The Laggan Army in Ireland, 1640–80

The landed interests, political ideologies and military campaign of the north-west Ulster settlers

Kevin McKenny

This book deals with the landed interests, political ideologies and military campaigns of the north-west Ulster settlers in Ireland between 1640 and c.1685.The subject of this book is the landed interests, political ideologies and military campaigns of the north-west Ulster settlers in Ireland between 1640 and c.1685. After demonstrating (by ethnic origins) the landholding patterns of these people on the eve of the great Irish Rebellion of 1641, it is shown that they responded to the threat generated by this insurrection, by forming themselves into a formidable military fighting corps, which was termed the 'Laggan Army'.

When the King and Parliament went to war on the British mainland in 1642, the ideological divisions surrounding that conflict were slowly transferred to Ireland. This occurred when both the King and parliament sought aid from the settlers in Ireland. Initially the support given by Ulster's settlers to the sides in England was complicated by the Catholic threat to their estates in Ireland. When Parliament placed the vanquished King on trial for his life, however, the settlers in Ireland quickly polarised into those who supported the King and those who supported the ideologies of the Parliament. The result of this polarisation was that British civil war battles were fought on Irish soil, where settler fought settler over the ideological differences generated by the execution of Monarchy in 1649. This study looks at the fortunes of those settlers who supported the King.

Kevin McKenny is a graduate of NUI Maynooth and SUNY, Stony Brook, USA.