© 2004 by Oxford University Press
Conflicting Loyalties, Conflicted Rebels: Political and Religious Allegiance among the Confederate Catholics of Ireland
1 University College Dublin
The demands of religious and temporal allegiance pulled the confederate catholics in two opposite directions, exposing in the process a whole series of fault lines within their association, and contributing materially to the disaster which eventually engulfed them. The purpose of this paper is to examine the internal divisions which were generated by this clash of loyalties. It identifies a broadbanded political spectrum within the association, in which three principal positions, clerical, middle ground or moderate and peace party, can be distinguished. Because the first of these has been the subject of recent intensive examination, a particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the peace party and the middle ground of the association, the groupings which largely coalesced in the acceptance of the second Ormond peace of 1649. The article argues that the confederate peace party were not necessarily more realistic than their opponents within the association: ultimately they were distinguished more by their attachment to Ormond than by their political pragmatism. And it suggests that the final marginalisation of the clerical party resulted from a complex mix of factors. These included war-weariness, internal division among the clergy, and skilful tactical manoeuvring by the proponents of peace, but the process was characterised also by the mobilisation of a deep-seated communitarian conservatism which rejected the radicalism of clerical objectives.