Felim O'Neill of Kinard - Civil War Career

Civil War Career

The rebellion quickly spread to the rest of Ireland. By the spring of 1642 only fortified Protestant enclaves, around Dublin, Cork and Derry, held out. King Charles I sent a large army to Ireland, which would probably have put down the rebellion, had the English Civil War not broken out. As it was, the Irish Catholic upper classes had breathing space to form the Irish Catholic Confederation, which acted as a de facto independent government of Ireland until 1649. Felim O'Neill was a member of the Confederate's parliament, named the General Assembly, but was sidelined in the leadership of Irish Catholics by more wealthy landed magnates.

On the military side, O'Neill was also sidelined. After his disastrous defeat at Glenmaquin near Raphoe in County Donegal, his kinsman, Owen Roe O'Neill, a professional soldier, arrived from the Spanish Netherlands and was made general of the Confederate's Ulster army. Felim O'Neill was a cavalry commander in this force, and spent most of the next six years fighting against the Scottish Covenanter army that had landed in Ulster. He fought in the army's victory at the Battle of Benburb.

In Confederate politics, O'Neill was a moderate, advocating a deal with Charles I and the English Royalists as a means of winning the war against the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. In 1648, he voted for such a deal, The Second Ormonde Peace, splitting with Owen Roe O'Neill, who opposed it along with most of the Ulster army. In the summer of that year, the Confederate armies fought among themselves over this issue, with the pro-Royalists prevailing.