WI: Cromwell decides on full extermination of the Irish

We are aware that after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the native landlord population to a large extent was pushed beyond the Shannon River into Connacht, and much of the population caught up in the wars were exported as slaves to the West Indies or killed.

However, much of the poorer Catholic population in Ireland merely worked as labourers for the new Protestant landlords and some of those who were dispossessed returned to their land and homes later on, with some Catholic landlords restored to their position in 1662. Almost half of the pre-war Irish population ended up killed or displaced.

However, Cromwell had a true hatred for Catholicism and the Irish and might have decided instead on a course of full extermination of that population had things in England been running more smoothly. What if this course was pursued, and deliberate efforts at ethnic cleansing been taken to the limit? How close to completion would it have come? The economic incentives against it (after all the new landlords needed workers) were strong, but ideologically, the Commonwealth and its army was perhaps extreme enough to make this possible.

What would be the long term effects of a drastically depopulated Ireland to the island's cultural, political, and demographic future?
 
We are aware that after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the native landlord population to a large extent was pushed beyond the Shannon River into Connacht, and much of the population caught up in the wars were exported as slaves to the West Indies or killed.

However, much of the poorer Catholic population in Ireland merely worked as labourers for the new Protestant landlords and some of those who were dispossessed returned to their land and homes later on, with some Catholic landlords restored to their position in 1662. Almost half of the pre-war Irish population ended up killed or displaced.

However, Cromwell had a true hatred for Catholicism and the Irish and might have decided instead on a course of full extermination of that population had things in England been running more smoothly. What if this course was pursued, and deliberate efforts at ethnic cleansing been taken to the limit? How close to completion would it have come? The economic incentives against it (after all the new landlords needed workers) were strong, but ideologically, the Commonwealth and its army was perhaps extreme enough to make this possible.

What would be the long term effects of a drastically depopulated Ireland to the island's cultural, political, and demographic future?
Is there evidence that he thought of full extermination as an option?
 
Is there evidence that he thought of full extermination as an option?
Cromwell himself often took seriously strict measures against the local population in his campaigns, but it had more of a military character. The exception came in his orders regarding Catholic clergy. His lieutenants, who actually had to conduct the seizure of large stretches of rural territory (after he had returned to England) rather than the armies and castles that Cromwell himself campaigned against, adopted some scorched earth tactics and population transfers that ended up killing a large amount of people from exposure, famine, disease, etc.

I don't think he ever really considered a deliberate policy of full ethnic cleansing, although some of the locally raised forces, remembering the 1641 campaign in Ulster and the attempts at wiping out the Plantation, were keen on retribution.

The point though is how feasible such an action could be for the time and what impact it would have.
 
Continental Europe and especially Spain (where the Irish were decreed to have equal rights as native Spaniards) would probably have many more Irish exiles. The English might actually encourage Irish flight/deportation to Europe as being easier and less expensive than killing every last Irishman while still getting them out of Ireland.
 
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He will need a substantially bigger army,MUCH MUCH bigger than the army he brought to Ireland. There's no way the Irish are going down without a fight if the English try to kill 'em all.
 
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