Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was an English statesman and military commander who served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653 to 1658, having overthrown the English monarchy and installing a republican commonwealth in its place. He is arguably the most controversial figure on the island of Britain, having an unfavourable reputation amongst monarchists, Catholics, and the Scottish. However, in Ireland particularly, Cromwell has long been near universally reviled, nationalist folk memory regards him as a genocidal despot for his conquest of Ireland in 1649, his massacre of the garrison at the Siege of Drogheda, his policy of indentured servitude in Barbados, and a quote famously attributed to Cromwell, “To Hell or to Connacht!”. The following writings relate to some of Cromwell’s most infamous correspondence during the conquest of Ireland, taken from Thomas Carlyle’s Speeches and Letters of Oliver Cromwell, originally published in 1845.
Writings
For The Chief Officer Commanding in Dundalk, 12th September, 1649