Editing Confederate Ireland (section)

==Significance==
Confederate Ireland's style of parliament was similar to the landed oligarchy [[Parliament of Ireland]] established by the Normans in 1297, but it was not based on a democratic vote. Given their large notional power base, the Confederates ultimately failed to manage and reorganise Ireland so as to defend the interests of Irish Catholics. The [[Irish Confederate Wars]] and the ensuing Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53) caused massive loss of life and ended with the confiscation of almost all Irish Catholic-owned land in the 1650s, though some was re-granted in the 1660s. The end of the period cemented the English colonisation of Ireland in the so-called [[Cromwellian Settlement]].