Confederate Ireland

1642 - 1649: For seven years Catholic Ireland governed itself from Kilkenny. It was the nearest thing to an independent Irish state before the twentieth century.

Out of the chaos of 1641, Ireland's Catholic nobles and clergy formed the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1642, an oath-bound association that ran much of the country as a self-governing Catholic state for the rest of the decade. It had its own Supreme Council, its own army, minted its own coins and even received a papal envoy.

Its motto, "For God, King and Fatherland, Ireland united", captured its uneasy blend of loyalty to the Stuart crown and defence of Catholic Ireland. But the Confederation was riven by faction: between the old Gaelic Irish and the "Old English" Catholics, between hardliners and compromisers, it never fully united. When Cromwell landed in 1649, that division helped seal its fate.