Sigginstown’s Uneasy Cessation
Archived: 15 October 2026
In 1643, Ireland’s conflict within the Wars of the Three Kingdoms continued despite shifting military and political circumstances. Confederate forces captured Birr but suffered defeat at New Ross, while achieving a Munster success at Cloughleagh. Supply shortages, taxation, agricultural regulation, trade controls and anti-Catholic measures revealed wartime pressures around Dublin. On 15 September, Ormond and Confederate commissioners agreed the Sigginstown Cessation, a year-long armistice involving territorial arrangements, diplomacy and payments. It excluded Scottish Covenanting forces in Ulster and resolved neither religion nor landownership. The truce intensified Confederate debates, enabled northern planning, and coincided with Mícheál Ó Cléirigh’s work at Louvain.
