How lies about Irish 'barbarism' in 1641 paved way for Cromwell's atrocities

Conference hears how 17th century 'dodgy dossier' spread stories about Catholics ripping open pregnant Protestant women
Irish Rebellion
Protestant settlers are shown being massacred by local Catholics on Portadown bridge over the river Bann in Northern Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Hearsay evidence and bible-inspired testimony inflamed popular fears about the "barbaric" Catholic Irish after the 1641 Rebellion, according to linguistic analysis of the world's first war crimes investigation.

A two-day academic conference (18-19 February) will expose unsubstantiated propaganda within the 31 handwritten volumes of witness statements that provided Oliver Cromwell with justification for his subsequent slaughter of defeated garrisons at Drogheda and Wexford.

Described as a prototype "dodgy dossier" featuring allegations of cannibalism, the 17th-century accounts of atrocities committed against Protestant settlers have been put online for the first time.

Historians, linguists, software specialists and the public have been invited to trawl through newly transcribed versions of the original documents held in Trinity College, Dublin.

"One of the iconic narratives that comes up in hearsay evidence is reports of atrocities against pregnant women who were said to have been ripped open, had their babies pulled out and beaten against rocks," said Dr Mark Sweetnam, who has been working on the texts.

"That image is drawing on biblical prophecy ... and contemporary accounts of European massacres.

"It's very striking that it crops up regularly in hearsay accounts but I never came across an example of it in eyewitness evidence.

"While these depositions were being taken, they were being leaked and published in London with the clear intention that they would elicit the sympathy of English Protestants."

The rebellion, which broke out in October 1641, was a significant moment in the formation of identity in Ireland.

It poisoned Anglo-Irish relations for centuries, focusing attention on attacks by dispossessed Irish Catholic rebels on Anglo-Scottish, Protestant settlers.

The conference is being held at Aberdeen University, where several of the project's researchers are based.

"We can now corroborate some of the more intuitive analysis made by historians and back up those assumptions," said Dr Barbara Fennell, a senior lecturer in language and linguistics at Aberdeen.

"The more lurid and appalling the 'atrocity' was, the less reliable is the evidence.

"These 'atrocities' were used by Cromwell to show how cruel, barbarous and alien the Irish were ... but it's based on highly unreliable evidence."

Some of the atrocities, however, such as the drowning of as many as 100 Protestants at Portadown, were corroborated by eyewitness accounts. That barbarity is still depicted on Orange Order banners and loyalist murals in Northern Ireland.

Dr Nicci MacLeod, a forensic linguist who has studied the way women's complaints of rape are recorded by police, took part in the research. "The atrocious acts committed against women and children are a central image of the rebellion as it was reported in London and propaganda texts of the period," she said.

"We have been able to show that there are significant differences between the use of words and phrases meaning 'heard' as opposed to 'saw' when it comes to the worst atrocities reported within the depositions, such as an act of cannibalism and many of the more infamous events.

"These appear to be reported more frequently through hearsay than the more moderate events."