Remember 9-11

FUCK YOU, BRITISH EMPIRE! MAY YOU ROT IN HELL ALONG WITH THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WHOM YOU NOW WHORE YOURSELVES TO!

Sincerely,

Eugene Douglas Johnson

Drogheda, 11 Sept 1649

On 20 June 1649, after the suppression of the Leveller mutinies, the House of Commons appointed Oliver Cromwell Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and commander-in-chief of the army that was to be sent there. Through July and August, Cromwell made meticulous preparations for the expedition. Colonel Jones' victory at Rathmines on 2 August enabled Cromwell to land unopposed in Ireland and to occupy Dublin, where he arrived on 15 August with 12,000 experienced troops and a formidable artillery train. The King's lord lieutenant, the Marquis of Ormond, fell back to the north. He was unable to muster an army strong enough to challenge the English invaders in battle so dispersed his troops to garrison key towns. Cromwell immediately marched against Drogheda, a prosperous town at the mouth of the River Boyne, 30 miles up the coast from Dublin and a key strategic strongpoint for advancing into Ulster.

Ormond appointed the Royalist veteran Sir Arthur Aston governor of Drogheda with a garrison of 2,000 foot and 300 horse. The town was protected by a 20-foot high wall punctuated by twenty-nine guard towers. Aston boasted that "he who could take Drogheda could take Hell," so he felt confident in refusing the summons to surrender when Cromwell arrived before Drogheda on 10 September. The Royalist plan was to play for time, hoping that the Parliamentarian army would eventually become weakened and ineffective through disease and attrition. Cromwell was also aware of this possibility and wasted no time in deploying his siege guns. With a squadron of Parliamentarian warships blockading the harbour, Cromwell's artillery immediately began bombarding the walls of Drogheda, concentrating their fire on the south side near the church of St. Mary's. By the following day the walls were breached. Cromwell ordered an assault, intending to gain St. Mary's church as a foothold into the town. The assault began on the evening of 11 September but did not go according to plan. The breach was too small to allow the Parliamentarian horse to enter and the infantry who succeeded in fighting their way into the town met with fierce resistance. Twice the Parliamentarians were thrown back from the walls with great loss of life. Cromwell himself led a third assault and succeeded in holding the breach until Colonel Ewer came up with reinforcements. As the full force of the Parliamentarian army poured through the breach, the defenders were overwhelmed. The church and surrounding entrenchments were seized and the Royalists made a fighting retreat back to the fortifications at Mill Mount. Cromwell, in a furious passion, ordered that no quarter was to be granted to the defenders of Drogheda. The Parliamentarian army swept through the town, slaughtering officers and soldiers. The Royalist governor Sir Arthur Aston was bludgeoned to death with his own wooden leg, which the soldiers believed to be filled with gold coins. Catholic priests and friars were treated as combatants and killed on sight. Many civilians died in the carnage. A group of defenders who had barricaded themselves in St Peter's church in the north of the town were burned alive when the Parliamentarians set fire to the church. Around 3,500 people died in the storming of Drogheda; many of those who survived were transported to Barbados. Parliamentarian losses were around 150.

Cromwell regarded the massacre at Drogheda as a righteous judgment on the Catholics who had slaughtered the Protestant settlers in the Irish Uprising of 1641. This view was shared by most English and Scottish Protestants. According to the conventions of 17th century warfare, a besieged city that refused a summons to surrender and was then taken by storm could expect no mercy. Despite the massacre of its defenders, Drogheda was not regarded as an atrocity at the time. However, it has lived on in Irish folk memory, making Cromwell's name into one of the most hated in Irish history.