On Sept. 3, 1649, English Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell’s army launched the Siege of Drogheda in Ireland, spurred by Cromwell’s hatred of Catholicism, desire for unquestioned power, and disdain for the Irish. The “curse of Cromwell” left hundreds of thousands of Irish corpses in its wake and a legacy of terror that echoes to this day.
And yet now, the Irish government, only a few decades into independence, is implementing a tyranny that is beginning to resemble the harsh regimes of infamous English tyrants like Cromwell and Elizabeth I. Many Irish people have risen to protest their government, filling the streets. They have been met with arrests, censorship, and prison sentences, just as if they were again living under the Penal Laws. From Cromwell to Communism, the scourge of evil regimes has plagued the Emerald Isle, as surely today as in the 17th century.
Up to 40,000 Scots and 200,000 Irish fell victims to Cromwell's regime, with tens of thousands more Irish sold into indentured servitude abroad, including North America, according to St. Luke's Historic Church and Museum. For context, the Irish population at the time was around 2 million, so 250,000 (dead and indentured servants combined) was around an eighth of the population. Some estimates put the death toll even higher, but undoubtedly Cromwell left a bloody legacy, hence the famous Irish phrase "the curse of Cromwell."
When an Irish Confederacy made up of Irish Catholics, Anglo-Royalists, and Ulster Scots banded together to oppose Cromwell, the dictator and his New Model Army tore through Ireland with a vengeance. At Drogheda, Arthur Aston and his men were making a last stand. By Sept. 11, Cromwell's men, the Parliamentarians, had breached the city walls, and although at first they met with spirited resistance, the fighting eventually turned into a massacre of the Royalist-Irish forces and civilians. The Parliamentarians sacked churches, killed Catholic clergy on sight, and spilled as much blood as they could.
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Eighty soldiers in St. Peter's Church were burned alive when the invaders set fire to the building. A Protestant congregation was hiding when Parliamentarian soldiers burst in, firing their rifles indiscriminately. Aston and his men surrendered on condition they would not be killed, but as soon as they had done so, the treacherous Parliamentarians murdered them anyway, reportedly beating Aston to death with his own wooden leg. Many others were also beaten to death. Cromwell and his men put the same brutality on display in other Irish towns they conquered. Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote of that nightmarish time, "You ask what — I have found, and far and wide I go:/ Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew."
Yet centuries later, when Ireland is finally independent of English rule, the Irish people still find symbols of nationalism targeted in order to please woke globalists and violent Muslim migrants. Lawyers for Justice Ireland (LFJI) called attention to newly appointed Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly, who would not admit that Garda officers removing Irish tricolours from poles under orders from the Dublin City Council (DCC) was unjustifiable. “I'm not going to sit here and give you a guaranteed yes or no,” he sneered. Apparently even the Irish flag is now criminal in Ireland, only a few decades after the country finally obtained its independence.
"I'm not going to sit here and give you a guaranteed yes or no": Newly-appointed Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly refuses to rule out Garda officers going around Dublin removing Irish tricolours from poles at the behest of Dublin City Council.
— gript (@griptmedia) September 2, 2025
Question by @Ben_Scallan. pic.twitter.com/KR1ce1UAx7
LFJI asked, “Is this a sinister attempt by DCC to push for it to to be treated as a criminal offence, hence the loaded terminology of Councillor Moriarty referring to flags put up with ‘hateful intent’?” And will “the Lighting Committee become the unofficial 'Thought Police' with people and groups refused permission to fly our national flags on our streets because they decide that they have ‘hateful intent’?”
Well might a poet write now, "You ask what I have found, and far and wide I go:/ Nothing but Marxist tripe and Islam's murderous crew."
