The 1641 rebellion is one of the seminal events in early modern Irish and British history. Its divisive legacy, based primarily on the sharply contested allegation that the rebellion began with a general massacre of Protestant settlers, is still evident in Ireland today. Thousands of witness testimonies (the 1641 Depositions) housed in Trinity College Dublin became central to one of the most protracted and bitter of Irish historical controversies. This controversy has never been satisfactorily resolved as successive generations invented and re-invented the past in response to contemporary...