Whirlwind military campaign conducted by the Puritan leader Oliver
Cromwell in Ireland August 1649May 1650, following the victory of his Parliamentarians in the English
Civil War (164149). He aimed to reassert English control over Ireland, where the
Great Rebellion against Protestant English rule had erupted alongside the Civil War, and support for the Royalists had been high. The vengeful actions of Cromwell's army in Ireland, particularly the massacres at the battles of
Drogheda and
Wexford in 1649, have made his name synonymous with English oppression in the minds of Irish nationalists. His campaign effectively ended the military opposition to English parliamentary rule.
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