 Dillon is recorded as a dove within the confederacy - favouring a speedy reconciliation with Charles I of England and Irish Catholic participation in the English Civil War on the royalist side.The question of whether to do this, or whether to achieve Catholic aims in Ireland by military force, against all the English factions, was a source of major division among the Confederates.Dillon was the dominant military leader in west Leinster and, as an infantry colonel, recruited and equipped over 1,000 men.