During the 12th century, the people of Ireland came under the sway of the English, who had extended into their domain. With every subsequent century, English dominion in the land gradually expanded, leading to the exceedingly harsh treatment of native Irish populations at the hands of English settlers. The Tudor period was especially tumultuous, with Elizabeth I waging a notoriously expensive conquest against the Irish in the waning years of her reign. Following the religious and political escapades known as the two Bishops’ Wars, which saw a successful Scottish rebellion against the second Stuart king, Charles I, a host of new doors to anti-English and anti-Royalist sentiments were opened to dissenting Irishmen.

By the time of the Bishops’ War, the majority of native Irish people were Catholic. Discrimination against native Irelanders had, at that point, come to encompass both ethnic and religious elements. English colonists brought Protestantism with them, leading to intense theological friction between the natives - who followed the teachings of the Vatican - and the settlers - who followed the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the like. Plantation of the natives took place where property owned by Irish Catholics was seized by the newcomers with the support of the English controlled Irish Privy Council. Native Irish landowners could not sell or sublet more than 60 acres of land and were relegated to maximum leases of only 20 years. Such restrictions were not levied upon the English settlers who came to occupy the very same land. Under these imbalanced statutes, the Protestant occupiers effectively did as they pleased.

In addition to this, the Irish no doubt felt as if they had been misused by Charles I for his military purposes. Irish men were conscripted by Charles’s right-hand man, Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, for his war against the rebelling Scots. Wentworth authorized Gaelic warlord Randel MacDonnell, the Earl of Antrim, to muster 5,000 Irish men for an amphibious invasion of Scotland from Ireland. Other pro-Royalist Irish nobles were keen to contribute to the Crown’s war effort, including David Barry, the Earl of Barrymore, and Sir Francis Willoughby, who offered a combined 2,500 troops to Wentworth.

Tensions began to come to a head during the Second Bishops’ War, when the Irish Parliament was called upon to garner funds for Charles I’s fight against Scottish insurrectionists. In March of 1640, the speaker of the Commons, Maurice Eustace, delivered an overtly pro-English speech in the Irish Parliament. He praised Wentworth for his rule over the island and insisted to his fellow Irishmen that they put the past of Irish-English animosity behind them. Bitter irony would strike the island following Eustace’s optimism. Ethnic and religious oppression, three failed harvests, and the Covenanters' military success had sufficiently stirred an anti-English spirit amongst the Irish.

The stage was now set for a new conflict that would make the Bishops’ Wars pale in comparison. All it took was for someone to light the fuse.