The Plantation of Ulster is the organised colonisation, or plantation, of the Irish province of Ulster by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the settlers, or planters, come from southern Scotland and northern England. Their culture differs from that of the native Irish. Small privately funded plantations by wealthy landowners begin in 1606, while the official plantation begins in 1609. Most of the colonised land had been confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years’ War against English rule. The official plantation comprises an estimated half a million acres of arable land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Coleraine. Land in counties Antrim, Down, and Monaghan is privately colonised with the king’s support.
Among those involved in planning and overseeing the plantation are King James, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Arthur Chichester, and the Attorney-General for Ireland, John Davies. They see the plantation as a means of controlling, anglicising, and “civilising” Ulster. The province is almost wholly Gaelic, Catholic, and rural and has been the region most resistant to English control. The plantation is also meant to sever Gaelic Ulster’s links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. The colonists, or “British tenants,” are required to be English-speaking, Protestant and loyal to the king. Some of the undertakers and settlers, however, are Catholic. The Scottish settlers are mostly PresbyterianLowlanders and the English mostly Anglican Northerners. Although some “loyal” natives are granted land, the native Irish reaction to the plantation is generally hostile, and native writers bewail what they see as the decline of Gaelic society and the influx of foreigners.
The Plantation of Ulster is the biggest of the Plantations of Ireland. It leads to the founding of many of Ulster’s towns and creates a lasting Ulster Protestant community in the province with ties to Britain. It also results in many of the native Irish nobility losing their land and leads to centuries of ethnic and sectarian animosity, which at times spills into conflict, notably in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and, more recently, the Troubles.
Edward Bruce is proclaimed the last High King of Ireland on June 29, 1315. He is crowned in 1316. He reigns between 1315 and 1318. The English colonists in Ireland vehemently oppose him.
Bruce, the brother of the King of Scots, Robert the Bruce, leads a three-year military campaign, known as the Bruce campaign, against the Anglo-Norman lordship of Ireland. This invasion, which lasts from 1315 to 1318, ultimately gives rise to the two nations we recognize now as Ireland and Scotland.
In May 1315, a Scots army of up to six thousand soldiers lands on the Antrim coast. That June, near Carrickfergus, many Gaelic lords led by Donnell O’Neill of Ulster join Bruce. “All the Gaels of Ireland agreed to grant him lordship and they called him King of Ireland,” declares the Irish annals.
The invasion coincides with the Great European Famine (1315-1317), which brings hardship and disillusionment among Bruce’s followers. The annals ruefully comment, “falsehood and famine and homicide filled the country, and undoubtedly men ate each other in Ireland.”
In February 1317, Dublin, the capital of the English royal administration in Ireland, comes close to being captured by the Bruce brothers. The brothers encamp at Castleknock within sight of the city walls. The panicking Dubliners burn the suburbs of the city. In order to re-fortify the city walls, they dismantle the Dominicanpriory north of the River Liffey and tear down the bridge across the river. The Bruce brothers do not lay siege to the city and instead move south to Munster.
In 1318, the invasion is brought to an end when, after marching south from Ulster for one last push, Bruce risks an open battle with an English army north of Dundalk at Faughart and is killed. His corpse is dismembered, and portions of it hung over the gates of various Irish towns. His decapitated head is brought to King Edward II of England by the victor, John de Bermingham, a minor Anglo-Irish baron who is elevated to the status of “Earl of Louth” for bringing the Bruce campaign in Ireland to an end.
A conference at Trinity College Dublin, in 2015, entitled The Irish-Scottish World in the Middle Ages, explores this key moment in the history of Ireland and Scotland. “The Bruce Invasion was a watershed moment in that story,” says Seán Duffy, Professor of Medieval Irish History and one of the organizers of the conference.
“Although Edward Bruce was defeated and killed in 1318, the effect of the invasion was far-reaching. The tide of Anglo-Norman expansion in Ireland turned back and the late Middle Ages saw the flowering of a Gaelic literary and cultural revival. Scotland, meanwhile, was galvanized by its victory over the English at Bannockburn which secured its path to independent nationhood.”
“Few peoples have as much in common as the Irish and the Scots. The very name Scotland is an ever-present reminder of that connection, because, in the Latin of the early Middle Ages, a Scotus was an Irishman, and the homeland of the Scoti was Ireland. That the name came to be applied to the northern part of Britain is testament to the strength of Irish influence on what we now know today as Scotland.”
(From: “On This Day: Edward Bruce, the last High King of Ireland, dies in 1318” by IrishCentral Staff, http://www.irishcentral.com, October 2022 | Pictured: Grave of Edward de Bruce, High King of Ireland, in Faughart Cemetery, County Louth)
The Society of United Irishmen is formed in October 1791 by leading citizens in Belfast who seek a representative government in Ireland based on principles they believe have been modelled by the American and French Revolutions. At their first meeting they embrace the argument of Theobald Wolfe Tone for a “brotherhood of affection” between Irishmen of all religious persuasions. Tone argues that in Ireland the landed AnglicanAscendancy and the English appointed Irish executive employ division between Protestants and Catholics to balance “the one party by the other, plunder and laugh at the defeat of both.”
Despairing of reform, and in the hope of French assistance, in May 1798, the United Irishmen take up arms against the Dublin government and the British Crown. Beginning in Kildare, the insurrection spreads to other counties in Leinster before finally reaching the Presbyterian districts surrounding Belfast. On June 5, the Antrim societies of United Irishmen meet in Templepatrick where they elect textile manufacturer Henry Joy McCracken as their General. The next day McCracken issues a proclamation calling for the United army of Ulster to rise. The initial plan meets with success, as the towns of Larne, Ballymena, Maghera and Randalstown are taken and the bridge at Toome is damaged to prevent the government rushing reinforcements into Antrim from west of the River Bann.
According to the memoirs of James Burns from Templepatrick, Dickey commands the insurgents at Randalstown and kills Samuel Parker, a “traitor, with his own hands, while standing at his own door, where he went for the purpose.”
McCracken leads a body of about 6,000 rebels in an attack on Antrim town. As promised, Catholic Defenders turn out, but in the march upon the town tensions with the Presbyterian United Irish causes some desertions and a delay in McCracken’s planned assault. McCracken’s men are defeated, and his army melts away. On June 15, Dickey, together with McCracken, James Hope, James Orr and about fifty other rebel survivors from Antrim, arrive at Slemish, near Ballymena. There they set up camp for three weeks before leaving under threat of attack from Colonel Green of the Tay Fencibles.
Dickey is captured by the Sutherland fencibles on Divis, a hill northwest of Belfast. He is court-martialed and hanged at Corn Market, Belfast on June 26, 1798. Famously, before his hanging he refuses to wear a black hood saying to the hangman, “Sir, don’t cover my face!” According to local legend he shouts, “Don’t think gentlemen, I am ashamed to show my face among you, I am dying for my country!” However, a loyalist source hostile to the United Irish cause, Henry Joy of the Belfast News Letter, has Dickey on the scaffold recanting his commitment to the “brotherhood of affection” between Catholic and Protestant. He supposedly warned the assembled that had “the Presbyterians of the north succeeded in their [republican] designs, they would ultimately have had to contend with the Roman Catholics.” It is testament to the sentiment that in the north is to largely expunge the memory of his, and McCracken’s, sacrifice.
Dickey is 22 years old at the time of his execution. His head is placed on a spike outside the Market House on Belfast’s High Street.
Dickey’s brother, John Dickey of Crumlin, is also implicated in the rebellion. He is informed on by neighbours who had noticed that he was making pikes and attending secret meetings of the United Irishmen late at night. Arrested and court-martialed, he refuses the terms granted by the government to the “State Prisoners” in Dublin. He is transported to the West Indies for penal servitude but manages to escape and makes his way to the United States.
The outbreak of the United Irish rebellion in Leinster on May 23 had prompted calls from Ulster United Irishmen to take to the field in support of their southern comrades. However, the organisation in Ulster had been severely damaged in a brutal disarmament campaign the previous year, and the new leadership are less radical and are not willing take to the field without French assistance, which is expected daily.
After waiting for two weeks while the rebellion rages in the south, the grassroots United Irish membership in Antrim decides to hold a number of meetings independent of their leaders. The outcome is the election of Henry Joy McCracken as their adjutant general and the decision to rise immediately. McCracken, together with James Hope, quickly formulate a plan to attack and seize all government outposts in County Antrim and then for the main attack to fall on Antrim town. Then using artillery seized at Antrim, the rebels are to march on Belfast in conjunction with the United Irish rebels in County Down.
McCracken has high hopes that many members of the militia will desert and join him, as disaffection is believed to be widespread, evidenced by the execution of four of the Monaghan militia for treason in Belfast in May.
On 6 June, McCracken and James Hope issue a proclamation calling for the United army of Ulster to rise. The initial plan meets with success, as the towns of Larne, Ballymena, Portaferry and Randalstown are taken and the bridge at Toome damaged to prevent the government from rushing reinforcements into Antrim from west of the River Bann. The rebels then assemble at Donegore Hill in preparation for the march and attack on Antrim town, where an emergency meeting of the county’s magistrates called by the county governor, Lord O’Neill, is due to take place.
Although almost 10,000 rebels assemble at Donegore, many display reluctance for the coming fight and stay on the hill in reserve or desert later so that probably fewer than 4,000 actually take part in the attack. The United Irishmen in Ulster are mostly Presbyterian, but are joined with CatholicDefenders and the tension between the two groups on the march likely causes some desertions. These difficulties lead to a loss of momentum, and the attack is delayed. McCracken is forced to make adjustments to his plan of attack, which had envisaged a simultaneous overwhelming assault on the town from four separate points.
The town is garrisoned by a small force of about 200 yeomen, cavalry under Lt. Col. William Lumley and armed volunteers but they also have four artillery pieces and the delay in the rebel attack allows them to send requests for assistance to Belfast and Lisburn from where reinforcements are already on the way. The garrison forms themselves at the base of the demesne wall of Antrim Castle, with artillery to the front and cavalry to the rear with their flanks anchored by the Market House and Presbyterian Meeting House. A part of the Scottish Quarter in the town is also burned by the garrison as it is perceived to be a stronghold of rebel sympathisers.
The attack finally begins shortly before 3:00 p.m. when the rebels begin a cautious march through the town. As rebel front ranks arrive to face the garrison’s defensive line, artillery opens fire on the rebels, causing them to pull back out of range. Large clouds of dust and smoke are thrown up which, together with the fires from the Scottish Quarter, obscure the garrison’s view of events.
The rebel withdrawal is mistaken for a full retreat and the cavalry moves out to pursue and rout the supposed fleeing rebels. The cavalry effectively runs into a gauntlet of rebels who are protected by a long churchyard wall and stationed in houses along the main street, suffering heavy losses to the gunfire and pikes of the rebels.
After routing the cavalry, the rebels attack the remainder of the garrison, which then begins to pull back to the safety of the castle wall. This is mistaken by a newly arrived rebel column as an attack on them, causing them to flee in panic. In the confusion, the county commander, Lord O’Neill, trapped with his magistrates, is fatally wounded by James Clements who avoids trial by joining the army. A rebel attempt to seize the artillery is only narrowly beaten off by troops stationed behind the demesne wall.
At this critical juncture, British reinforcements from Belfast arrive outside the town and, assuming it to be held by the rebels, begin to shell it with their artillery. This prompts more desertions and the rebel army begins to disintegrate, but their withdrawal is protected by a small band under James Hope which fights a successful rearguard action from the church grounds along the main street. This allows the bulk of the rebels to withdraw safely.
When the military enters the town, they begin a spree of looting, burning and murder, of which the most enthusiastic perpetrators are reported to be the Monaghan militiamen, who are anxious to prove their loyalty and expunge the shame of the recent executions of their comrades for sedition. The town of Templepatrick is burned to the ground and Old Stone Castle is razed to the ground. McCracken, Hope and their remaining supporters withdraw northward, establishing camps of ever dwindling size along the route of their retreat until news of the defeat at Ballynahinch causes their final dispersion. McCracken is arrested by yeomen on July 7 and is hanged in Belfast on July 17, having refused an offer of clemency in return for informing on his comrades.
Commemoration of the centenary of the battle, marked by a nationalist parade in Belfast on June 6, 1898, provokes loyalist riots.
McCorley, the son of a miller, and is born near Toome in the civil parish of Duneane, County Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland. A few years before the Irish Rebellion of 1798, his father is believed to have been executed for stealing sheep. These charges appear to be politically motivated in an attempt to remove a troublesome agitator at a time of great social unrest. Following his father’s execution, his family is evicted from their home.
There is uncertainty as to whether McCorley is actually actively involved with the predominantly Presbyterian United Irishmen or the predominantly CatholicDefenders. His role in the 1798 rebellion itself is unrecorded. In a ballad called “Roddy McCorley” written in the 1890s by Ethna Carbery, he is claimed to have been one of the leaders of the United Irishmen at the Battle of Antrim, however there is no contemporary documentary evidence to support this claim or prove that he was even active in the rebellion.
After the rebellion, McCorley joins a notorious outlaw gang known as Archer’s Gang, made up of former rebels and led by Thomas Archer. Some of these men had been British soldiers who changed sides in the conflict, and as such are guilty of treason and thus exempt from the terms of amnesty offered to the rank and file of the United Irishmen. This means that they are always on the run in an attempt to evade capture. This “quasi-rebel” group are claimed to have attacked loyalists and participated in common crime. It is believed that McCorley is caught while in hiding, having been betrayed by an informer.
After McCorley is arrested he is tried by court martial in Ballymena on February 20, 1800, and sentenced to be hanged “near the Bridge of Toome,” in the parish of Duneane. His execution occurs on February 28, 1800. The bridge had been partially destroyed by rebels in 1798 to prevent the arrival of loyalist reinforcements from west of the River Bann.
McCorley’s body is then dismembered and buried under the gallows, on the main Antrim to Derry road. A letter published in the Belfast News Letter a few days after his execution gives an account of the execution and how he was viewed by some. In it he is called Roger McCorley, which may be his proper Christian name.
In addition to Ethna Carbery’s ballad, historian Guy Beiner uncovers earlier references to McCorley in Presbyterian folklore, which he shows to have been repeatedly forgotten and obscured on the background of mainstream Presbyterian identification with Unionism.
An account of McCorley’s career compiled in the early twentieth century from local traditions and correspondence with his descendants, Who Fears to Speak of ’98?, is written by the Belfast antiquary and nationalist Francis Joseph Bigger. It contains an edited version of an early 19th-century ballad about Roddy McCorley’s fate.
Anna Margaret Ross (née McKittrick), Irish writer known by her pen nameAmanda McKittrick Ros, dies on February 2, 1939, at Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. She publishes her first novel, Irene Iddesleigh, at her own expense in 1897. She writes poetry and a number of novels. Her works are not read widely, and her eccentric, over-written, “purple” circumlocutory writing is alleged by some critics to be some of the worst prose and poetry ever written.
Ros is born in Drumaness, County Down, on December 8, 1860, the fourth child of Eliza Black and Edward Amlave McKittrick, Principal of Drumaness High School. She is christened Anna Margaret at Third Ballynahinch Presbyterian Church on January 27, 1861. In the 1880s she attends Marlborough Teacher Training College in Dublin, is appointed Monitor at Millbrook National School, Larne, County Antrim, finishes her training at Marlborough and then becomes a qualified teacher at the same school.
During Ros’s first visit to Larne, she meets Andrew Ross, a widower of 35, who is station master there. She marries him at Joymount Presbyterian Church, Carrickfergus, County Antrim, on August 30, 1887.
Ros writes under the pen name Amanda McKittrick Ros, possibly in an attempt to suggest a connection to the noble de Ros family of County Down. She is strongly influenced by the novelist Marie Corelli. She writes, “My chief object of writing is and always has been, to write, if possible, in a strain all my own. This I find is why my writings are so much sought after.” She imagines “the million and one who thirst for aught that drops from my pen,” and predicts that she will “be talked about at the end of a thousand years.”
Ros’s “admirers” include Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, C. S. Lewis and Mark Twain. The publication of her novel Irene Iddesleigh is financed by her husband in 1897 as a gift to her on their tenth wedding anniversary. Twain considers the novel “one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time.” A reader sends a copy of the novel to humorist Barry Pain, who in an 1898 review calls it “a thing that happens once in a million years,” and sarcastically terms it “the book of the century.” He reports that he is initially entertained, but soon “shrank before it in tears and terror.” Ros retorts in her preface to Delina Delaney by branding Pain a “clay crab of corruption,” suggesting that he is so hostile only because he is secretly in love with her. But Ros claims to make enough money from her second novel, Delina Delaney, to build a house, which she names Iddesleigh.
In Ros’s last novel, Helen Huddleson, all the characters are named after various fruits: Lord Raspberry, Cherry Raspberry, Sir Peter Plum, Christopher Currant, the Earl of Grape, Madame Pear. Of Pear, Ros writes, “she had a swell staff of sweet-faced helpers swathed in stratagem, whose members and garments glowed with the lust of the loose, sparkled with the tears of the tortured, shone with the sunlight of bribery, dangled with the diamonds of distrust, slashed with sapphires of scandals…”
Ros believes that her critics lack sufficient intellect to appreciate her talent and is convinced that they conspire against her for revealing the corruption of society’s ruling classes, thereby disturbing “the bowels of millions.”
Andrew Ross dies in 1917, and Ros marries Thomas Rodgers, a County Down farmer, in 1922.
Belfast Public Libraries have a large collection of manuscripts, typescripts and first editions of Ros’s work. Manuscript copies include Irene Iddesleigh, Sir Benjamin Bunn and Six Months in Hell. Typescript versions of all the above are held together with Rector Rose, St. Scandal Bags and The Murdered Heiress among others. The collection of first editions covers all her major works including volumes of her poetry, Fumes of Formation and Poems of Puncture, together with lesser-known pieces such as Kaiser Bill and Donald Dudley: The Bastard Critic. The collection includes hundreds of letters addressed to Ros, many with her own comments in the margins. Also included are typed copies of her letters to newspapers, correspondence with her admiring publisher T. S. Mercer, an album of newspaper cuttings and photographs, and a script for a BBC broadcast from July 1943.
A few enthusiasts have kept Ros’s legend alive. A biography, O Rare Amanda!, is published in 1954. A collection of her most memorable passages is published in 1988 under the title Thine in Storm and Calm. In 2007 her life and works are fêted at a Belfast literary festival.
Denis Johnston, the Irish playwright, writes a radio play entitled Amanda McKittrick Ros which is broadcast on BBC Home Service radio on July 27, 1943, and subsequently. The play is published in The Dramatic Works of Denis Johnston vol. 3. He acquires a collection of papers from Ros including the unfinished typescript of Helen Huddleson. These can now be seen as part of the Denis Johnston collection in the library of the Ulster University at Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
During World War II, Buchanan serves as an operations officer in RAF Coastal Command (1940–45). His service includes a period in Sierra Leone, operational liaison with Free France in French Equatorial Africa, and night attacks on U-boats in the Bay of Biscay. After the war, he lives in Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for nearly ten years, which he later describes as a period of regeneration. During this time, he broadcasts for BBC Radio and becomes chairman of the NI town and country development committee (1949–53) and a member (from 1954) of the executive council of the European Society of Culture (Venice), and later president of its London centre.
A versatile writer with wide-ranging concerns, Buchanan publishes his first journal, Passage Through the Present, in 1932. It is followed by six novels, including A London Story (1935) and Naked Reason (1971). His plays include A Trip to the Castle (1960) and War Song (1965). The Politics of Culture (1977) is one of several collections of essays, and Green Seacoast (1959) and Morning Papers (1965) are autobiographical. His writing has been noted for its integrity and for the diversity of its ideas. Recurrent themes are the importance of common experience, living sensitively in the present, and the impoverishment of urban life. He believes in the power of ideas and the creative nature of journalism in the modern world. Despite his prosaic style, he writes poetry from his teenage years. It “was always the base from which everything else was motivated. . . [it] affected, and perhaps energised, everything I did. Its pressure led me to special attitudes in journalism, in the theatre, in the novel.” He publishes his first collection, Bodily Responses, in 1958. Other collections include Annotations (1970) and Inside Traffic (1976). In order to bring the variety of his work to a wider audience, Frank Ormsby devotes a supplement in the Honest Ulsterman (1978) to Buchanan, whom he believes is almost forgotten in Ireland and has been unjustly neglected.
Buchanan lives at 18A Courtnell Street, London W2. He marries four times, first to Winifred Mary Corn (1938-45), secondly to Noel Pulleyne Ritter (1949-51), thirdly to the Hon. Janet Hampden Margesson (1952-68), with whom he had two daughters, and fourthly to Sandra Gail McCloy (1974-89). He dies on June 28, 1989, in Richmond, London, and is cremated at Mortlake Crematorium, Richmond.
(From: “Buchanan, George Henry Perrott” by Helen Andrews, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: George Henry Perrott Buchanan by Howard Coster, 10 x 8 inch film negative, 1935, transferred from Central Office of Information, 1974)
Robinson serves in the role of General Secretary of the DUP from 1975, a position he holds until 1979 and which affords him the opportunity to exert unprecedented influence within the fledgeling party. In 1977, he is elected as a councillor for the Castlereagh Borough Council in Dundonald, County Down, and in 1979, he becomes one of the youngest Members of Parliament (MP) when he is narrowly elected for Belfast East. He holds this seat until his defeat by Naomi Long in 2010, making him the longest-serving Belfast MP since the Acts of Union 1800.
In January 2010, following a scandal involving his wife Iris (née Collins), Robinson temporarily hands over his duties as First Minister to Arlene Foster under the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 2006. Following a police investigation, which recommends that he should not be prosecuted following allegations made by the BBC in relation to the scandal, he resumes his duties as First Minister. The Official Assembly Commissioner’s Investigation and Report clears Robinson of any wrongdoing.
In September 2015, Robinson again stands aside to allow Arlene Foster to become acting First Minister after his bid to adjourn the assembly is rejected. His action is a response to a murder for which a member of Sinn Féin, a party in the Northern Ireland Executive, had been questioned. He resumes his duties on October 20, 2015. On November 19, 2015, he announces that he will be stepping down as First Minister and as leader of the DUP. He subsequently steps down as First Minister on January 11, 2016 and is now fully retired from frontline politics.
Robinson is the author of a number of books and pamphlets on local politics and history including: Capital Punishment for Capital Crime (1974), Savagery and Suffering (1975), Ulster the Facts (1981), Self-Inflicted (1981), A War to be Won (1983), It’s Londonderry (1984), Carson – Man of Action (1984), Ulster in Peril (1984), Their Cry was no Surrender (1986), Hands Off the UDR (1990), Sinn Féin – A Case for Proscription (1993), The Union Under Fire (1995), Give Me Liberty (no date), Ulster—the Prey (no date).
In September 1643, Ormond agrees to a truce, or ‘Cessation’, with the Confederation, freeing his troops for use in England against Parliament in the First English Civil War. Some Irish Protestants object, and switch sides, including Sir Charles Coote, who becomes Parliamentarian commander in Connacht. Charles surrenders in 1646, while a Covenanter/Royalist uprising is quickly suppressed in the 1648 Second English Civil War. On January 17, 1649, the Confederation allies with Ormond’s Royalists. Following the execution of Charles on January 30, they are joined by the Laggan Army and remaining Scots troops in Ulster.
There are various reasons for this. The Covenanter government, who provides support for Scottish settlers in Ulster, considers Oliver Cromwell and other leaders of the new Commonwealth of England dangerous political and religious radicals. As Scots, they object to the execution of their king by the English; as Presbyterians, they view monarchy as divinely ordained, making it also sacrilegious, and transfer their allegiance to his son, Charles II of England.
However, this is offset by a split within the Confederation, between Catholic landowners who want to preserve the position prevailing in 1641, and those like Ó Néill, whose estates had been confiscated in 1607. As a result, he agrees a truce with Coote, and refuses to join the Alliance, depriving them of their most effective fighting force in the north. Despite this, by late July, Ormond’s combined Royalist/Confederate army controls most of Ireland.
In Ulster, Derry is the only major town still held by forces loyal to the Commonwealth. The garrison is commanded by Coote, who is besieged by the Laggan Army under George Munro, Robert’s nephew. In July, Munro is forced to lift the siege by Ó Néill, an example of the impact of the truce between two unlikely allies.
Ormond’s defeat at Rathmines on August 2 allows Cromwell and an army of 12,000 to land in Dublin unopposed. After capturing Drogheda on September 11, his main force heads south towards Wexford. Colonel Robert Venables is sent north with three regiments, or around 2,500 men, to take control of Ulster. Munro’s garrisons surrender with minimal resistance, and by the end of September, Venables has occupied Dundalk, Carlingford, Newry, and Belfast. These are accompanied by the mass expulsion of Scots settlers, as punishment for their defection. When Coote captures Coleraine on September 15, he massacres the largely Scottish garrison.
At the end of October, Coote joins Venables at Belfast. They spend November reducing remaining Royalist garrisons in the north, and in early December, assemble 3,000 men to attack Carrickfergus. After lifting the siege of Derry, Munro has retreated to Enniskillen with the remainder of the Laggan Army. Since the loss of Carrickfergus would effectively cut communications with Scotland, he is determined to prevent this if at all possible.
He combines forces with Royalist leader Lord Clandeboye, creating an army of around 5,000. However, it comprises remnants from many different regiments, its men are poorly equipped, and demoralised, while most have not been paid for over two years. As they march north, their numbers dwindle due to desertion.
Learning of their advance, Coote and Venables move to intercept Munro, and the two advance guards make contact outside Lisnagarvey, near Lisburn, on December 6. Despite superior numbers, the Royalists cannot hold their ground against their far more experienced opponents. When the main body of the Parliamentarian force appears, the retreat rapidly turns into a rout, the majority fleeing without firing a shot. In the pursuit that follows, they lose 1,500 men, killed or captured, along with their baggage train and supplies. Clandeboye and the remnants of his army surrender shortly afterwards, although Monro escapes to Enniskillen.
Lisnagarvey ends resistance by Scottish forces to the Parliamentarian army. Carrickfergus surrenders on December 13, and as with other towns, its Scottish settlers are expelled. Early in 1650, Monro agrees to evacuate Enniskillen for £500, and returns to Scotland, leaving Ó Néill’s army as the only remaining obstacle to Parliamentarian control of the north. However, his death in November 1649 proves a major blow to its morale and fighting ability. In June 1650, it is destroyed by Coote and Venables at Scarrifholis.
(Pictured: Map of key locations of the 1649 campaign in Ulster)
Griffith purchases and drains the bogland at Pollagh, part of the Bog of Allen. A peat fueled power station is built which drives an excavator and excess peat is taken via the Grand Canal for sale in Dublin. The site is sold to the Turf Development Board in 1936 who use it as a basis for all of their later peat fueled power stations. The area is now a nature reserve.
Griffith receives a knighthood in 1911 and becomes vice-president of the Royal Dublin Society in 1922. He serves as Honorary Professor of Harbour Engineering at Trinity College, his alma mater, and receives an honorary M.A.I. degree from the University of Dublin in 1914. From 1922 he is an elected member of the Seanad Éireann, the Irish Free State senate, until its abolition in 1936. In the 1930s he and Sarah Purser endow the Purser Griffith Travelling Scholarship and the Purser Griffith Prize to the two best performing students in European Art History at University College Dublin.
Griffith dies at Rathmines Castle in Dublin on October 21, 1938.
seamus dubhghaill 