Sir, - Reconciliation is one thing, but historical revisionism we can do without. A new book by Tom Reilly (Brandon Publications) paints a sympathetic portrait of Cromwell. It concentrates on his Irish campaigns. The author feels that historians have been unkind to the great Lord Protector and democrat who helped to negotiate a new and fairer constitution for his native land. The book treats the most fearsome atrocities committed by the Roundhead army in Ireland as mere footnotes to a glittering career.
We should never forget that Cromwell was a genocidal dictator, even if he did prepare the way for parliamentary democracy in Britain. He was a war criminal even by 17th-century standards.
The massacres in Wexford and Drogheda have been well-documented. But my own town of Callan in Co Kilkenny also has good reason to be sceptical of any attempt to reconstruct or exonerate this monster.
Prior to 1650, Callan was a thriving town with many industries. It had a corporation and a charter dating to 1217. It had a local court. From 1585, it had the honour of returning two MPs to the Irish parliament. Oliver Cromwell put an end to all that.
In February, 1650, his forces advanced on the town via Carrick-on-Suir and Fethard in Co Tipperary. He had captured Fethard and a string of other towns without firing a shot, and so expected another bloodless victory. Instead, he met fierce resistance in Callan. Though the town's governor, Sir Robert Talbot, fled to save his own skin, the defending soldiers fought the invaders to a standstill. A Westmeath man, Captain Mark Geoghegan, led the brave warriors. Eventually, the defenders were overwhelmed by superior force. The captain died fighting alongside his comrades on what is now West Street.
Cromwell had lost more than 300 men in the siege. But it was not on the surviving members of the town garrison that he vented his rage. Troops who surrendered were allowed to walk away from the battle scene, leaving their weapons behind them. It was the townspeople who paid the price of defeat.
The men of Callan were rounded up and put to the sword. Children were shot and women were scalded to death. The latter method of execution was employed because seven Roundheads had been killed in the assault by women who poured boiling water over them.
Callan never recovered from Cromwell's onslaught. It became an economic wasteland and has been in decline ever since. Only in recent times has it begun to attract industry and investment and regain a little of its former glory. But Tom Reilly devotes only two sentences to Callan in his book. In one, he mentions that the Roundheads encountered "some resistance" there. In the other, he reveals that Cromwell enjoyed the scenery between Fethard and Callan. How delightful.
Of course Cromwell had his good points. Doesn't everyone? Hitler liked dogs, they say, and Al Capone had his favourite charities. The Serb militia leader, Arkan, plays football after a hard day's ethnic cleansing. A great strike, I hear. And Fred West was nice to his neighbours. - Yours, etc., John Fitzgerald,
Lower Coyne Street, Callan, Co Kilkenny.