The Hadzors meet Cromwell

Whilst the Catholics have never forgotten Cromwell's brutality,
the Protestants recall the massacres of 1641 when the Irish rebels
turned on the settlers.  Image: Stuart Caie/Flickr

Whilst John Hadsor prepared to take up arms against the Crown, his elder half-brother Richard Hadsor had come to completely different conclusions about what course the future was likely to take. He went to London and became a Middle Temple lawyer. With his first-hand knowledge of the Irish scene, he was soon to find himself in Whitehall, and eventually elevated to the lofty position of Crown Counsel for Academic Affairs. From this position, he sought moderate and more political solutions to the quandary, solutions that by all means acknowledged English rule but also maintained the special status of the Anglo-Normans Irish. Hadsor pleaded for better governance, for openness to the idea that Catholics could also be loyal British citizens, and more. He died in 1635, still a loyal servant of the crown his half-brother, John, was shortly to engage in battle with.

Divided amongst themselves, and even within their own families, it is difficult to see how in the long-term the post 1641 Anglo-Norman government could ever have sustained itself against the assault that was bound to come once the English had dealt with their own internal affairs. When that assault finally arrived in 1649 under the personal command of Oliver Cromwell, it was of a ferocity, scale, and ruthlessness that even the Irish could not have expected. The massacres at Drogheda and Wexford have been etched into Irish memory ever since, but were only two of many brutal sieges and battles in which mercy was not a watchword. The defeat was total and utter, and by the time the campaign finally came to an end in 1652, the population of Ireland had been reduced by at least 20%. The Catholics were stripped of their lands, in many cases exiled, in some cases executed, and even banned from practising their religion. Before the wars, Irish land ownership had stood at 60%. It was now down to 20%. Such is the dark context to the origins of Harriett Wombwell’s Irish lands.

John Hadsor was one of those whose lands were unceremoniously appropriated, and it is thought that he was exiled to Connacht. It was not exactly the outcome that Richard Hadsor had so assiduously devoted his career to achieving, and possibly a blessing that he did not live to see it.