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The crisis belonged to a landscape already devastated by more than six years of conflict. The 1641 rising had developed into a many-sided war: Catholic Confederate armies, English royalists, English parliamentarians, Scottish covenanters in Ulster, and local Protestant forces all held territory or maintained garrisons. Their alliances had repeatedly shifted. Kilkenny was the Confederation’s political centre, but its authority depended on provincial councils, noble networks, clerical support and armies which often lacked regular pay, food, ammunition and discipline.
The most securely dated Irish military event of the year was the Confederate capture of Duncannon Fort, at the entrance to Waterford Harbour. Thomas Preston’s Leinster army began its siege on 20 January. The fort was a formidable strategic position: whoever held it could threaten or protect shipping moving between Waterford, the Irish Sea and continental routes. It was also an English-held outpost embedded in a region otherwise strongly influenced by the Confederation. Its governor, Lord Esmonde, had to depend upon a comparatively small garrison, sea supply and the strength of the fortifications.
