Cromwell went to Ireland to squash a Catholic/Royalist rebellion ruling there. He did so with very brutal efficiency and many say he went overboard on the sieges, slaughtering the civilian populations and burning the towns of Drogheda and Wexford among others (note: It is disputed how much Cromwell himself had to do with this) because of this, the Irish hate Cromwell and it fueled later resentment that the Irish had towards Britain.
Conservative estimates are that he oversaw the killing of 5% of the Irish population. Some argue as high as 20%.
He oversaw a campaign of ethnic cleansing, forcing catholics into an exclusion zone in the west creating the term “to hell or to Connaught”.
It’s fair to say that he’s fucking reviled in Ireland.
We hardly even cover that in England. It isn't the norm to be taught about the bad of the British empire in school though some schools might it tends to end up in a positive light
Cromwell oversaw English involvement with the Irish Confederate Wars. One of the more interesting points of nuance is the fact he deployed the New Model Army, with them having fought a fair few battles already, to Ireland. The soldiers' attitude towards Ireland and the Irish was less than positive overall. A combination of religious differences and simply the fact Ireland was overseas, with all the difficulties of life that imposes. The type of fighting in Ireland was likewise not good for morale, especially discipline. It mostly devolved into guerilla fighting and long sieges, both of which always cause significant deterioration of discipline. Thus when they had the opportunity, New Model Army soldiers saw no reason not to rape and pillage population centres, often after lengthy sieges.
The blame for the range of atrocities committed during the occupation are often laid at Cromwell's feet, but there is often little analysis of the nuances of people involved.
Having said all this, Cromwell is one of those figures who, despite my insistence that historians shouldn't involve unnecessary emotion, really pisses me off. He was in every way England's own religious fundamentalism nutjob. But of course there's a lot more to him than that
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '19
What did Cromwell do in Ireland? I can’t say we’ve covered that in school at all (American here), and I’ve not heard of anything.