Confederate Ireland

1642 - 1649 — For seven years, Catholic Ireland governed itself from Kilkenny — 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.