Today in History: The Irish Rebel

On this day (October 23) in 1641, Irish Catholics attempted to seize control of Charles I’s administration in Dublin. They were not trying to overthrow Charles, but to take advantage of his problems with Scotland and many of his English subjects to force him to grant concessions to his Catholic Irish subjects. Unfortunately for them, their effort failed and led to a series of wars that only ended when Oliver Cromwell decisively crushed them in the 1650s.