Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy [Paperback]

It's a bit harsh to give this only four stars. Generally most things about this book are excellent. The sources are laid out fairly clearly - a bibliography, mostly 20th century and some nineteenth, and 'Miscellaneous Publications' including such things as a BBC programme, one edition of a newspaper, and a lecture. Each chapter has endnotes, and their references match up with the bibliography, at least usually.

However there are some niggles:

[1] Not many original documents are mentioned, and the presumption is they've been printed accurately. But one can never be sure. To be fair many have probably vanished or decayed or would be difficult to get hold of in the original.

[2] Reilly often enough says such-and-such a person never visited Ireland, or some similar definite statement; how can he be so sure? No doubt he's likely to be right, but ...

[3] He doesn't state the official Irish view of Cromwell. We're not all Irish, and some of us haven't been exposed to the Irish education system. Reilly does lay out clearly the object of Cromwell's military expedition, viz to control Ireland, and take lands from Royalists. But it's left rather unclear. Admittedly a revisionist book doesn't have to deal with every aspect of a topic, but the reason Cromwell's of interest in Ireland is exactly because of what he was supposed to have done. (As an example - take 'plantations'. They couldn't have been for spices, sugar cane, tobacco; were they trees? Or what?) Under the rules of the age, was it accepted that a supporter of a losing side should lose possessions?

[4] He doesn't give details of real or supposed massacres of Protestants before Cromwell got there. (Or subsequent events such as the 'Black and Tans').

[5] He seems to take Cromwell as a great commander as an established fact. But it certainly appears at first sight as though the main advantage he had was simply lots of cannon of various types. Cromwell just battered away at town walls (and these medieval towns were small - 400 yards was a typical narrowest width). The Drogheda commander seems to have not realised what he was up against.

Some of the reviews here lay stress on one or two documents - and it's often a suspicious sign when conclusions hang on the words of just one or two witnesses, or supposed witnesses. Connoisseurs of this kind of thing will recognise parallels with other atrocity stories, though on a much tinier scale, and parallels with later historians repeating parrot-style. Reilly maintains that much of the force of the 19th century Irish 'rebel' movement was based on fake atrocity stories. The whole idea of Ireland as 'the most distressful country that ever yet was seen' needs a bit of realistic debunking.

I'm sure Tom Reilly started something in 1999, though I wouldn't dare guess how long it will be before he becomes mainstream.

It is true that this book is in some respects slightly flawed. Reilly's style is a bit quirky, some may even describe it as amateurish. BUT he has had the courage to open a debate that the "professional" historians - both English and Irish - have shied away from for 350 years. Sadly when you rock the boat you are vilified for it. Which is why "professional" academics seldom do it. They have too much too lose.

I do not intend to dissect the book - too many reviewers have already done that above. Some should be ashamed of the comments they have made. They say more about the reviewers' bigotry than Reilly's scholarship. Instead I urge you, if you have an interest in: the English Civil; Cromwell; or Irish history; to read this book with an open mind. I found Reilly's scholarship
compelling and a breath of fresh air in a debate that has been stifled for far too long.

While I sympathise with the earlier reviewer's comments on the unpolished character of Reilly's written style and the often clumsy structure of his arguments this is a challenging book, worthy of the attention of anyone who brings an open mind to the study of Irish history. Those who simply want to have their prejudices confirmed will doubtless hate the book: how dare anyone - especially an Irishman from Drogheda - challenge Irish nationalism's most cherished myth!

The previous reviewer is right that Reilly does not satisfactorily explain away Cromwell's own reference to civilian casualties at Drogheda but the fact that civilians may have died in the heat of action (today we would call it collateral damage) does not make a massacre. Reilly does, in my opinion, convincingly demolish the reliability the testimony of Woods, the only eyewitness to describe deliberate atrocities committed against civilians during the battle, by showing that he had good reasons to wish to present Cromwell in a bad light. If Wood's evidence is discounted then there is no real evidence of a massacre of civilians: all other sources, including those that the earlier reviewer mentions, are second hand and, like Woods, have an interest in presenting Cromwell in a bad light. The consequences for Ireland of the Cromwellian conquest were quite bad enough without making the man into something he was not. I would hope that Reilly's book might help encourage a less self-serving approach to Irish history if it was more widely read.