God’s Executioner

"Oh, I’m sure they don’t. A century ago, GK Chesterton said that the tragedy of the English conquest in the 17th century was that the Irish couldn’t forget it and the English couldn’t remember it. And it is amazing how little people over here know about the whole thing. Despite the title, this book is actually pretty balanced – in fact, it’s far more balanced than some of the extreme views that have been expressed, even in recent times, about Cromwell as a ruthless killer of everyone he encounters. Or, in the view of another book that was written ten years ago, someone who didn’t kill any civilians at all. Siochrú has studied the Irish sources much more thoroughly than anybody else, and he’s found new sources too. He gives a very balanced account – though one which has some harsh judgments on Cromwell along the way – and it’s extremely well-written. First of all, Cromwell was coming over to avenge the worst massacres that have ever happened in recorded history in these islands. Many thousands of people were killed. Second, in order to conquer Ireland – something the English had never succeeded in doing before – he needed to be able to use radical force. So he had a very clear policy: Surrender, and I’ll give you generous terms. Refuse to surrender, and I will massacre a significant number of the armed defenders. For Cromwell, carrying out that policy is highly controversial, but it works. And it leads on to the greatest redistribution of land in post-Roman Western European history. In nine years while Cromwell is head of state, the amount of land owned by Catholics born in Ireland drops from 65% to 15%. Half of the land of Ireland is transferred from Catholics born in Ireland to Protestants born in Britain. That is a very dramatic story, and I don’t think most people know it. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I should mention that Micheál Siochrúand I have been involved for the last six years in setting up a website which has transcribed the depositions of 8000 survivors of the massacres of 1641. So if you have any interest at all in Ireland, you can use it to find which people shared your name – or exactly what happened in any parts of the country with which you have associations. Or, of course, if you have no ties, you can simply dip into the documents to see the kinds of things that were happening in Ireland in the 1640s – which were not dissimilar from some of the horrors of modern times. The URL is www.1641.tcd.ie , and it’s free for everybody. I’m also producing, for Oxford University Press, a new five-volume edition of all Cromwell’s words, which we desperately need. I’m the general editor, and Siochrú is doing the Irish section."