Irish Heart, English Blood by Michael Twomey

Author:Michael Twomey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750958929
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Martial Law

The attack at Bandon was not the only news received by Boyle that attempts to overrun his plantations and towns were being carried out. He received a letter in early January, only three months after the Ulster outbreak, warning him that rebels had designs on attacking Youghal. John Fitzgerald of Farnane, County Waterford, requested ammunition from Boyle to protect Dromana castle and its lands as the rebels had intended to ‘infest’ the waters and countryside between Youghal and Dromana.138 Sir Richard Osborne also contacted Boyle on 25 January, complaining that he and others had been attacked at Knockmoan, also in Waterford. What is noteworthy is the speed and relative ease that rebels took castles and overran farms, particularly in isolated rural areas. It reveals England’s protection of their interests in Ireland had been softened by peace and that the military-style training of locals in towns like Youghal was a piecemeal policy, wholly inadequate in the face of raging rebellion. Adventurers, officials and even government members had often taken it upon themselves in the years since 1603 to finance their own methods of protection, as evidenced in Youghal by the dispute over the payment of the quay fort. In an act of self-preservation, a skill almost unique to Boyle, he responded by building five circular turrets around his garden. From the moment he summoned soldiers to Youghal in the early months of 1642 the nature of life in the town changed dramatically. In a short period of time, concern moved from trade laws, bylaws and social moral behaviour to military security.

Munster President William St Leger, showing little confidence in the corporation, ordered Boyle to return from Dublin to Youghal and handed powers to him that effectively put the town under martial law from the beginning of 1642. In the creation of a distinctly alert atmosphere Boyle was to work with local officials to ‘take command and government’ of Youghal. This new military-styled governance was for ‘exercising the men, drawing in other forces, appointing of officers, guards [and] watches.’ The appointed martial law officers were also charged with keeping close surveillance of any possible mutinies, therefore creating an air of suspicion amongst the Catholic community. Catholics may however have retained some confidence given the social and commercial status of a number of families. Having never displayed any public grievance against Wentworth’s policy of reining in Catholic practices and having remained totally loyal to King Charles, Youghal Catholics may well have thought the rebellious actions around the country foreign to their thinking and inconvenient to their commerce.

Meanwhile, Boyle wrote that he thought the town ‘poor and weak’ and had immediately brought in 100 soldiers and 60 horsemen. The worrying level of autonomy given to officials increased tension in Youghal. In an already politically claustrophobic atmosphere, officers were given freedom to punish by death suspected rebels or sympathisers. Boyle, feeling forlorn by age and the stories of atrocities, expressed worries about a possible uprising in Youghal by remarking that the Irish outnumbered the English ‘three to one’.

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