wamer (1768) is at fault in supposing that the testimony was so cancelled because it was mere parole evidence. Me says he found on exam- ination of the originals "that in infinitely the greater number of cases" the words "being duly sworn" were crossed out in the ink of the deposition. It is true that the long formal preamble at the head of each document is very generally contracted by scoring out. But the omission of the words "duly sworn" is of no signifi- cance, so long as the words "jurat coram nobis" (or the equivalent) remain over the commissioners' signatures at the end of the docu- ment. In like manner, the cancelling in the body of the examination simply means contraction of the matter. Details are struck out, and the suin total substituted. It is to be noted that what is so omitted is in general what may be regarded as evidence of more or less value, being within the knowledge and experience of the deponent. On the contrary the wildest allegations of murders and cruelties of which the deponent had no personal knowledge are allowed to stand. INTRODUCTORY NOTES Since Warner's day there has been much futile controversy as to whether the depositions are duly sworn. The really important question, What right had the deponent to swear so and so ? has been overlooked. There is a question more important still- What right had the commissioners to receive and record as evidence duly sworn and solemnly deposed "idle silly tales about what somebody heard another body say" ? That the stories of massacre and crueity on the part of the Irish are duIy sworn may be taken as a fact. That the statement so sworn represents fact is another matter. As regards the '"ass- acre" testimony in general, it may be safely said that the swearing adds nothing to the credibility.