Inishbofin, then became crucial to the Confederation’s hopes of reinforcement from the continent. A small force of mercenaries sent by the Duke of Lorraine landed in Inishbofin in October with arms for Galway, but the city had to surrender, together with the Aran Islands, by April 1652. Towards the end of that year the Aran Islands were recaptured by a force of six or seven hundred men from Iarchonnacht and Inishbofin, but the Cromwellians moved several men-of-war and 1900 foot-soldiers, first against Aran and then against Inishbofin , which ended its forlorn resistance in February 1653.
A few years later the Commonwealth Council ordered the building of a fort in Inishbofin, and started to use the island as a prison-camp for Catholic priests, as an alternative to transporting them to the West Indies. The priests languished there ( half-starved , on an allowance of twopence a day, according to a contemporary source) until well after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. After about 1680 the fort was abandoned. It was re- garrisoned by the Jacobites in the War of the Two Kings ten years later, but since then its history has been merely one of stealthy dilapidation. The cut limestone surrounds of its arches and windows have all been burnt for lime, but its curtain walls and the diamond-shaped bastions at each of its four corners still stand, in picturesque raggedness. Visitors sailing into Inishbofin pass under its dark gaze at the narrow harbour mouth, where it sprawls upon a low cliff with a menacing, crablike presence.
In the years following the victory of Cromwell’s army the oldclan system was finally broken up, and it is said that Connemara was almost depopulated by famine, plague and massacre. One of the O’Flaherty chiefs who had joined the Galway citizens in 1642, Colonel Edmond, of Renvyle, was wanted for murders committed in the course of a plundering expedition he and his men had undertaken as a relief from the tedium of besieging the English fort. A band of troopers was dispatched to Renvyle to find him and was eventually led by the clamouring of ravens to a small cave in a dark wood, whence they dragged the colonel and his wife:
And truly who had seen them would have said they had rayther been ghosts than men, for pitifully looked they, pyned away from want of foode, and altogether ghastly with feare.
Colonel Edmond was hanged and the other O’Flahertys expropriated as ‘forfeiting traitors’ for their part in the rebellion. Soon Connemara was being carved up for distribution among Protestants to whom the Cromwellians had obligations and Catholics who had been dispossessed of estates elsewhere and transplanted westwards.
The main Protestant beneficiaries of England’s reformation of Connemara were a Sir Thomas Merridith, one of Cromwell’s commissioners , who acquired townlands here and there, including Ballynahinch, and soon cashed them in, and Trinity College, Dublin, who remained as landlords of much of the Inagh and Maam Valley areas until the end of the last century. Catholic transplanters included the Earl of Westmeath, who was given the Renvyle area but later regained his former lands and sold Renvyle to a branch of the Blakes of Galway, and the Geoghegans of Westmeath, who stayed on as landlords of Ballindoon parish until ruined by the Famine. Several of the eminent Catholic merchant families known as ‘The Tribes of Galway’ were granted tracts of wilderness in place of their Galway estates; the D’Arcys found themselves with the peninsulas of Omey parish and the glens of Kylemore, while the Blakes, Frenches and Lynches shared the granite of south Connemara with the Martins, who also acquired the Cleggan. Most of these grantees managed to avoid actually having to come to Connemara, and some regained parts of their old estates after the restoration of Charles II. The Martins, in theperson of ‘Nimble Dick’ the lawyer, actually put together the largest estate in the kingdom and held on to
A few years later the Commonwealth Council ordered the building of a fort in Inishbofin, and started to use the island as a prison-camp for Catholic priests, as an alternative to transporting them to the West Indies. The priests languished there ( half-starved , on an allowance of twopence a day, according to a contemporary source) until well after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. After about 1680 the fort was abandoned. It was re- garrisoned by the Jacobites in the War of the Two Kings ten years later, but since then its history has been merely one of stealthy dilapidation. The cut limestone surrounds of its arches and windows have all been burnt for lime, but its curtain walls and the diamond-shaped bastions at each of its four corners still stand, in picturesque raggedness. Visitors sailing into Inishbofin pass under its dark gaze at the narrow harbour mouth, where it sprawls upon a low cliff with a menacing, crablike presence.
In the years following the victory of Cromwell’s army the oldclan system was finally broken up, and it is said that Connemara was almost depopulated by famine, plague and massacre. One of the O’Flaherty chiefs who had joined the Galway citizens in 1642, Colonel Edmond, of Renvyle, was wanted for murders committed in the course of a plundering expedition he and his men had undertaken as a relief from the tedium of besieging the English fort. A band of troopers was dispatched to Renvyle to find him and was eventually led by the clamouring of ravens to a small cave in a dark wood, whence they dragged the colonel and his wife:
And truly who had seen them would have said they had rayther been ghosts than men, for pitifully looked they, pyned away from want of foode, and altogether ghastly with feare.
Colonel Edmond was hanged and the other O’Flahertys expropriated as ‘forfeiting traitors’ for their part in the rebellion. Soon Connemara was being carved up for distribution among Protestants to whom the Cromwellians had obligations and Catholics who had been dispossessed of estates elsewhere and transplanted westwards.
The main Protestant beneficiaries of England’s reformation of Connemara were a Sir Thomas Merridith, one of Cromwell’s commissioners , who acquired townlands here and there, including Ballynahinch, and soon cashed them in, and Trinity College, Dublin, who remained as landlords of much of the Inagh and Maam Valley areas until the end of the last century. Catholic transplanters included the Earl of Westmeath, who was given the Renvyle area but later regained his former lands and sold Renvyle to a branch of the Blakes of Galway, and the Geoghegans of Westmeath, who stayed on as landlords of Ballindoon parish until ruined by the Famine. Several of the eminent Catholic merchant families known as ‘The Tribes of Galway’ were granted tracts of wilderness in place of their Galway estates; the D’Arcys found themselves with the peninsulas of Omey parish and the glens of Kylemore, while the Blakes, Frenches and Lynches shared the granite of south Connemara with the Martins, who also acquired the Cleggan. Most of these grantees managed to avoid actually having to come to Connemara, and some regained parts of their old estates after the restoration of Charles II. The Martins, in theperson of ‘Nimble Dick’ the lawyer, actually put together the largest estate in the kingdom and held on to
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