Many of the effects which war had on social and economic life in Ireland, and in this essay we are looking specifically at the province of Leinster, were also experienced by the other three nations to a greater or lesser extent. However, there were long term consequences which were unique to Ireland and which resulted from the peculiar situation here. The experience of ordinary people was similar for people in all four kingdoms, but most suffering occurred where the fighting was most intense. One feature of the war in Leinster was the bloody massacres which gave Cromwell such a notorious place in the Irish psyche, which has lasted even down to the present day. After the massacre in Drogheda in September 1649, he reported as follows: I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. An equally brutal massacre took place in Wexford the following month. The number of civilians actually killed in these two towns is open to debate, but it is estimated that around 4,600 people died altogether. It is unlikely that in the heat of the fighting the soldiers made much distinction between combatant and bystander. After the massacres in Ulster in 1641, many Protestant families had fled the countryside of the Pale to seek shelter in Dublin or across the Irish Sea, and Cromwell's actions were viewed by the majority of Protestants as justified revenge. Overall, it is estimated that somewhere in the region of 33-41% of the Irish population had been killed or had fled the country during the 1640s and early 50s.

The outbreak of hostilities in England between Charles I and his parliament in 1642 led to shortages for Parliament's forces in Ireland. They were compelled to garrison themselves in towns like Trim and Drogheda, and embarked on campaigns to seize supplies for themselves, while at the same time destroying crops and livestock to prevent the enemy getting their hands on them. Such measures were bound to have an effect on the country folk of Leinster. Confederate Catholic forces and their Protestant adversaries spent most of the war raiding each other's territories in search of supplies. Following his victory over the Scots at Benburb, Owen Roe O' Neill's Ulster Army brought terror and destruction to Leinster, as it plundered the province for resources and food. In 1647 he began a deliberate 'scorched earth' policy around Dublin to try to starve the Protestant-dominated capital into submission, and destroyed crops in the whole of southern Meath. Parliament's Col. Michael Jones did the exact same in the Catholic areas around Dublin.

In England and Wales, the burdens which the populace suffered at the hands of the armies contributed to the renewal of the war in 1648. Cromwell came to Ireland determined not to turn the native population of a strange and hostile land against him. Upon his arrival in Ringsend, he ordered his men not to harm the civilian population in any way and, just as Shakespeare's Henry V had done in France, he actually hanged two soldiers for stealing chickens from country folk between Dublin and Drogheda. The ordinary country people were also allowed to sell their produce to the army as it passed through. Meanwhile, Ormond's ( the Irish royalist leader ) exactions on the people of Kilkenny and Clonmel were leading to protests, and the townsfolk of Waterford refused to let him in because of the demands his men would make on them. This put further strain on the alliance between the Confederates and the Royalists in Ireland.

The Irish have always preferred guerrilla tactics to open warfare and their tactics during the 1640s and 50s consisted mainly of skirmishes and raids on towns and garrisons, and the destruction of buildings and crops. By the early 1650s 'Tory' raiders were all that was really left of resistance to Parliament in Ireland. In 1652 a new Pale was set up which excluded counties Wicklow, Carlow, Kildare and parts of Dublin. Outside the Pale was proclaimed a 'doomed area' and a scorched earth policy was initiated, especially in Wicklow, to deprive the Tory bands of their means of survival, and to turn the country people against them, by increasing the hardships already being endured. In Kilkenny townspeople were permitted the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves from these desperate guerrillas. The destruction caused by the war was widespread, but of course worse in places which saw the most fighting. Cromwell is remembered for the destruction his troops inflicted on dozens of castles, churches and other buildings all over the province. In Co. Meath, the area around Kells was particularly affected by the to-ing and fro-ing of armies heading north. Most of Meath actually enjoyed relative quiet for much of the period however, but this, ironically also proved damaging, because people flocked here and exhausted the land through excessive tilling.

Disease was widespread in England and Wales in the late 1640s and early 1650s, and the same was true in Leinster. Plague struck in 1650 and was especially bad in Dublin because of the concentration of people there. At its height, it was killing in the region of 1,600 a week, and an estimated 16,000 died of the disease in total. Traditionally, Dubliners took refuge in the surrounding countryside when an epidemic struck, but the danger and the desolation brought on by the war made this impossible. Dublin became exceedingly depopulated and in Wexford almost the entire population was wiped out.

One consequence of the war which would not have been experienced on the other side of the water at this time was deportation. The defenders of Drogheda and Trim who were lucky enough to survive the Cromwellian onslaught were sent to the West Indies as slaves. In Dublin in the 1650s, all 'undesirables' were shipped to Barbados and an estimated 12,000 Irish were deported in total.

The war nearly destroyed economic life and by 1651 Ireland's resources were almost totally drained. Agriculture was especially affected. Leinster is famous for the quality of its land and in 1642 the Lords Justice described counties Louth, Meath and Westmeath as abundantly plentiful in cattle, corn and grain. By the late 1640s however, the widespread destruction caused by the armies and the intense tillage which took place in the more peaceful areas, had almost entirely destroyed agricultural life. Stocks of cattle were almost completely wiped out; 80% of fertile land was depopulated or laid waste, and potatoes had become the staple diet of the rural poor, since it was one of the few crops which marauding armies could not destroy or seize for themselves easily.

The disruption of agriculture naturally exacerbated the near-famine conditions which were becoming widespread as the wars drew to a close. It was especially bad in Dublin since the city spent much of the period 1641-47 under siege. Problems were made worse by the continuous influx of troops and refugees. In August 1649 Ormond cut off the water supply at Templeogue, thus depriving Dublin's corn mills of power and causing further food shortages. In May 1652 the people of Kilkenny were forced to eat their own plough horses in order to survive. Starvation also badly affected Wexford in 1653, a town already suffering immensely from Plague.

Trade was also badly stifled by the wars. In places like Dublin, it almost came to a complete standstill. Nevertheless, Dublin City was expected to foot the bill for the rising, and did to a large extent. In 1650 provisions in Ireland were still cheaper than in England. Two years later however, things had changed: England was well on the road to economic recovery, while Ireland still suffered the effects of war. Initially the Cromwellian Settlement caused further disruption to the economy, as the process of land transfer got under way. By the mid 1650s however, Ireland was recovering and by the end of the century, economic and agricultural reconstruction was bringing prosperity, although now of course Protestant settlers were the main beneficiaries. Dublin, with its growing trade and rising population recovered quickly and by the eighteenth century was being referred to as the second city of the British Isles.

Ten years of war also destroyed the framework of law and order, and its restoration was a top priority of the Cromwellian regime. By the mid 1650s a new justicial system was in place with sheriffs and JPs in every county, thus completing a process which began long before 1641. As this was essentially a Catholic rebellion, persecution increased as it was brought under control. The massacres in Drogheda and Wexford were justified as official revenge for the slaughter of Protestant settlers in 1641. During the war which followed, attempts were made to drive Catholics out of walled towns, especially the capital where a decree was issued in 1650 stating that all Papists are to be turned out of this city and £20 was awarded to anyone who had information on the whereabouts of Catholic clergy. Across the country these men were being hunted down and either killed, imprisoned, exiled or forced into slave labour on the Aran Islands. Attempts were made to propagate the Gospel, with 300 puritan clergy being drafted in for the purpose. Most of these preachers came to Leinster. Catholic mass was already illegal at this stage, but the conversion of Catholics to the puritan religion was never very successful. Catholicism was not simply a religion; it was seen as a threat to security. This meant that once the threat was neutralised, there was little real enthusiasm to actually convert people. Cromwell himself had no intention of converting anyone.
In the long run, attempts to exclude Catholics from the towns failed and petitions from Catholics expressing loyalty to England's Parliament led to an eventual relaxation of persecution. By the 1660s priests were returning to Ireland, preaching secretly at mass rocks.

However the Catholics who remained in Leinster had virtually no share in political or economic life. This was the Irish revolution, so much more profound than its English counterpart at this time. In England, the major changes were constitutional and had little effect on everyday life. Even in Scotland, where delinquent landlords were dispossessed, most had their lands restored to them in the end. Of the four nations, it was Ireland which experienced the greatest social upheaval, with a deliberate policy of radical social restructuring put into force once the rebellion was crushed. Cromwell believed that it was God's intention that he extirpate the Catholics as much as possible and install a new 'godly' society in their place. Unlike Scotland, which was given the pretence of choice when it came to joining the Commonwealth because its people were considered basically godly, Ireland's subjection to England's rule was complete and unquestionable.

The 1652 Act of Settlement was designed to finalise the promises made by the 1642 Adventurers' Act. Soldiers and creditors of the cause were to be paid off in land, confiscated from the bloodthirsty Catholic landowners. In Co. Wexford, 77% of the Catholic land-owning class had already been killed or had fled the country. With the Cromwellian Settlement, almost all Catholic landowners in Leinster were dispossessed and an estimated 44,000 people sent to a Catholic 'reservation' across the Shannon. Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Laois, Offaly, Kilkenny, Longford, Wexford and Wicklow were all given over to soldiers and creditors, while counties like Dublin, Kildare and Carlow became government reservations just in case the land initially set aside was not enough to meet their obligations. The extirpation of all Catholics from Leinster was never completed however. First of all, it proved to be unrealistic, since economic ruin would have resulted if labourers were unavailable. Secondly, by 1663 only 37% of those entitled to land actually took up their claims, being put off by the desolation and the continuing activities of the Tory raiders. And thirdly, plans to use demobilised solders as a buffer zone around Connacht were undermined by intermarriage, which began immediately the soldiers arrived.

Overall however, it can safely be said that by 1660 the process of Protestant ascension was complete and that nothing less than a social revolution had taken place in Ireland. The war of 1641-1653 had accelerated and completed a process which was well underway before its outbreak. Ironically, it was the growing influence of new English Protestants in Ireland which had caused the rebellion in the first place. The Catholics had gambled everything, and lost. By the Restoration, 91% of the land in Ireland was in Protestant hands; forty years earlier, the figure was only 40%. Leinster's security was guaranteed by the sudden influx of new settlers; most of the Old English gentry and Pale Lords were sent west. The Protestants had become the unchallenged elite in Ireland, and would remain so for the next two hundred years. In Northern Ireland of course, this situation lasted much longer.