Les - I was saying how Cromwell is remembered in Ireland, not planning to write an academic treatise on same (it was pushing on for midnight). Revisionist historians may be kinder to Cromwell than memory (they wouldn't 'earn' as much academic kudos anyway if they just wrote the same old stuff about him) but apparently to people who were alive at the time and who handed down their memories he stood out as something exceptionally cruel and savage. And remember, this must have been judged against the standards of the time,since his victims and their relatives did not have the benefit of 21st cent hindsight.

I know about the rebellion of 1641, the last ditch effort of Irish catholics, Gaels and Old English (the Anglo-Norman catholic settlers) to drive out the invading English. It should be added that the Irish had supported Charles 1st in the Civil War, seeeing him as their best hope. A bad mistake as it turned out, since Charles was beheaded and Cromwell then turned his attention to Ireland to 'teach it a lesson' and ensure ther'd be no more support for a monarch (Charles' son was still about). Almost 50 years later at the Boyne, the Irish were again taking sides in an English civil war in the hope of getting a better deal for themslves. Again they backed a losing horse (James) and paid dearly for it. You could say they'd have been better off minding their own business, but the two countries were so close that their foreign policies became entertwined.

I'm still right about Crowmell being dour, though, aren't I? I gather he wasn't too popular in England either which is why his body was dug up and his head stuck on a spike after the Restoration.

By the way, if we argue about 'the standards and rules of the time' - there was no such crime as genocide officially until the Nuremberg trials. The statute of the crime had to be invented (though the fact was real) especially in time for the trials. Nor was genocide unknown prior to that: most of the colonists engaged in a good bit of it: the French, the Belgians, the English, Spanish, anyone who could....

Won't bore you with endless examples though, have a look at this rather interesting site:
Concentration camps and colonialism