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Historian Ian Gentles records in his book, the New Model Army that, "According to official estimates there were 3100 soldiers in the town, of whom 2,800 were killed, as well as many inhabitants and every friar that could be found. The final toll may thus have been... 3,500 soldiers, civilians and clergy". This would mean that of 3500 killed about 700 were civilians Drogheda was one of the best-fortified towns in Ireland. The main part of the town was north of the River Boyne, with a smaller district to the south. The two districts were connected by a drawbridge across the river. The town was protected by a circuit of walls four to six feet wide and twenty feet high that were punctuated by a number of guard towers. Sir Arthur Aston boasted that anyone who could take Drogheda could capture Hell itself. The Marquis of Ormond hoped that Aston would gain time for the Royalists by a prolonged defence that would weaken the Parliamentarian army through disease and attrition. Cromwell was also aware of this possibility and wasted no time in deploying his siege guns to blast breaches in the walls in preparation for storming the town. A summons to surrender was issued on 10 September, which Aston rejected.
His soldiers, many of them with reluctance, butchered their prisoners. The Governor and all the gallant officers , betrayed to slaughter by the cowardice of some of their troops, were massacred without mercy. For five days this hideous massacre was continued with every circumstance of horror This is a righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches ... it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.Cromwell after the storming of Drogheda EVEN by the standards of the 17th Century, Oliver Cromwell's massacres at Drogheda and Wexford were "war crimes", according to new research. This massacre became infamous in Ireland almost instantly and remains so today. Cromwell justified the massacre at Drogheda in two ways. Firstly, he argued that it was, "the righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands with so much innocent blood". In other words, his actions were justified in reprisal for the Irish massacre of English and Scottish Protestants in 1641. Secondly, he argued that such severity would discourage future resistance and save further loss of life.
Did Cromwell attempt ethnic cleansing in Ireland? Yes... * The massacres at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 rank among the worst in British history * Non-combatants were killed, and priests tortured, as examples to terrify the Irish nation * The slaughters were followed by forced expulsions on a mass scale No... * The besieged garrisons knew that if they did not surrender there would be no quarter * The confusion of battle mean that the facts are not clear * His acts of war must be seen in the context of defending a progressive political settlement Despite the fact that 3,000 men lay on the streets of Drogheda after the departure of the Roundheads, few traces of these bodies have ever been located.
Cromwell was a ‘decent human being’ and should not be judged for war crimes against the Irish people because he followed the strict protocols of seventeenth-century siege warfare honourably.... Cromwell had a ‘profound religious experience’ which greatly influenced his military behaviour during his campaigns and was greatly affected by the Irish massacre stories of 1641. Reilly asserted that from his own interpretation of contemporary primary sources there was no massacre of civilians in Drogheda but a discriminate policy of butchering Royalist combatants. At Wexford, the slaughter got out of control when Parliamentary troops entered the town after the hand-over of Wexford Castle. Claiming that he had no particular political axe to grind, Reilly blamed Cromwell’s bad press on modern day ‘partisan nationalist elements’.
