Henry Ireton - Irish Campaign and Death

Irish Campaign and Death

Ireton's regiment was chosen by lot to accompany Cromwell in his Irish campaign. Ireton arrived in Dublin two days after Cromwell on 17 August 1649, with 77 ships full of troops and supplies. Ireton was appointed major-general and after the conquest of the south of Ireland, Lord President of Munster. He went over with John Cook with a brief to reform the law of Ireland, to anglicise it and make it a model for a new settlement of English law.

In May 1650 Cromwell was recalled to England to command a Parliamentary force preparing to invade Scotland, and Ireton assumed command of the New Model Army in Ireland with the title and powers of lord-deputy to complete the conquest of the country. This he proceeded to do with his usual energy, becoming noted as much by the severity of his methods of punishment as for his military skill. By the middle of 1650 Ireton and his commanders faced two problems. One was the capture of the remaining cities held by the Irish Confederate and Royalists forces. The other was an escalating guerrilla war in the countryside as Irish fighters called tories attacked his supply lines. Ireton appealed to the English Parliament to publish lenient surrender terms for Irish Catholics, in order to end their resistance, but when this was refused he began the laborious process of subduing the Catholic forces.

His first action was to mount a counter-guerrilla expedition into the Wicklow Mountains early in June 1650, in order to secure his lines of supply for the Siege of Waterford in Ireland's southeast. Having done this Ireton blockaded Waterford into surrender by August 1650. Not risking an assault, Ireton systematically constructed trenches to bring his siege guns within range of the walls and stationed a Parliamentary fleet off the city to prevent its re-supply. Thomas Preston surrendered Waterford after a three month siege. Ireton then advanced to Limerick by October, but had to call off the siege due to cold and bad weather. Early in 1651 Ireton ordered that areas harbouring the "tory" guerrillas should be systematically stripped of food - this policy contributed to a widespread famine in Ireland by the end of the year. Ireton returned to Limerick in June 1651 and besieged the city for five months until it surrendered in October 1651. At the same time, Galway was under siege by Parliamentarian forces, and Ireton personally rode to inspect the command of Charles Coote, who was blockading that city. The physical strain of his command told on Ireton however and he fell ill.

Shortly afterwards, before he died of fever, just after the capture of Limerick, Ireton had some of the dignitaries of Limerick hanged for their obstinate defence of the city, including an Alderman, Terence Albert O'Brien (a Catholic Bishop) and an English Royalist officer, Colonel Fennell. He also wanted the Irish commander, Hugh Dubh O'Neill hanged, but Edmund Ludlow cancelled the order after Ireton's death. At Ireton's funeral, John Watson and others wore new Tabards that replaced the Royal Arms with the new Arms of the Commonwealth.

His loss "struck a great sadness into Cromwell" and he was considered a great loss to the administration.

Among the his last words were " blood! blood! I must have more blood!"