The constitution was drawn up by lawyer Patrick Darcy in consultation with a committee of noblemen, clergy and gentry. The Confederacy was a provisional government to direct Irish affairs only until such times as King Charles had resolved his quarrel with the English Parliament. The delegates insisted upon their loyalty to the Crown. It was attended by leading nobles, clergymen and gentry sitting together in the same room and forming two Houses: the Lords (nobles and clergy) and Commons (gentry), with the lawyer and politician Nicholas Plunkett acting as Chairman. The first Confederate General Assembly was held at Kilkenny in October 1642. Agents were appointed to lobby support from Catholic powers in Europe and to persuade Irish soldiers serving in foreign armies to return and fight for the Confederate cause. Asserting their loyalty to King Charles, the Confederates drew up an Oath of Association, in which they swore to restore Roman Catholicism to a reunited Ireland.
With representatives of the native Irish nobility and the Catholic "Old English" aristocracy in attendance, an alternative government for Ireland was proposed. In May 1642, the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland held a national synod at Kilkenny in Leinster to discuss ways of controlling the Irish Uprising and of achieving national unity against the Protestant invaders. Pro Deo, Rege et Patria, Hibernia Unanimisįor God, King and Country, Ireland is United
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