Sir Felim O'Neill of Kinard (died 1652), better known as Phelim O'Neill was an Irish nobleman who led the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in Ulster which began on October 22, 1641. His first name is also translated from Gaelic as Phelim, and Kinard as Caledon. He was a member of Confederate Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, where he fought under his kinsman Owen Roe O'Neill. He was captured and executed during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1652. Pheliam O'Neill is also believed to be the source of the name "P. O'Neill" used to sign official statements from the [(Irish Republican Army)] during the twentieth century. // Events April 6 - Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope, and founded Cape Town. ... The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup détat by Irish Catholic gentry, but rapidly degenerated into bloody intercommunal violence between native Irish Catholics and English and Scottish Protestant settlers. ... Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland. ... October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 70 days remaining. ... Events The Long Parliament passes a series of legislation designed to contain Charles Is absolutist tendencies. ... Kilkenny Castle, where the Confederate General Assembly met. ... The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in Scotland, Ireland, and England between 1639 and 1651 at a time when these countries had come under the Personal Rule of the same monarch. ... Eoghan Rua Ó Néill, anglicised as Owen Roe ONeill (c. ... Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of the English Parliament in 1649. ...

Background

A member of the famous O'Neill family, Sir Felim was the grandson of Sir Henry Oge O'Neill, one of the O'Neills who remained in Ulster after the Flight of the Earls despite the difficulties brought on by land confiscation and the Plantation of Ulster. O'Neill's family were from a minor branch of the O'Neill clan and had risen to prominence by siding with the English against the chief, Hugh O'Neill in the Nine Years War. In return for their service, Phelim O'Neill's family retained some estates around Kinard in Tyrone. O'Neill was a member of the Irish Parliament in the 1630s and trained as a lawyer at King's Inns in London. In September 1607, Hugh ONeill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory ODonnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, with ninety of their followers. ... The Plantation of Ulster took place in the Irish province of Ulster during the early 17th century. ... Hugh ONeill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone (c. ... The Nine Years War in Ireland took place from 1594 to 1603 and is also known as Tyrones Rebellion. ... This article is about County Tyrone. ... This article is about the legislature abolished in 1801. ... The Kings Inns or formally the Honorable Society of Kings Inns (HSKI) is the institution which controls the entry of barristers-at-law into the justice system of the Republic of Ireland. ...

Rebellion

However, in common with many Irish Catholics, and especially Gaelic Irishmen, O'Neill felt threatened by the Protestant English government of Ireland. In particular, they were aggrieved at Catholic exclusion from Public Office and the continual confiscations of Catholic owned land. This fear reached its high point in the late 1630s and early 1640s, when Thomas Wentworth, a minister of Charles I, was known to be planning widespread new plantations. A crisis point was reached in 1641, when the Scottish Covenanters and English Long Parliament threatened to invade Ireland to finally subdue Catholicism there. Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford in an Armour, 1639, by Sir Anthony van Dyck Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (April 13, 1593 – May 12, 1641) was an English statesman, a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. ... Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ... Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were the seizure of land owned by the native Irish and granting of it to colonists (planters) from Britain. ... The Long Parliament is the name of the English Parliament called by Charles I, in 1640, following the Bishops Wars. ...

In this atmosphere of fear and paranoia, Phelim O'Neill became involved in a plot hatched by fellow Gaelic Irish Catholics from Ulster, to seize Dublin and swiftly take over the other important towns of Ireland. After this, they planned to issue their demands for full rights for Catholics and Irish self government in the King's name. O'Neill's role was to take towns and fortified place in the north of the country. However, the plan to take Dublin was bungled by two conspirators, Maguire and MacMahon, who were captured by the authorities. O'Neill went ahead started the rebellion in the north, but quickly found that he could not control the Irish Catholic peasantry he had raised. These people, many of whom had been displaced during the Plantation of Ulster began attacking the Scottish and English Protestant settlers, leading to the massacres for which the rebellion is infamous. O'Neill, along with Rory O'Moore, then tried to march on Dublin, defeating a government force at Julianstown but failing to take Drogheda after a rather inept siege. Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, located near the midpoint of Irelands east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. ... The Plantation of Ulster took place in the Irish province of Ulster during the early 17th century. ... Massacres are individual events of deliberate mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents. ... The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup détat by Irish Catholic gentry, but rapidly degenerated into bloody intercommunal violence between native Irish Catholics and English and Scottish Protestant settlers. ... The Battle of Julianstown was fought during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, at Julianstown near Drogheda in eastern Ireland, in November 1641. ... Drogheda, a town in eastern Ireland, was besieged twice in the 1640s, during the Irish Confederate Wars, the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. ...

Civil War career

The rebellion quickly spread to the rest of Ireland. By the spring of 1642 only fortified Protestant enclaves, around Dublin, Cork and Derry, held out. King Charles I sent a large army to Ireland, which would probably have put down the rebellion, had the English Civil War not broken out. As it was, the Irish Catholic upper classes had breathing space to form the Irish Catholic Confederation, which acted as a de facto independent government of Ireland until 1649. Phelim O'Neill was a member of the Confederate's parliament, named the General Assembly, but was sidelined in the leadership of Irish Catholics by more wealthy landed magnates. On the military side, O'Neill was also sidelined, when his kinsman, Owen Roe O'Neill, a professional soldier, was made general of the Confederate's Ulster army. Phelim O'Neill was a cavalry commander in this force, and spent most of the next six years fighting against the Scottish Covenanter army that had landed in Ulster. He fought in the army's victory at the Battle of Benburb. Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, located near the midpoint of Irelands east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. ... Cork (Corcaigh in Irish) is the second city of the Republic of Ireland. ... Derry or Londonderry (in Irish, Doire or Doire Cholm Chille), often called the Maiden City, is a city in Northern Ireland. ... Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ... The term English Civil War (or Wars) refers to the series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between English Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. ... Kilkenny Castle, where the Confederate General Assembly met. ... Eoghan Rua Ó Néill, anglicised as Owen Roe ONeill (c. ... Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland. ... Cavalry is also a common misspelling of the Biblical hill Calvary. ... The Covenanters are a radical Presbyterian movement that played an important part in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent in that of England and Ireland, during the 17th century. ... The Battle of Benburb took place in 1646 in the anal region of chans motherIrish Confederate Wars, the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. ...

In Confederate politics, O'Neill was a moderate, advocating a deal with Charles I and the English Royalists as a means of winning the war against the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. In 1648, he voted for such a deal, The Second Ormonde Peace, splitting with Owen Roe O'Neill, who opposed it along with most of the Ulster army. In the summer of that year, the Confederate armies fought among themselves over this issue, with the pro-Royalists prevailing. Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ... The noun or adjective, Royalist, can have several shades of meaning. ...

Execution

However, this was not enough to stop Ireland being re-conquered by the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell in 1649-53. The well trained and supplied Parliamentarians crushed all Confederate and Royalist resistance and imposed a harsh settlement on Irish Catholics. The Ulster Army was routed at the battle of Scarrifholis in 1650. Phelim O'Neill escaped the battle but spent the remaining years of his life as fugitive. Anyone implicated in the Rebellion of 1641 was held responsible for the massacres of Protestant civilians and executed. O'Neill was specifically named as a ringleader in the Cromwellian Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 and could therefore expect little mercy when he was captured on February 4th, 1653. O'Neill may have been able to avoid execution if he testified that he had Charles I's commision for the uprising of 1641, as the Parliamentarians had claimed at the time. However O'Neill refused to do this. Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of the English Parliament in 1649. ... The New Model Army became the best known of the various Parliamentarian armies in the English Civil War. ... Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1657. ... The battle of Scarrifholis was fought in Donegal in north-western Ireland, on the 21st of June 1650, during the Irish Confederate Wars Рpart of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. ... The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d̩tat by Irish Catholic gentry, but rapidly degenerated into bloody intercommunal violence between native Irish Catholics and English and Scottish Protestant settlers. ... The Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1662 was passed by the Long Parliament, who had taken power in England after the English Civil War, after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, itself in response to the Irish Rebellion of 1641. ...

In August 1653, O'Neill was executed by a High Court set up in Dublin by the Cromwellian government. Events February 2 - New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) is incorporated. ... Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, located near the midpoint of Irelands east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. ...