Why did oliver cromwell kill catholic irish?
Only in combat. Cromwell was sent to Ireland in 1649 to suppress a Catholic Irish revolt that had been going on since 1641. The Irish had allied themselves with the remnants of Royalist armies defeated in the English Civil Wars. Their combined forces were therefore a direct threat to the government in England that Cromwell represented. Cromwell returned to England in May 1650, before the end of the campaign. The harsh settlement imposed on the Catholic population after the rebellion had been finally ended, was government policy, not Cromwell’s, and was implemented on the ground by other army commanders,as Cromwell was in England. Cromwell supported the settlement, but neither thought it up nor carried it out on the ground. The Catholic Irish killed by troops under Cromwell’s command were in the course of his military operations and clearly within the known and accepted (by both sides) rules of 17th century warfare.
