Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/143

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THE CROMWELLIAN CONFISCATION
131

this lady succeeded in bringing up her children as Catholics, and, as is well known, her descendants have since adhered to that faith.

Now in 1641 the head of the family. Sir Valentine Browne, was an infant, three years old. He could of course have taken no part in the rising, or in the war that followed. But equally of course he could have rendered no service to the Parliament, so that he, just like any mere Irishman, had to leave his estates, in order to receive lands equivalent to two-thirds of their value wherever parliament might appoint. The same fate befell the head of the rival family who claimed to be the real owners of Cosh Maing and Eoghanacht O'Donoghue, namely, Daniel or Donnell MacCarthy Mór of Pallis, the descendant of the lady Ellen and Florence son of the Lord of Carbery. This Daniel, too, was a minor, and both he and Sir Valentine Browne were among the fortunate few who were restored to their estates under Charles II.

As for those Catholics of full age and sound in mind or body who had resided in Ireland during the years mentioned, for them to have displayed constant good affection to the parliament would have been almost as impossible as it would have been to expect an Irishman who resided in Ireland at the time of the American Revolution to have shown affection to the American Republican Government. During these ten years the parliament had had little or no footing in Ireland outside Munster and part of Ulster, and when Cromwell landed the Royal authority was supreme all over Ireland except in Dublin and Derry.