Little Anthony, his mother and his elder siblings lived in his father's house in Roscrea. The town belonged to the Butlers of Ormond as part of the County Palatine of Tipperary. They were there when the town, held by the royalists, was stormed and fell to Owen Roe O'Neil's Irish Confederates' Ulster Army on 17 September 1646. Anthony's father must have been elsewhere in Ormond's service. They were spared by O'Neil's men who massacred everybody else. O'Neill was leading his army south after his victory over the Scottish Covenanters at Benburb in June and was now attacking the royalists as directed by Rinuccini, the papal nuncio.