Restoration (Ireland)

Politicians such as General Monck tried to ensure a peaceful transition of government from the "Commonwealth" republic back to monarchy.

With the collapse of The Protectorate in England during May 1659 the republic which had been forced upon Ireland by Oliver Cromwell quickly began to unravel.

The regicide Hardress Waller re-took Dublin Castle in February 1660 but with little support he surrendered to Sir Charles Coote.

[7] Coote sought to move the Convention Parliament towards restoration, but his rival Broghill did not openly declare for the King until May 1660.

[9] In March 1660 a document was published asking for the King's return, "begged for his forgiveness, but stipulated for a general indemnity and the payment of army arrears".

In 1662 the 1st Duke of Ormonde returned as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and became the predominant political figure of the Restoration period.

"On 22 January 1661 the King issued a proclamation declaring all meetings by papists, Presbyterians, Independents and separatists illegal".

Whilst the religious settlement was satisfactory neither to Catholic nor Presbyterian, there was some degree of toleration, penal laws were laxly enforced and there was no equivalent of the Conventicle Act 1664.

Irish Protestants who had helped guarantee the Restoration in 1660, expected to retain the lands they had paid the State for in the 1650s without further interference, relying on privity of contract.

They were "perceived as dispossessed Catholics waging a war of revenge against the new social order created by the land confiscations of the 1640s and 1650s".

Sir Henry O'Neill "of the Fews" and his brother Shane also had their lands confiscated and were given estates in County Mayo.