The summer of 1646 was the high point of the Confederate war-effort. Following O'Neill's victory at Benburb, General Preston's Leinster army captured Roscommon and Bunratty castles in July. These victories strengthened the hardline "clerical party" on the Supreme Council but at the same time prompted Viscount Muskerry and the "peace party" to press ahead with negotiations for a treaty with the King's representative the Marquis of Ormond. The political factionalism of the Supreme Council prevented the Confederates from fully exploiting the military success of their armies. Meanwhile, King Charles disavowed the pro-Catholic Glamorgan Treaty and returned sole authority in negotiations to Ormond. Prompted by the arrival of Lord Digby at Dublin in early July, Ormond moved quickly to conclude a treaty with Muskerry and the Anglo-Irish lords which would allow an Irish army to cross over to England to fight for the King in return for toleration of Roman Catholics. On 30 July 1646, the "Ormond Peace" was publicly proclaimed in Dublin.
Although Muskerry and his supporters on the Supreme Council ratified the Ormond Peace, Archbishop Rinuccini rejected it because it did not allow the open practice of Catholicism nor the return of churches and cathedrals taken by the Protestants during the course of the war. Rinuccini summoned the Irish clergy to a synod at Waterford where, on 12 August, the Ormond Peace was denounced. Confederates who supported it were guilty of breaking the Oath of Association; towns that allowed it to be proclaimed were threatened with interdiction. On 1 September, RInuccini pronounced a sentence of excommunication on any Confederates who continued to support the treaty.
Ormond went to Kilkenny and attempted to rally support for the treaty among members of the Supreme Council. He called a meeting of the Irish nobility at Cashel, but was refused admission to the town. Amid mounting hostility from the Irish population and on hearing news that the Confederate generals O'Neill and Preston were rallying forces in support of Rinuccini, Ormond returned to Dublin on 14 September. A few days later, Rinuccini arrived at Kilkenny at the head of an armed force. Ormond's supporters were imprisoned and the Ormond Peace was declared void. On 26 September, the clergy appointed a new Supreme Council, with Archbishop Rinuccini as its president.
Under RInuccini's presidency, the new council planned an immediate attack on Dublin using both the Ulster and Leinster armies. The combined army of around 18,000 men was the largest ever fielded by the Confederates. It was commanded jointly by the rival generals O'Neill and Preston. Towards the end of September 1646, the two armies advanced separately towards Dublin, seizing British outposts on their lines of march and joining forces at Kilkea in County Kildare around 8 October. The Marquis of Ormond ordered the destruction of all crops, mills and bridges within an eight-mile radius of Dublin to hamper the Irish advance. Rather than demand the surrender of Dublin, Archbishop Rinuccini opened negotiations with Ormond which became protracted when the Marquis of Clanricarde began separate negotiations with General Preston in an attempt to bring the Leinster army over to the Royalists. By early November, the combined Confederate army was encamped around Leixlip and Lucan, eight miles west of Dublin, but it was desperately short of supplies. WIth the onset of winter weather, the siege of Dublin broke up in mid-November 1646.
Although the Confederate campaign against Dublin had been completely ineffective, the prospect of a Catholic army at the city gates prompted the Marquis of Ormond to open negotiations with the English Parliament. Unable to conclude a binding peace with the Confederates and discouraged by the defeat of the Royalists in England, he offered to resign as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and surrender Dublin to Parliament rather than allow the city to fall into Catholic hands.
The battle of Dungan's Hill >
The battle of Knocknanuss >
Sources:
S.R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War vol.iii, (London 1889)
C.P. Meehan, The Confederation of Kilkenny, (Dublin 1846)
Jane Ohlmeyer, The Civil Wars in Ireland (in The Civil Wars, a military history of England, Scotland and Ireland 1638-60), Oxford 1998
James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland, (New York 1999)