John Cook, Ireton's associate, regarded Ireland as ‘a white paper’. There is little reason to doubt that Ireton shared this view. He stated that he went to Ireland due to ‘the great encouragment that I had from Cromwell and Ireton and many honourable persons in the army, who were pleased to say that Ireland was like a White Paper’. The leaders of the New Model Army, motivated by their religion, believed that a war of re-conquest allowed them to start afresh and reform Ireland. For some it would also provide a model for England. Cook stated that ‘though Ireland be but the younger sister, yet England might have been the learner and gainer by her’. Cromwell believed that Ireland could ‘be a precedent to England it self’. Refashioning of Ireland would be brutal. Colonel John Jones ‘believed that the Irish were a “cursed people” Christ had had to fetch instruments farther off to save the country. As one of these instruments he was engaged in nothing less than a holy mission.’ The words and actions of men such as Jones and Ireton himself show at times their utter contempt for their Catholic enemy. Yet within this the practicalities of warfare in Ireland saw Ireton necessarily draw distinctions between the Irish he faced. His words indicate that he did not see the landless Irish people as intrinsically evil, but as deluded by the propagators of a false religion whom he denounced as ‘these incendiaries of blood and mischief’.