The four counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, Queen’s and Wexford formed the south-east corner of Ireland, but their similarity was geographical rather than social or political in character. Each county represented a different stage in the history of English colonization in Ireland. County Wexford was the first part of Ireland to be conquered by Strongbow and the Anglo-Norman invaders of the twelfth century, and in the early seventeenth century remained divided between ‘the posterity of the ancient gentlemen, that were conquerors’ – the Old English Roches, Sinnotts, Fitzhenrys, Esmonds – and ‘the original people’, the Gaelic Irish Kavanaghs and Kinselaghs. Description of Ireland, 1598 ed. E. Hogan (Dublin, 1878), 55-62. The situation was further complicated by a plantation during the 1630s, initiated by Lord Deputy Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), which had brought in New English families such as the Loftuses and Wallops. CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 499, 681; 1633-47, pp. 105, 107; 1647-60, pp. 270-1; H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (Cambridge 1989), 234-6. Counties Carlow and Kilkenny had come under Old English rule later in the Middle Ages, and were closely associated with the Butlers, earls of Ormond, who had controlled the area since the fourteenth century. County Kilkenny, the Butler powerbase, was described as having ‘the most show of civility of any other of the border counties’, with English agricultural methods widely adopted, and a number of strong castles and fortified towns, including the Ormond capital at Kilkenny. County Carlow was less stable, as the Kavanaghs and other Gaelic septs had recovered some of their influence in the mountainous east, but in the seventeenth century the Butlers still owned a third of the county, centred on Tullow, and a few New English families (notably the Temples) had also managed to gain a foothold. Queen’s County had been extensively planted under Mary I, when the Gaelic O’Moores and their allies had been evicted to make way for New English settlers, including the Cootes, Breretons and Barringtons. These shared their influence with a few Old English families, notably the Fitzgeralds, earls of Kildare, and the Fitzpatricks of Upper Ossory. Description of Ireland ed. Hogan, 50-4, 63-80. The elections for the Irish Parliament of 1640 reflected this division, with the Butlers and their Old English allies dominating Kilkenny and Carlow, while Wexford returned two members of the New English Loftus family, and Queen’s County elected Sir Charles Coote senior alongside John Piggott. McGrath, Biographical Dict.
The experience of the four counties during the Irish rebellion of the 1640s also differed. The revolt in Queen’s County seems to have been spontaneous, provoked by the government’s continued refusal to allow the O’Moores and their allies any chance of regaining their ancestral lands. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 236. The rebellions in counties Carlow and Wexford were influenced from outside, but led by local men. In both counties the initial revolt was spearheaded by displaced Gaelic families such as the Kavanaghs and O’Tooles, aided by equivocation on the part of the Old English community. Tanner Lttrs. 133. The governor of Carlow Castle, Walter Bagenal, soon became a rebel leader, while his local rival, Sir Thomas Butler, remained neutral. M. Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (Dublin, 1994), 256. In Wexford, the castles of Arklow, Limerick and Fort Chichester were taken by the rebels without resistance. CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 350. Whereas violence had started in the other counties in early November, County Kilkenny did not erupt until the end of the month, and even then it was led by insurgents from Carlow. The influence of the 12th earl of Ormond made the local inhabitants less willing to take risks, and the countess of Ormond was allowed to harbour English refugees in Kilkenny Castle. The Kilkenny rising was further complicated by the tensions which had grown between the Protestant, loyalist earl and his Catholic relatives, and before long most of his family, including his cousin, Lord Mountgarrett, had defected to the rebels. Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak, 252-3, 256; D. Edwards, The Ormond Lordship in Co. Kilkenny (Dublin, 2003), 302-27. From 1642 onwards, all four counties were under the control of the Catholic Confederates, who set up their headquarters at Kilkenny: a city governed by Ormond’s relative, Colonel Edmund Butler. CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 654. The position of the four counties, and Kilkenny in particular, as the centre of Confederate power made them an obvious target for the Cromwellian army in 1649. After Drogheda, Cromwell turned south and marched against the town of Wexford, which was taken by storm in October 1649. In 1650 Kilkenny city and Carlow town fell to the English army, and the conquest of the south east was then complete, except for pockets of Irish who hid in the ‘fastnesses of Wexford and Queen’s County’ and mounted periodic raids against the lowland areas as late as 1652. Ludlow, Mems. i. 234, 250, 315, 327n.
The conquest of Ireland placed the four counties under military rule. From 1651-2 the region was divided into precincts, with military governors: Daniel Axtell* at Kilkenny, Thomas Sadleir* at Wexford and Henry Pretty at Carlow. Individual officers made substantial gains under the Cromwellian land settlement. In County Wexford the lands of the Esmonds and Sinnotts were granted to General George Monck* in 1654, and the county also satisfied the debentures of the Cromwellian soldiers, including those from the regiment of Edmund Ludlowe II*. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 802; Ludlow, Mems. i. 416. The indictment of the marquess of Ormond opened County Kilkenny – the largest and richest of the four counties – to systematic settlement by the soldiers: the north of the county was used to supplement the army’s debenture lands, while the south accommodated the pre-1649 soldiers. County Carlow was included in the land reserved for the government, and let to tenants on short contracts. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 796. The exception was Queen’s County, which experienced a further increase in landholding by the pre-1641 settlers, known as the ‘Old Protestants’, with the Coote family extending their landed interest with the grant of the extensive Fitzpatrick estates in 1654. CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 804-5. This uneasy mixture of Cromwellian incomers and established Old Protestant families can be seen in the lists of assessment commissioners for October 1654 and January 1655. That for Carlow was headed by Sir John Temple*, but Henry Pretty was second; Sir Charles Coote was first-named for Queen’s County and Wexford, followed by Daniel Axtell and Thomas Sadleir respectively; while in County Kilkenny senior officers prevailed: John Reynolds*, Daniel Axtell, Sir Hardress Waller* and Henry Pretty. An Assessment for Ire. (Dublin, 1654, 1655). The overall impression is that the army officers had acquired the political influence, as well as the estates, of Ormond and the Old English landowners.
The importance of the soldiery in the land settlement was reflected in the returns for the protectorate Parliaments, when the four counties were combined to return two MPs in elections held at Carlow town. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800. The location of the elections gave the army interest a distinct advantage. Colonel Pretty, the governor of Carlow throughout the 1650s, was a firm ally of John Hewson*, Jerome Sankey* and other radical officers, and the town itself was close enough to Dublin to allow a high degree of coordination with the military headquarters there. It was hardly surprising that, throughout the 1650s, the parliamentary elections returned only soldiers. In the election held on 2 August 1654 the governors of Kilkenny and Wexford, Daniel Axtell and Thomas Sadleir, were returned. The surviving election indenture, although damaged, reveals that Pretty presided as sheriff, and lists at least 16 electors, including the majors of Sadleir’s, Pretty’s and Isaac Ewer’s regiments, two of Pretty’s captains, a captain from Sir Hardress Waller’s regiment, and possibly another from that of Peter Stubber. C219/44, unfol.; Wanklyn, Reconstructing the New Model Army (Solihull, 2015-16), ii. 199, 228, 232, 236, 245; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 207-8. In 1656 Sadleir was again elected (although he had been replaced as governor of Wexford by Colonel Solomon Richards in the previous year) alongside Major Daniel Redman, the new military commander of Kilkenny, Carlow and Queen’s counties. Henry Cromwell Corresp. 133-4, 278-9. In 1659 Redman was returned with John Brett, an Old Protestant who had served under both Sadleir and Richards and had acquired lands in County Wexford. Although military men continued to be elected, a gradual shift can be seen in these returns, as Henry Cromwell*, in his capacity as acting governor of Ireland, made a concerted effort to weed out the religious and political radicals from the army’s ranks.
The collapse of the protectorate in May 1659 brought the more radical army officers back into power in Ireland as well as England, and in December the Old Protestant officers seized Dublin in a sudden coup. The action in Dublin was co-ordinated with similar moves in the south east, where Colonel Edmund Temple seized Carlow from Colonel Pretty; Wexford, commanded by Colonel Solomon Richards, tried to remain neutral; while the commander of Kilkenny was ‘frighted out of his government’ by the Old Protestant officers. Ludlow, Mems. ii. 189. This intervention destroyed the army interest’s grip on the military government of the counties, and this explains the pattern of elections for the General Convention which met in March 1660. In Queen’s County and County Carlow there was a resurgence of the Old Protestant interest, with all six seats being taken by former settlers; in County Wexford former planters connected with the Loftus family were returned alongside the newcomers, only two of whom seem to have been former soldiers; and in County Kilkenny three soldiers were returned, but the county seats went to an Old Protestant (Henry Baker) and a former associate of Ormond, Sir Patrick Wemyss. Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 194-5, 204-5, 207-11. The elections for the Irish Parliament of 1661 followed a similar pattern. Daniel Redman and Sir John Ponsonby were elected for County Kilkenny, but the other county seats were taken by Old Protestants, such as Sir John Temple for Carlow and Daniel Hutchinson* for Queen’s County, and the boroughs returned a mixture of soldiers and settlers. CJI i. 588-95. The appointment of the duke of Ormond as lord lieutenant in 1661, the rebuilding of his castle at Kilkenny, and his care to establish a vast patronage network based on his civilian and military authority in Ireland, did much to revive Butler prestige in later years; but his local clients were now more likely to be old soldiers or Old Protestants than members of the Old English community.
