Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Murrough O'Brien, Earl of Inchiquin (1614-74) was a chieftain of the O'Briens and, after the Marquis of Ormond, the leading Protestant native Irish peer in Ireland.

Inchiquin served in the Spanish Army of Italy 1636-9 then returned to Ireland and married the daughter of Sir William St Leger, President of Munster. When St Leger died in 1641, Inchiquin took over the administration of Munster. At the Irish Uprising of 1641, he was the only Irish chieftain to side with the settlers and Protestants against the Catholic Confederates. He ruthlessly held Cork and south-western Ireland in the King's name until the Cessation arranged by Ormond in September 1643. In 1642, he routed a Confederate army under Garret Barry that was advancing on Cork in the Battle of Liscarroll.

In February 1644, Inchiquin went to Oxford expecting to be granted the King’s commission as President of Munster, but Charles snubbed him by giving the post to the Earl of Portland. Enraged, Inchiquin returned to Ireland and declared his support for the Parliament of England. He expelled the Catholics from Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, and consolidated his hold on the south-west with a series of anti-Catholic atrocities. The slaughter of the garrison at Cashel in September 1647 and the subsequent devestation of Catholic held Munster earned him the nickname, Murchadh na dOitean or "Murrough of the Burnings" or "the Incendiary". ^[1]He decisively defeated Lord Taafe's Confederates at the battle of Knocknanauss in November 1647, crippling the Confederate's Munster Army.

Alarmed at the implications of the Vote of No Addresses, Inchiquin changed sides and declared for the King in March 1648. He called for a truce with the Confederates, but this caused a split between the Supreme Council and the Pope's representative, Archbishop Rinuccini. Inchiquin welcomed the Marquis of Ormond when he returned to Ireland in September 1648 and supported the Second Ormond Peace, which secured an alliance between the Royalists and the Confederates against the English Parliament. Inchiquin spent much of 1648 and 1649 trying to put down resistance to the Confederate-Royalist alliance by the dissident Ulster Catholic general Owen Roe O'Neill. The infighting was brought to an end by the summer of 1649, but hampered the Royalists' ability to resist Cromwell's invasion of Ireland. Inchiquinn was present at the Royalists' costly defeat at the Battle of Rathmines - his troops rearguard action enabling many of the remainder to get away. By the following year, things looked hopeless for the Royalists. Many of Inchiquinn's Protestant troops defected to the Parliamentarians in May of 1650 and he went into exile with Ormond to France shortly afterwards.

Inchiquin found favour with the exiled Charles II, who granted him an earldom in 1654. He fought with the French army in Italy and Catalonia 1654-5, when he converted to Catholicism. At the Restoration, Inchiquin recovered his estates in Munster but was denied the Presidency because of his religion. He commanded an unsuccessful expeditionary force sent by Charles II to help the Portuguese in 1662, after which he lived quietly in Ireland until his death in 1674.