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The Battle of Farsetmore

The Battle of Farsetmore is fought near Letterkenny in County Donegal, on May 8, 1567, between the O’Neill and O’Donnell Túath. Shane O’Neill, chief of the O’Neills of Tír Eoghain, is defeated by Aodh mac Maghnusa Ó Domhnaill (Hugh O’Donnell) and the O’Donnells free themselves from O’Neill aspirations of ruling Ulster as its King.

Shane O’Neill had, in the previous 20 years, eliminated his rivals within the O’Neills and asserted his authority over neighbouring clans (or “septs“) the MacDonnells of Antrim in battle and O’Donnells by kidnapping the O’Donnell leader Calvagh, in Donegal. In 1566, the English Lord Deputy of Ireland, Henry Sidney, gives support to the O’Donnells by ransoming the long tortured Calvagh O’Donnell, against O’Neill who is regarded as a destabilising and anti-English power in the north of Ireland. O’Neill forces out these English troops, but the new O’Donnell chieftain, Hugh O’Donnell, who takes over after the long tortured Calvagh dies, takes the opportunity to assert his independence and raids O’Neill’s lands at Strabane. In response, O’Neill musters his armed forces and marches into O’Donnell territory.

O’Neill crosses into Tir Connell (O’Donnell territory) the traditional way by crossing the River Swilly at an Fearsaid mhór (known as Porterfields today), about 3 km (2 miles) east of the modern town of Letterkenny. O’Donnell has advance warning of this impending incursion so has prepared for the forthcoming attack by dispatching messengers to all his people. Both sides are not equal in size. O’Neills army is estimated at 2,000 men and are composed of cavalry (Nobility), Gallowglass, kearn and a small body of English soldiers who have deserted to him to provide modern weapon skills to his host. O’Donnell’s initial force is only about 40-foot and 80 horse (his personal guard).

O’Donnell’s horsemen harass O’Neill’s men immediately after his fording of the river, leaving O’Donnell a short breathing space to locate his small force in a more defensible position, at Magherennan (near today’s entrance to the Letterkenny Rugby club). When their lord is in position the O’Donnell cavalry withdraws and there O’Donnell awaits his reinforcements. While his opponent waits, O’Neill sets up his camp in Cluain Aire beside the river to cover the ford. When O’Donnell’s troops finally arrive, they number 400 Gallowglass from all the MacSweeney septs. With this virtual parity in the usually decisive heavy infantry, the O’Donnell host proceeds to advance on O’Neill’s camp. When first perceiving their attack, Shane says, “It is very wonderful and amazing to me that those people should not find it easier to make full concessions to us, and submit to our awards, than thus come forward to us to be immediately slaughtered and destroyed.”

This statement, made just as the armies meet, is possibly a late attempt to put heart into his own surprised army. Significantly, the main O’Donnell war host has employed rising ground to successfully cover their advance until it is far too late for O’Neill to deploy his own Gallowglass spars into proper line of battle to hold the enemy while the O’Neill horse mount up. The O’Neill army are caught utterly unprepared, in much the same way as O’Neill himself had taken a MacDonnell host by surprise at Glentaisie in 1565. Despite the element of surprise and O’Neill’s lack of manoeuvre room, the resistance of the surprised O’Neill Gallowglass in this encounter battle is at first successful for the Four Masters state that the action lasted “for a long time.” Eventually, with their loose protective screen of Gallowglass cut down, a panicked rout of Shane’s force ensues. The O’Donnell pressure of attack continues so fiercely that the broken O’Neill host is forced back on the ford and attempts to recross the Swilly. As the tide is now coming in, many of them drown in the speeding rush of waters. O’Neill’s losses are estimated by their enemies at 1,400 men killed and no prisoners are mentioned, although the English sources note a more credible total of 680 dead. With many of his most senior commanders and advisors killed amid the chaos of the first onslaught, O’Neill himself escapes the final slaughter with the timely aid of a party of the Gallaghers. They guide him to Ath an Tairsi (Ford of protection), near Crieve Smith in Oldtown today, where they escort him to his own territory and relative safety.

Many of the Donnelleys, Shane’s foster family and the source of his strongest support, defend him to the last and are decimated at Farsetmore. Abandoned by his tanisté and all of his Urríthe, literally under-kings, and with the destruction of his army, the “most powerful force Gaelic Ireland had yet witnessed,” Shane begins looking for a mercenary force to sustain him until he can make good his losses. With all other options closed, he turns to a warband hired to fight against him the previous winter by William Piers from among the MacDonald’s of Dunnyveg. He arrives at their camp at Cushendun with a small retinue and during their negotiations an altercation occurs, in which Shane is killed. Despite being engineered by Piers, this assassination has gone down in history as retribution for Shane’s military action against the MacDonalds in 1565. Shane is buried in a place called CrossSkern Church at Ballyterrim townland in the hills above Cushendun. Later his remains are exhumed with his head then being sent to Dublin.

(Pictured: An artist’s impression of an O’Donnell gallowglass dispatching an O’Neill kern in the waters of the Swilly, with Glebe Hill in the background, May 8, 1567)


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Hugh O’Neill’s Army Defeated at the Battle of Kinsale

On December 24, 1601, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his Spanish and Irish allies are defeated by the English at the Battle of Kinsale, one of the most important battles in Irish history. With the able assistance of his main ally, Hugh Roe “Red” O’Donnell, he is fighting to defend Gaelic Ireland against the forces of Elizabeth I of England.

O’Neill, along with O’Donnell, train an army and before long they find a powerful ally, King Phillip III of Spain. King Phillip is more than keen to help the Irish for two reasons. Firstly, he wants revenge for the famous defeat of his Spanish Armada in 1588 and secondly, he sees Ireland as a terrific foundation from which he can invade England.

King Phillip agrees to the request of O’Neill and O’Donnell to send a large army to help them defeat the English. For several years prior they had held the English at bay from the strongholds in Ulster, beating them at Yellow Ford in 1598 and Moyry Pass in 1600. But if they are to ever drive the English back across the Irish Sea, they have to come out from the hills and passes and meet them in open battle. King Phillip eventually sends his army of 4,800 men to Kinsale in County Cork, thirteen miles south of Cork, arriving on September 21, 1601. They are surrounded by the English army, led by Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, and George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, the President of Munster.

The landing of the Spanish army is not where O’Neill would have hoped as he and O’Donnell are located in the northern county of Donegal. He had sent a message asking them to land further north, so they might join forces and march against the English, but that message either never arrives or arrives too late. Now O’Neill and O’Donnell face a long march to join with their allies, and the English are much closer to Kinsale than they.

Before the Irish can get there, Mountjoy’s army has laid siege to the Spaniards at Kinsale. To leave their northern strongholds holds many dangers for the Irish chieftains, but leave they do, marching their army 250 miles to Kinsale to put the future of Gaelic Ireland to the test on the battlefield, a march which many say is one of the greatest marches to date in Irish History.

On the morning of December 24, O’Neill moves to attack Mountjoy’s army. There is no coordination between O’Neill’s army and the Spanish in Kinsale, under Don Juan del Águila. The Spaniards make no attempt to attack in force or even create a diversion. O’Neill’s army, especially his cavalry, which perform badly, are not ready to meet the English in this sort of combat. The battle lasts only an hour, with Irish losses of 1,200 soldiers whereas the English lose only twenty. The critical battle of the Nine Years’ War has been lost.

Afterwards, O’Donnell flees to Spain where he lives comfortably until he dies a few months later, said to have been poisoned by a spy of Carew’s named Blake.

Hugh O’ Neill surrenders to the English in 1603 and later returns to Ulster, where Lord Mountjoy treats him respectively well. However, most of his lands and authority are non-existent. In 1607, he goes to Spain with a number of family members and supporters, most of whom are lesser chieftains, and this becomes famously known as the Flight of the Earls. The power of the Gaelic chiefs in Ireland become a thing of the past.


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Irish Regiments Fight with Spain in the Battle of Villaviciosa

Three Irish regiments in the service of Spain fight in the Battle of Villaviciosa on December 10, 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession. The regiments are commanded by Colonel Don Demetrio MacAuliffe, Colonel Don John de Comerford, and Colonel Don Reynaldo Mac Donnell. This last becomes known as the Hibernia Regiment.

The Battle of Villaviciosa is a battle between a Franco-Spanish army led by Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, and Philip V of Spain and a Habsburg-allied army commanded by Austrian Guido Starhemberg. The battle takes place one day after a Franco-Spanish victory at Brihuega against a British army under James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope. Both Philip V of Spain and the Archduke Charles of Austria claim victory, but the number of dead and wounded, the number of artillery and other weapons abandoned by the Allied army and the battle’s strategic consequences for the war confirm victory for Philip.

The battle is largely determined by the Spanish dragoons commanded by the Marquis of Valdecañas and the Count of Aguilar, which far exceeds the opposing forces. The Austrian forces retreat, pursued by Spanish cavalry, and the allied army is reduced to 6,000 or 7,000 men when it reaches Barcelona, one of the few places in Spain still recognizing Charles’ authority, on January 6.

After victories in the Battle of Almenar on July 27 and the Battle of Saragossa on August 20, the Habsburg allies supporting Archduke Charles capture Madrid for the second time and Charles enters Madrid on September 21. The 1710 invasion is a repetition of the one in 1706, and the 23,000-strong allied army is reduced at Almenara and Saragossa and in skirmishes with the Spanish-Bourbon militia. The allied troops are unable to maintain an occupation.

The allied position in Madrid is dangerous. On November 9, the city is evacuated and the retreat to Catalonia begins, pursued by Spanish cavalry led by the Marquis of Valdecañas. The archduke leaves the army with 2,000 cavalry and rushes back to Barcelona, while the rest of the army marches in two detachments. Austrian general Starhemberg and the main body of 12,000 men are a day’s march ahead of the 5,000 British troops under Lord Stanhope. The British force, surprised, is defeated at Brihuega on December 9, 1710. The British are taken prisoner, including Stanhope, who finally surrenders.

When General Starhemberg is informed of the attack on the British column, he moves his troops to help Stanhope’s army, unaware that the latter had capitulated. The next morning, December 10, the Franco-Spanish army is waiting on the plain of Villaviciosa. Compared to the Austrian general’s 14,000 troops, the Duke of Vendôme deploys about 20,000 men, including King Philip and other troops who had joined the duke that morning. The armies deploy in two lines on parallel ridges.

The battle begins during the afternoon, lasting until midnight. Each army has 23 pieces of artillery, deployed in three batteries. The artillery fire begins simultaneously, damaging both armies. The Marquis de Valdecañas, commanding the cavalry in the Bourbon right wing, begins the attack. Valdecañas sends his cavalry against the allied left wing, composed of German infantry and Portuguese and Spanish cavalry under Imperial General von Frankenberg. The German infantry and Portuguese cavalry try to stop the Bourbon charge before yielding, and the left wing is destroyed. The Spanish capture the artillery pieces, killing the Anglo-Dutch troops sent to aid the left wing. With the allied left wing defeated, the archduke’s infantry advances toward the Franco-Spanish center and drives back the Bourbon infantry. The Marquis of Toy tries to prevent losses in the center and avoid the division of the army, but most of his men are taken prisoner by the Portuguese.

Although the Bourbons in the center are in difficulty, the Count of Aguilar throws his cavalry against the archduke’s right wing, commanded by General Starhemberg and comprising the best grenadiers and cavalry squadrons of the allied army. The allies are unable to stop the Count of Aguilar’s cavalry. The archduke’s right wing is saved from disaster by support from the center, led by the Spanish general Antoni de Villarroel. Starhemberg regroups his forces, repulses the Count of Aguilar’s cavalry and charges the Bourbon left wing. After capturing the left-wing cannons, Starhemberg launches his army against the center.

The Bourbon center and left wing begin to retreat, and the right-wing cavalry pursues the allied left wing. The Count of Aguilar then attacks against the archduke’s right wing with his dragoons. Although the German and Portuguese cavalry, under Pedro Manuel de Ataíde, 5th Count of Atalaya, resist the first charge, Aguilar’s cavalry breaks the allied right wing. Valdecañas’ cavalry also deals a severe blow to the allied army, and Lt. Gen. Mahony and Field Marshal Amezaga’s troops charge from the right wing. Starhemberg in return launches three cavalry charges against them. During the fighting, Amezaga is wounded in the face. Starhemberg’s forces retreat to a nearby forest to escape the Franco-Spanish cavalry, and the allied forces begin their withdrawal under cover of night. The British regiments suffer heavy losses. Brigadier-General Lepell, the senior British officer, reports two regiments have been cut off while over 107 men are missing from his own and he has only two squadrons still available.

Although Philip V of Spain and the Archduke Charles both claim victory, the number of dead and wounded, the weapons abandoned by the allied army, and the strategic consequences in the war confirm French domination.

Starhemberg continues his retreat, harassed by Spanish cavalry. His army is reduced to 6,000 or 7,000 men by the time he reaches Barcelona. The Spanish throne is finally secured for Philip when Charles leaves Spain in April 1711 to become Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his older brother.

(Pictured: “Battle of Villaviciosa, December 10, 1710,” oil on canvas by Jean Alaux, Museum of the History of France)


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Irish Brigade of France Takes Part in the Siege of Savannah

On October 9, 1779, members of Arthur Dillon‘s regiment of the Irish Brigade of France take part in the Franco-American siege of Savannah, or the Second Battle of Savannah, during the final stages of the siege during the American Revolutionary War. The year before, the city of Savannah, Georgia, had been captured by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell. The siege itself consists of a joint Franco-American attempt to retake Savannah, from September 16 to October 18, 1779.

Charles Henri Hector, Count of Estaing, begins landing troops below the city on September 12, and begins moving in by September 16. Confident of victory and believing that British Lieutenant Colonel John Maitland‘s reinforcements will be prevented from reaching Savannah by Major General Benjamin Lincoln, he offers Major General Augustine Prévost the opportunity to surrender. Prevost delays, asking for a 24-hour truce. Owing to miscommunication about who is responsible for preventing Maitland’s movements, the waterways separating South Carolina‘s Hilton Head Island from the mainland are left unguarded, and Maitland is able to reach Savannah hours before the truce ends. Prevost’s response to d’Estaing’s offer is a polite refusal, despite the arrival.

On September 19, as Charles-Marie de Trolong du Rumain moves his squadron up the river, he exchanges fire with Comet, Thunder, Savannah, and Venus. The next day the British scuttle Rose, which is leaking badly, just below the town to impede the French vessels from progressing further. They also burn Savannah and Venus. By scuttling Rose in a narrow part of the channel, the British effectively block it. Consequently, the French fleet is unable to assist the American assault.

Germaine takes up a position to protect the north side of Savannah’s defenses. Comet and Thunder have the mission of opposing any attempt by the South Carolinian galleys to bombard the town. Over the next few days, British shore batteries assist Comet and Thunder in engagements with the two South Carolinian galleys. During one of these, they severely damage Revenge.

The French commander, rejecting the idea of assaulting the British defenses, unloads cannons from his ships and begins a bombardment of the city. The city, rather than the entrenched defenses, bear the brunt of this bombardment, which lasts from October 3 to 8. “The appearance of the town afforded a melancholy prospect, for there was hardly a house that had not been shot through,” writes one British observer.

When the bombardment fails to have the desired effect, d’Estaing changes his mind and decides it is time to try an assault. He is motivated in part by the desire to finish the operation quickly, as scurvy and dysentery are becoming problems on his ships, and some of his supplies are running low. While a traditional siege operation would likely have succeeded eventually, it would take longer than d’Estaing is prepared to stay.

Against the advice of many of his officers, d’Estaing launches the assault against the British position on the morning of October 9. The success depends in part on the secrecy of some of its aspects, which are betrayed to Prévost well before the operations are supposed to begin around 4:00 a.m. Dillon’s regiment is sent to the right of the main assault, but their guides prove to be unreliable, and the column goes down the wrong path into a swamp. The British have already learned of the assault and the bagpipes of a Highland regiment begin playing at daybreak, unnerving the allies since it signals that surprise is lost. It is nearly daylight when the attack finally gets underway.

The redoubt on the right side of the British works had been chosen by the French admiral in part because he believed it to be defended only by militia. In fact, it is defended by a combination of militia and Scotsmen from John Maitland’s 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders, who had distinguished themselves at Stono Ferry. The militia includes riflemen, who easily pick off the white-clad French troops when the assault is underway. Admiral d’Estaing is twice wounded, and Polish cavalry officer Casimir Pulaski, fighting with the Americans, is mortally wounded. By the time the second wave arrives near the redoubt, the first wave is in complete disarray, and the trenches below the redoubt are filled with bodies. Attacks intended as feints against other redoubts of the British position are easily taken.

The second assault column is commanded by the Swedish Count Curt von Stedingk, who manages to reach the last trench. He later writes in his journal, “I had the pleasure of planting the American flag on the last trench, but the enemy renewed its attack, and our people were annihilated by crossfire.” He is forced back by overwhelming numbers of British troops, left with some 20 men, all being wounded, including von Stedingk. He later writes, “The moment of retreat with the cries of our dying comrades piercing my heart was the bitterest of my life,”

After an hour of carnage, d’Estaing orders a retreat. On October 17, Lincoln and d’Estaing abandon the siege.

The Irish Brigade of France suffers more than 40 killed and close to 150 wounded. Among the dead is Captain Bernard O’Neill, a 5th generation officer in Dillon’s regiment. Dillon’s regiment is the only one of the Brigade units to remain in command of one family for its entire service. Count Arthur Dillon, commander at Savannah, is the grandson of Colonel Arthur Dillon, who brought the regiment into French service in 1690. The Count later becomes a victim of the French Revolution. He is condemned for alleged participation in a prison conspiracy and executed by guillotine on April 13, 1794.


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Patrick Cleburne Commands Brigade at the Battle of Perryville

On October 8, 1862, Irish-born Confederate Brigadier General Patrick Cleburne commands a brigade at the Battle of Perryville, (Kentucky) in the American Civil War. His brigade is part of the army of General Braxton Bragg. Encouraged by Jefferson Davis, Bragg invades Kentucky in August. On August 30, at the Battle of Richmond, Cleburne receives a very painful injury when a ball passes through his open mouth and out his left cheek, taking several teeth with it. However, less than a month later, he is back with his command in time for the crucial battle at Perryville.

The largest and last major battle of the Confederate Heartland Offensive (Kentucky Campaign), the Battle of Perryville, pits Bragg’s Confederate army against General Don Carlos Buell‘s Union army. While Bragg wins the battle tactically, Confederate forces retreat from the battlefield and end the campaign, leaving Kentucky under Union control for the rest of the war.

In conjunction with General Edmund Kirby Smith, Bragg invades the Commonwealth of Kentucky in August 1862. While the Confederate forces see early success in the Battles of Richmond and Munfordville, they ultimately are unable to achieve their larger goal of taking control of the state. By late October, Bragg and Smith’s armies retreat into Tennessee.

On October 7, 1862, the 55,000-man Union Army of the Ohio under the command of General Buell converges on the small crossroads town of Perryville, Kentucky, in three columns. Union forces first skirmish with Confederate cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting continues on Peters Hill as the gray-clad infantry arrive. Based on the intelligence Bragg receives from his cavalry, he believes that he faces only a small portion of General Buell’s army, not the main body. Both sides settle in for the coming battle that would decide the fate of Kentucky.

In the early morning hours of October 8, 1862, fighting begins around Peters Hill as a Union division advances up the pike searching for water, halting just before the Confederate line. General Bragg orders his army to attack the supposedly isolated Union force, but it is noon before the assault gets underway. By that point, a new Union Corps, numbering about 13,000, arrives on the field further to the Union left, led by General Alexander M. McCook. The Confederates shift their focus on this isolated corps, believing it to be the force they faced earlier in the morning.

In the afternoon, the Confederate attacks open up. Bragg plans to commit three divisions. Due to the surprise of the Confederates, the plan works. Many of the Union soldiers in McCook’s corps are inexperienced and have been in the service for less than three months. For over five hours, McCook’s corps struggle to survive.

Cleburne’s brigade enters the battle at about 3:40 p.m. Cleburne’s horse, Dixie, is killed by an artillery shell, which also wounds Cleburne in the ankle, but he keeps his troops moving forward. As they advance up the slope, they are subjected to Confederate artillery fire. Cleburne later surmises that the friendly fire is caused by his men wearing blue uniform trousers, which had been captured from Union soldiers at Richmond. On Cleburne’s left, Brigadier General Daniel W. Adams‘s brigade joins the attack against the 15th Kentucky, which had been reinforced by three companies of the 3rd Ohio. The Union troops retreat to the west toward the Russell House, McCook’s headquarters.

Meanwhile, the majority of the veteran Union forces are under orders not to engage because General Buell, only two miles from the main fight, cannot hear the battle raging. The acoustic shadow dissipates in the area’s rolling hills. In the fighting, the Confederates see much success all across the battlefield at places like Open Knob, where they capture seven Union cannons, Loomis’s Heights, and the H. P. Bottoms Farm. They manage to push back the Union corps over a mile from their positions. Eventually, the Union troops are reinforced by two brigades that stabilize their line, bringing the Confederate attack to a halt. Later, a Confederate brigade assaults the Union force on the Springfield Pike but is repulsed and falls back into Perryville. The Union forces pursue, and skirmishing occurs in the streets in the evening before dark.

After five hours of brutal fighting, on October 8, 1862, night falls upon the battlefield at Perryville. During the night, word finally reaches General Bragg of the true nature of what lay before him. Rather than facing a small Union force, he faces Gen. Buell’s entire army, the majority of which do not see combat. Weighing his options, Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdraws during the night and, after pausing at Harrodsburg, continues the Confederate retreat by way of the Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee.

Cleburne performs a final valuable service to the Confederate cause during Bragg’s retreat. He saves thousands of rifles, cartridges, and other supplies by using stragglers to drag the supply-wagon train to safety.

The Confederate offensive is over and the Union controls Kentucky.


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The Battle of Ballyellis

The Battle of Ballyellis, a clash during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, takes place on June 30, 1798. The battle is between a surviving column of the dispersed Wexford rebel army and pursuing British forces. It is the last Irish victory in the most violent Irish rebellion in modern history with at least 10,000 killed in a campaign that sees appalling atrocities inflicted by English and Irish.

The British victory at the Battle of Vinegar Hill on June 21 had denied the rebels static bases of operation but had not finished the rebellion and at least three major columns of rebels are operating throughout the southeast, moving outwards from County Wexford in an effort to spread and revive the rebellion.

One such column, numbering about 1,000 but accompanied by a number of women and juveniles, is mobile in north County Wexford, continually altering course to elude combined movements of pursuing British forces. The column is led by Joseph Holt, and under his command Denis Taaffe. It heads in the direction of Carnew, County Wicklow, toward the security offered by its mountain ranges when one of its foraging parties is intercepted and destroyed by a cavalry patrol. It quickly becomes evident to the British authorities that this party is a detachment from the main body of rebels. A mounted force of 200 troops consisting of Ancient Britons, dragoons, and three yeomanry corps, assemble near the neighbourhood of Monaseed to begin a pursuit of the rebels.

However, the approaching British are spotted and a force of rebels then moves ahead of the main force to prepare an ambush at the townland of Ballyellis. The spot chosen is behind a curve in the road flanked by high ditches and estate walls. Wagons are placed on the road and access points cut into the ditches. The main force arrives and deploys itself behind the wagons, on the wall and ditches with a small force left to stand on the road ahead of the barricades standing to face and lure in the approaching soldiers.

Upon spotting the small force standing on the road, the pursuing British quicken their pace and charge forward, assuming that they are facing only the rearguard of the fleeing column. Upon reaching the turn, they are met by a barrage of gunfire and are hemmed in by the rebels on three sides. As more mounted troops arrive they press their comrades further into the trap making effective manoeuvre impossible and many are easily picked off by the long pikes of the rebels.

The rear-ranks quickly flee with a few more soldiers escaping by jumping their mounts over the ditch. The rebels organise a relentless pursuit of the soldiers who are tracked and killed through the adjoining fields. At the end of the action about 120 troops, including a French émigré, and two officers are killed with no rebel casualties.

The news of this rebel victory comes as a shock to the authorities in Dublin Castle who had assumed that the offensive capabilities of the rebels had been finished at the Battle of Vinegar Hill. Reports of the defeat are downplayed and the scale of losses withheld from the general public, but the military now recognises Wicklow as the main theatre of rebel operations and begins to transfer troops there in anticipation of a new anti-insurgency campaign.


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The Battle of Benburb

The Battle of Benburb takes place on June 5, 1646 during the Irish Confederate Wars, the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is fought between the Irish Confederation under Owen Roe O’Neill, and a Scottish Covenanter and Anglo-Irish army under Robert Monro. The battle ends in a decisive victory for the Irish Confederates and ends Scottish hopes of conquering Ireland and imposing their own religious settlement there.

The Scots Covenanters land an army in Ulster in 1642 to protect the Scottish settlers there from the massacres that follow the Irish Rebellion of 1641. They land at Carrickfergus and link up with Sir Robert Stewart and the Laggan Army of Protestant settlers from County Donegal in northwest Ulster. The Covenanters clear northeastern Ulster of Irish rebels by 1643 but are unable to advance south of mid-Ulster, which is held by Owen Roe O’Neill, the general of the Irish Confederate Ulster army.

In 1646, Monro leads a force composed of Scottish Covenanter regiments and Ulster settlers armies into Confederate-held territory. According to some accounts, this is the first step in a drive to take the Confederates’ capital at Kilkenny. Other sources say it is only a major raid. The combined force is about 6,000 strong. Monro has ten regiments of infantry, of whom six are Scottish and four are English or Anglo-Irish, and 600 Ulster Protestant cavalry. Stewart and the Laggan Army are slated to join Monro’s force in the attack, however, on the day of the battle the Laggan Army is in Clogher, nearly 30 kilometres away. O’Neill, who is a very cautious general, had previously avoided fighting pitched battles. However, he has just been supplied by the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, with muskets, ammunition and money with which to pay his soldiers’ wages. This allows him to put over 5,000 men into the field, an army slightly smaller than his enemy’s. The Covenanters have six cannon, whereas the Confederates have none.

Monro assumes that O’Neill will try to avoid his army and has his soldiers march 24 kilometres to intercept the Irish force at Benburb, in modern south County Tyrone. Gerard Hayes-McCoy writes, “many of them must have been close to exhaustion before the battle began.” Monro’s men draw up with their backs to the River Blackwater, facing O’Neill’s troops who are positioned on a rise.

The battle begins with Monro’s artillery firing on the Irish position, but without causing many casualties. Monro’s cavalry then charges the Irish infantry, but are unable to break the Confederates’ pike and musket formation. When this attack fails, O’Neill orders his infantry to advance, pushing the Monro’s forces back into a loop of the river by the push of pike. It is noted that the Irish pikes have longer shafts and narrower heads than those of their opponents, meaning that they outreach them and are “better to pierce.” At this point, the fatigue of Monro’s troops is apparent as they are gradually pushed back until their formation collapses in on itself. The Confederate infantry then breaks Monro’s disordered formation with a musket volley at point-blank range and falls in amongst them with swords and scians (Irish long knives). Monro and his cavalry flee the scene, as, shortly after, does his infantry. A great many of them are cut down or drowned in the ensuing pursuit. Monro’s losses are estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 men, killed or wounded. The Irish casualties are estimated to be 300.

O’Neill’s victory means that the Covenanters are no longer a threat to the Confederates, but they remain encamped around Carrickfergus for the rest of the war. O’Neill does not follow up his victory but takes his army south to intervene in the politics of the Irish Confederation. In particular, he wants to make sure that the treaty the Supreme Council of the Confederates has signed with the English Royalists will not be ratified.

The battle is commemorated in the ballad “The Battle of Benburb.”


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Death of Henry Ireton, General in the Parliamentarian Army

Henry Ireton, an English general in the Parliamentarian army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell, dies in Limerick, County Limerick on November 26, 1651.

Ireton is the eldest son of a German Ireton of Attenborough, Nottinghamshire, and is baptised in St. Mary’s Church on November 3, 1611. He becomes a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1626, graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in 1629, and enters the Middle Temple the same year.

At the outbreak of the First English Civil War, Ireton joins the Parliamentary army, commanding a cavalry force in the indecisive Battle of Edgehill in October 1642, and at the Battle of Gainsborough in July 1643. In 1643 he meets and befriends Oliver Cromwell, then a colonel in the army of eastern England. Cromwell appoints him deputy governor of the Isle of Ely in 1644, and he fights at the Parliamentary victories in the Battle of Marston Moor (July 1644), and the Battle of Naseby (June 1645). In the summer of 1646 he marries Cromwell’s eldest daughter, Bridget. The marriage brings Ireton’s career into parallel with Cromwell’s.

Although Ireton’s military record is distinguished, he earns his fame in politics. Elected to Parliament in 1645, he looks on while a conflict develops between the Independents in the army and the Presbyterians who control the House of Commons. In 1647 he presents his “Heads of the Proposals,” a constitutional scheme calling for division of political power among army, Parliament, and king and advocating religious tolerance for Anglicans and Puritans. These proposals for a constitutional monarchy are rejected by the king. At the same time they are attacked by the Levellers, a group that calls for manhood suffrage and an unfettered liberty of conscience in matters of religion.

Ireton then turns against the king. When the Independents in the army triumph over Parliament during the second phase of the Civil War, his “Remonstrance of the Army” provides the ideological foundation for the assault on the monarchy. He helps to bring Charles I to trial and is one of the signatories of the king’s death warrant. From 1649 to 1651 he prosecutes the government’s cause against Roman Catholic rebels in Ireland, becoming Lord Deputy of Ireland and acting commander in chief in 1650.

In early June 1650, Ireton mounts a counter-guerrilla expedition into the Wicklow Mountains to secure his lines of supply for the Siege of Waterford in southeast Ireland. Thomas Preston surrenders Waterford after a three-month siege. Ireton then advances to Limerick by October, but has to call off the siege due to cold and bad weather. He returns to Limerick in June 1651 and besieges the city for five months until it surrenders in October 1651. At the same time, parliamentarian forces conduct the Siege of Galway, and he rides to inspect the command of Charles Coote, who is blockading that city. The physical strain of his command takes hold and he falls ill.

After the capture of Limerick, Ireton has dignitaries of Limerick hanged for their defence of the city, including Alderman Thomas Stritch, Bishop Terence O’Brien, and an English Royalist officer, Colonel Fennell. He also wants the Irish commander, Hugh Dubh O’Neill hanged, but Edmund Ludlow cancels the order after Ireton’s death.

Ireton falls ill of the plague that is raging through the town, and dies on November 26, 1651. His loss reportedly “struck a great sadness into Cromwell” and he is considered a great loss to the administration. At his funeral in Westminster Abbey, John Watson and others wear new tabards that replace the royal arms with the new arms of the commonwealth.

On January 30, 1661, following the Restoration of the English monarchy of 1660, Charles II has Ireton’s corpse exhumed from Westminster and mutilated in a posthumous execution, along with those of Cromwell and John Bradshaw, in retribution for signing his father’s death warrant. The date is symbolic, being the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I.

(Pictured: Painting of Henry Ireton, circa 1650, National Portrait Gallery: NPG 3301)


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The Battle of Vinegar Hill

The Battle of Vinegar Hill, an engagement during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, takes place on June 21, 1798 when over 13,000 British soldiers launch an attack on Vinegar Hill outside Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the largest camp and headquarters of the Wexford United Irishmen. It marks a turning point in the rebellion, as it is the last attempt by the United Irishmen to hold and defend ground against the British military. The battle is actually fought in two locations: on Vinegar Hill itself and in the streets of nearby Enniscorthy.

By June 18, the British have surrounded County Wexford with between 13,000 and 18,000 troops and are ready to pour into Wexford to crush the insurgency. The United Irishmen leadership issues a call to all its fighters to gather at Vinegar Hill to meet the army in one great, decisive battle. The number assembled is estimated at between 16,000 and 20,000, but the majority lack firearms and have to rely on pikes as their main weapon. The camp also includes many thousands of women and children who are staying there for protection against the rampaging military.

The British plan, as formulated by General Gerard Lake, envisages the complete annihilation of the United Irishmen, women and children by encircling the hill and seizing the only escape route to the west, the bridge over the River Slaney. Lake divides his force into four columns to accomplish this. Three columns, under Generals David Dundas, James Duff and Francis Needham are to assault Vinegar Hill, while the fourth column, under General Johnson, is to storm Enniscorthy and its bridge.

The battle begins shortly before dawn with an artillery bombardment of Irish positions on the hill. Advance units quickly move against the United Irishmen outposts under cover of the bombardment and move artillery closer as forward positions are secured. The tightening ring forces the United Irishmen into an ever-shrinking area and increases exposure to the constant bombardment, including new experimental delayed-fuse shells resulting in hundreds of dead and injured. At least two mass charges are launched by the United Irishmen which fail to break the lines of the military and the situation on Vinegar Hill soon becomes desperate for the United Irishmen.

Meanwhile, a detachment of light infantry under the command of General Johnson attacks the town of Enniscorthy but meets with fierce resistance. Buildings in the town have been fortified and the initial attack is driven back with the loss of munitions and men. A second attack commences with reinforcements including cavalry, which retake the lost cannon and ammunition while also incurring considerable casualties. The United Irishmen are slowly driven out of the town but manage to hold the Slaney bridge and prevent the British from crossing.

When British troops crest the eastern summit of Vinegar Hill, the rebels begin to slowly withdraw through a gap in the British lines later known as “Needham’s Gap”, so-named because the late arrival of General Needham’s troops prevented a total encirclement of the hill. Although the bulk of the United Irishmen army escape, many are left behind and killed in the routing phase of the battle from both cavalry and infantry attack, but also from the advanced field guns which are switched to grapeshot to maximize casualties.

In addition to conventional casualties, there are also instances of British troops raping the women accompanying the United Irishmen and in Enniscorthy, United Irishmen wounded are burned to death when soldiers set fire to a building used as a casualty station. These atrocities may have been perpetrated in revenge for the execution by the United Irishmen of numbers of mostly Protestant loyalist prisoners of war in the preceding weeks. The United Irishmen abandon much of the supplies they had taken from surrounding areas, and thirteen cannons are captured by the British, a number of which had been taken from the British forces previously.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the United Irishmen force streams uninterrupted towards the Three Rocks camp outside Wexford and, following the decision to abandon the town, split into two separate columns in a new campaign to spread the rebellion beyond Wexford. One immediately sets out to the west, the other northwards towards the Wicklow Mountains to link up with General Joseph Holt‘s forces.

The defeat is therefore not the immediate crushing blow to the Wexford United Irishmen that it has falsely been depicted as, but it does alter the course of the fighting as continued resistance now takes the form of mobile warfare, raids, and large scale, guerilla-type operations.

Casualties for the United Irishmen have been variously reported, with estimates ranging from 400 to around 1,200. Kevin Whelan estimates a figure of between 500 and 1,000 including camp followers, while Archibald McLaren, a British soldier eyewitness, writes that the United Irishmen casualties total about 1,200 men. British casualties are around one hundred.


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The Second Battle of Arklow

The second Battle of Arklow takes place on June 9, 1798 during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 when a force of United Irishmen from Wexford, estimated at 10,000 strong, launch an assault on the British-held town of Arklow, County Wicklow, in an attempt to spread the rebellion into Wicklow and to threaten the capital of Dublin.

A British advance force of 400 is defeated at Tuberneering on June 4. This rebel victory punches a hole in the dragnet the military has attempted to throw around County Wexford and also yields them three artillery pieces. The town of Arklow has been evacuated in the ensuing panic but the rebels content themselves with taking the town of Gorey and staying within the Wexford border. On June 5 the rebels attempt to break out of County Wexford across the River Barrow and to spread the rebellion but are halted by a major British victory at the Battle of New Ross. When the rebels finally move against Arklow, the town has been reoccupied by a force of 1,700 men sent from Dublin under Francis Needham, 1st Earl of Kilmorey, who quickly fortifies the town with barricades and has artillery positioned on all the approaches to the town.

The rebel army that forms for attack on the afternoon of June 9 is a combined force of Wexford and Wicklow rebels led by Billy Byrne, Anthony Perry, Conor McEvoy, Edward Fitzgerald, and Fr. Michael Murphy. The British in Arklow consist of approximately 1,000 militia from counties Antrim and Cavan and 150 regular cavalry supported by 250 Yeomanry. They are joined by 315 Durham Fencibles (Princess of Wales’s Fencible Dragoons) arriving an hour before the rebels.

The area surrounding the town and the approaches is covered by scrub and the rebel strategy adopted is to advance under cover attacking the town simultaneously from several points. Before the action begins, the rebels under Esmonde Kyan open fire upon the town with some of the artillery captured at Tuberneering and have some success by scoring a direct hit on a British artillery position, destroying the cannon and killing the attendant crew. The main assault is quickly launched but at all entry points the Irish are thrown back by the musket fire of the well-trained and disciplined militia and volunteers, and canister shot from the 3 pounder battalion gun brought by the fencibles. An attempt by the British to turn the Irish failure into a rout is defeated when pikemen and sharpshooters drive a cavalry charge back across the River Avoca, but an attempt to force a way into the town through the outlying fishing port is bloodily repulsed.

As Irish casualties mount, the lack of ammunition and proper leadership begin to work against them, and after Fr. Murphy is killed leading a charge, their attacks start to fade. As nightfall comes, the rebels begin to withdraw under cover of darkness and collect their wounded. They are not pursued or molested by the garrison who are, unknown to the rebels, down to their last three or four rounds per man and are themselves at the brink of defeat.

While rebel casualties are estimated at about 1,000 no full casualty list seems to exist on the British side, but are probably in the region of 100 dead and wounded. The defeat at Arklow marks the third failure to extend the fight for Irish independence beyond the borders of County Wexford following the other bloody repulses at New Ross and Bunclody. The Irish strategy now changes to a policy of static defence against the encroaching British armies.