This book charts developments in Ireland in the aftermath of the Ulster rising in October 1641. For the next twelve years the island was engulfed in a ruinous conflict involving Irish confederates, Scottish covenanters, English parliamentarians and royalists from each of the three Stuart kingdoms. The 1640s, however, also witnessed a variety of political, constitutional, military and cultural initiatives, centred primarily (though by no means exclusively) on the confederate administration in Kilkenny. Following on from the pioneering research of Donal Cregan, leading scholars in the field examine the major issues of the time, in a series of challenging and accessible essays. -- Publisher description