- James Dillon (officer)
Sir James Dillon (born c1600; died after 1669) was an officer in the armies of the Irish Confederate Catholic during the
Irish Confederate Wars (1641-53) and a Member of theParliament of Ireland . He was likely born at Kilfaughny,Athlone and lived in the vicinity.Biography
Life
Dillon was a captain in Wentworth's 'new army', which was recruited in Ireland to help put down a rebellion against King Charles I in Scotland. This force was disbanded after an outcry against arming Irish Catholics in the Parliaments of England and Scotland. When it disbanded in 1641 Dillon was authorised,with his own £1,000, to raise a regiment of the demobbed soldiers for the
Spanish Army . However, this plan was interuppted by the outbreak of a Catholic rebellion in Ireland in October 1641. The brewing conflict lost him his investment and later that year he joined the revolt of his fellow Catholic gentry.He is alleged to have conspired with Lord Maguire before the rebellion; he proposed seizing
Dublin Castle but according to some accounts, the Earl of Ormonde,commander-in-chief, talked him out of it. However, the allegation that Dillon and Ormonde (who was a Protestant) knew of the planned rebellion in adcance has never been proved.After the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641 he joined the rebels and participated in the alternative government the Catholics set up at
Kilkenny in March 1642, under the name, the Confederate Catholics of Ireland. He was appointed governor ofLongford andWestmeath by the Confederate regime.Dillon is recorded as a dove within the confederacy - favouring a speedy reconciliation with
Charles I of England and Irish Catholic participation in theEnglish Civil War on theroyalist side. The question of whether to do this, or whether to achieve Catholic aims in Ireland by military force, against all the English factions, was a source of major division among the Confederates. Dillon was the dominant military leader in westLeinster and, as an infantry colonel, recruited and equipped over 1,000 men.Throughout
1642 ,Roger Jones, 1st Viscount Ranelagh held him off inAthlone . Ranelagh held the castle, west of theShannon . Ormonde, by this time commander of the English royalist forces in Ireland, relieved the town without difficulty. In January 1643, atRathconnell nearMullingar , Dillon attacked a second relief force as it returned toDublin with the remnants of Ranelagh's garrison.His regiment assisted
Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara in capturingRoscommon andJamestown .In 1647 his regiment was destroyed, along with much of the Confederate's Leinster army, at the
Battle of Dungan's Hill , when they were defeatd by an EnglishParliamentarian army which by that time held Dublin.Dillon fought against the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland from 1649-51, when the English Parliament, victorious in the English Civil War, launched a renewed invasion of Ireland. In 1651 Dillon surrendered Athlone to the parliamentarians.Family
* 8th (and youngest) son of Theobald Dillon, 1st
Viscount Dillon
* His estate was 2500 acres in Mayo and Roscommon.
* Married Elizabeth (died pre 1653) (Father: Thomas Plunkett of Rathmore, Meath):* Sons Ulick and James predeceased him.
* Married Mary (died pre January 1665); widow of Major John Ridge.:* No issue
* 4thViscount Dillon inherited his estateReferences
* Dillon, Sir James; A Dictionary of National Biography.:*
T. J. Gilbert , ed., A contemporary history of affairs in Ireland from 1641 to 1652, 3 vols. (1879-80) :* History of the Irish confederation and the war in Ireland...by Richard Bellings, ed. J. T. Gilbert, 7 vols. (1882-91) . :* P. Gouhier, 'Mercenaires irlandais au service de la France (1635-1664)', Irish Sword, 7 (1965-6), 58-75 :* B O'Ferrall and D O'Connell, Commentarius Rinuccinianus de sedis apostolicae legatione ad foederatos Hiberniae Catholicos per annos 1645-1649, ed. J. Kavannagh, 6 vols., IMC (1932-49):* CSP Ire., 1633-69:* J. Lodge, The peerage of Ireland, 4 (1754), 182-4 :* A. Clarke, The Old English in Ireland, 1625-...
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