The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War (derived from the Irish language name Cogadh na hAon Bhliana Déag), took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms – a series of civil wars in the kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland (all ruled by Charles I). The conflict in Ireland essentially started by pitting the native Irish Catholics against English and Scottish Protestant colonists and their supporters, and ended with Royalists, Irish Catholics and Scottish Presbyterians fighting the ultimate winners, the English Parliament. It was both a religious and an ethnic conflict – fought over who would govern Ireland, whether it would be governed from England, which ethnic and religious group would own most of the lan