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226 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
ity, the Royalist commander, Arthur Aston, was beaten to death by the roundheads with his
own wooden leg.
A nineteenth century representation of the massacre at Drogheda
Cromwell saw the three days and three nights of bloodletting in Drogheda as ‘a right- eous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood.’ Furthermore, the rejoiced British Parliament, on hearing of the bloody demise of Drogheda, appointed a day of public thanksgiving.
Just as the Protestants had grasped, and in many cases, as so often happens in war, ex- aggerated, the already sufficient record of atrocities and deaths in Ulster, so the ‘Sack of Drogheda’ would become a recurrant topic in the exhortations of Irish nationalists, while Drogheda itself became a byword for slaughter. As one commentator observed ‘both sides made the most of the grisly actions in a pamphlet war of propaganda that went on along- side, and long after the military campaign.’ The capture of this Royalist stronghold was quickly followed by the surrender of Trim, Dundalk, Carlingford, Newry, and Lisburn.
In October, having departed Drogheda and following a short stay in Dublin, Cromwell
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