seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Lough Erne


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The Battle of Newtownbutler

The Battle of Newtownbutler takes place on July 31, 1689, near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. It is part of the Williamite War in Ireland between the forces of William III and Mary II and those of King James II.

In Enniskillen, armed Williamite civilians drawn from the local Protestant population organise a formidable irregular military force. The armed civilians of Enniskillen ignore an order from Robert Lundy that they should fall back to Derry and instead launch guerrilla attacks against the Jacobites. Operating with Enniskillen as a base, they carry out raids against the Jacobite forces in Connacht and Ulster, plundering Trillick, burning Augher Castle, and raiding Clones.

A Jacobite army of about 3,000 men, led by Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel (in the Jacobite peerage), advance on them from Dublin. Lord Mountcashel’s men consist of three regiments of infantry and two of dragoons. The regiments include his own regiment, Mountcashel (approx. 650 men in 13 companies), The O’Brien regiment (also 13 companies of 650 men), and the Lord Bophin (Burke) regiment. He also has the dragoon regiments of Cotter and Clare, each with seven companies of about 350 dragoons. On July 28, 1689, Mountcashel’s force encamps near Enniskillen and bombards the Williamite outpost of Crom Castle to the southeast of Enniskillen. Crom Castle is almost 20 miles (32 km) from Enniskillen by road and about 5 miles (8.0 km) from Newtownbutler.

Two days later, they are confronted by about 2,000 Williamite ‘Inniskilliniers’ under Colonel Berry, Colonel William Wolseley and Gustave Hamilton. The Jacobite dragoons under Antoine Hamilton stumble into an ambush laid by Berry’s men near Lisnaskea and are routed, taking 230 casualties. Mountcashel manages to drive off Berry’s cavalry with his main force but is then faced with the bulk of the Williamite strength under Wolseley. There is some debate in the sources over troop numbers, though it is believed that Mountcashel has a large number of poorly armed conscripts. Unwisely, Mountcashel halts and draws up his men for battle about a mile south of Newtownbutler.

Williamite histories claim that many of the Jacobite troops flee as the first shots are fired. Up to 1,500 of them are hacked down or drowned in Upper Lough Erne when pursued by the Williamite cavalry. Of the 500 men who try to swim across the Lough, only one survives. Approximately 400 Jacobite officers, along with Lord Mountcashel, the Jacobite commander, are captured and later exchanged for Williamite prisoners, with the other Jacobites being killed. These claims seem unlikely, for several reasons. Each Irish regiment includes approximately 40 officers. The entire force, therefore, would include only about 200 officers. Many of these officers are accounted for in an October 1689 roll call, which shows approximately a 15–20% change in the officer roll call since July for the infantry regiments and 5% for the dragoons. This totals some 20–30 officers in all. Also, the Mountcashel regiment’s roll call for October shows that companies which would normally have 50–60 men, have around 25, which results in a loss of approximately 300–400 men for this regiment. The Cotter and Clare dragoons who ride away from the battle do not have significant losses, based on the October 1689 roll call. Assuming the other two infantry regiments suffer similar losses, gives a total loss of 1,200–1,300. Given their officers are recorded in the October roll and show fewer losses than the Mountcashel regiment among officers, there may be fewer losses in the ranks as well. The Williamite histories acknowledge that they captured approximately 400, including men who are later sent to Derry, which would indicate a total loss of killed, wounded, and missing of 800–900, and likely less. This number is necessarily an estimate based on the available data but should be contrasted with Williamite claims that they killed and drowned 2,000. It appears likely that a couple of hundred men from Mountcashel’s regiment may have fled into the bogs toward Lough Erne, and some of them who made it to the river tried to swim and were drowned, leading to the story of the hundreds drowned.

Lord Mountcashel is wounded by a bullet and narrowly avoids being killed. He later escapes from Enniskillen and returns to lead the Irish Brigade in the French Royal Army. The Jacobite colonel, Sir Thomas Newcomen, 5th Baronet, is killed.

The Williamite victory at Newtownbutler ensures that a landing by Frederick Schomberg, 1st Duke of Schomberg, in County Down in August 1689 is unopposed.

The battle is still commemorated by the Orange Order in Ulster and is mentioned in the traditional unionist song, “The Sash.”

The battle is significant in another way: the regiments on both sides go on to have long and famous histories. On the Williamite side, the Innsikilling Regiment (27th Foot), and on the Jacobite side, the Clare and Mountcashel/Lee/Bulkeley regiments of the Irish Brigade. The two Irish regiments face off again at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, where the Irish Brigade famously drives the British army from the battlefield with a charge in the final stage of the battle.


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Death of Brian O’Neill, High King of Ireland

Brian O’Neill (Irish: Brian Chatha an Dúna Ó Néill), the High King of Ireland from 1258 to 1260, is defeated and killed by the forces of Roger des Auters at the Battle of Down on May 14, 1260.

O’Neill is the son of Niall Roe O’Neill, and grandson of Áed in Macáem Tóinlesc. His wife is Nuala O’Connor (Ní Conchobair), a daughter of Rory O’Connor (Irish: Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair), the last High King of Ireland before the Norman invasion. Therefore, through his mother, he is descended from Brian Boru (Irish: Brian Bóramha).

In 1230, Hugh O’Neill (Irish: Aedh Ó Néill), king of Tyrone, dies and is succeeded by Donnell MacLaughlin. MacLaughlin, however, is removed in 1238 by the Justiciar of Ireland, Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Lord of Offaly, and Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster, who install “the son of O’Neill”, presumed to have been Brian, and take the hostages of the Cenel Owen and Cenel Connell. However, it may have been Brian’s cousin Donnell, who afterwards is killed by MacLaughlin. After this, O’Neill claims the kingship of the O’Neill dynasty as well as Tyrone, possibly with the aid of Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster.

In revenge, O’Neill with the aid of Melaghlin O’Donnell, king of Tyrconnell, defeat MacLoughlin and ten of his closest kinsmen at the Battle of Camergi, somewhere within Tyrone north of Omagh, in 1241. This ends the long rivalry between the MacLoughlin’s and O’Neill’s, with the MacLoughlin’s afterwards excluded from the kingship of Tyrone and Ailech.

In 1244, Henry III of England sends letters to various Gaelic Irish lords, including O’Neill, requesting their aid in a military campaign against the Kingdom of Scotland. In the end the issue is sorted out diplomatically. Copies of the letter are also distributed to O’Neill’s sub-chiefs including his tánaiste, Hugh Boy O’Neill.

A consequence of this infighting between the rival factions of the Cenél Eoghain allows the Normans to advance deeper into Gaelic Ulster, however, in 1243 de Lacy dies. Thus the Earldom of Ulster reverts to the English Crown and is taken over by royal administrators. John FitzGeoffrey, the king’s chief governor in Ireland, erects a bridge across the River Bann and builds castles at Coleraine and Ballyroney in Iveagh. From here FitzGeoffrey is able to penetrate deeper into Tyrone.

Despite ending MacLoughlin aspirations to the kingship, O’Neill forms a marriage alliance with them, however, this results in a war with the O’Donnells of Tyrconnell. Subsequently in 1248 O’Neill backs the king of Tyrconnell, Rory O’Cannon (Irish: Ruaidri Ua Canannáin), against the claims of O’Donnell. O’Cannon had been set up in the kingship by FitzGerald, however, rather than backing him, enters Tyrconnell and removes him in favour of Gofraid O’Donnell.

O’Cannon, who had been expelled to Tyrone, and O’Neill once again lead their forces into Tyrconnell to confront O’Donnell, however they are defeated and O’Cannon is killed.

That same year, John FitzGeoffrey, who replaced FitzGerald as Justiciar in 1246, enters Tyrone and takes the submission and hostages of O’Neill. A resolution had been adopted at a meeting of the Cenel Owen that “since the power of the Foreigners was over the Gaeidhel of Erinn, to give hostages to the Foreigners, and to make peace with them, for the sake of their country.”

In 1249, the king of Connacht, Felim O’Connor, is given refuge from the Normans by O’Neill. In 1252, O’Neill and his brother give their submissions to the Justiciar of Ireland, who had marched to Armagh with a large force. A Rory O’Neill is given as hostage.

In 1253, as a sign of defiance against his vassal status with the Earldom of Ulster, O’Neill withholds his tribute to it and raids Iveagh, destroying the castle at Ballyroney. He also launches an offensive against the Normans in Leinster. That same year, the son of Maurice FitzGerald leads his forces into Tyrone to attack O’Neill, however he fails to take his submission or hostages and after battle suffers a heavy defeat at the hands of O’Neill.

In 1255, O’Neill makes a pact with Felim O’Connor’s son Hugh, whereby allowing Hugh free rein in the Kingdom of Breifne, he would aid O’Neill against the Normans of the earldom who are eroding his territory.

In 1257, the king of Tyrconnell, Gofraid O’Donnell, is mortally wounded in battle against the FitzGeralds and O’Neill uses this opportunity to try to exact Tyrconnell’s submission. As the Cenel Connell discuss what to do, Gofraid’s youngest brother, Donnell Óg, returns from fosterage and is conferred the chieftainship of Tyrconnell. He refuses to submit O’Neill stating the Scottish proverb “Every man should have his own world.”

FitzGerald in 1252 had built a castle at Caoluisce, on the banks of Lough Erne, near modern day Belleek, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, however, in 1258 it is the site where O’Neill, in the presence of his ally O’Connor, is inaugurated as “King of the Gael of Erin.” While he receives hostages from O’Connor and from O’Brien of Thomond, along with several other minor Kings from Meath and Munster, his claim is not recognised by those of the Irish closest to him including the other O’Neill factions, the O’Donnell’s of Tyrconnell, the MacMahon’s of Airgíalla, and the O’Rourkes of Breifne. The following year O’Donnell leads an attack into Tyrone.

In 1260, O’Neill, along with his O’Connor allies, launch an attack on the Normans of the Earldom of Ulster at Drumderg, near its capital at Downpatrick in modern County Down, Northern Ireland. The Normans levy the town, and with the aid of forces brought by Sir Roger des Auters, O’Neill and his allies are decisively defeated at the subsequent Battle of Down. The Annals of Inisfallen state that the forces recruited by the Normans consist mostly of native Irish and that the Normans play only a minor role.

In the battle, O’Neill is killed along with many other Irish nobles including over a dozen members of the O’Cahans. O’Neill’s head is cut off by the Normans and sent to King Henry III of England, a sign of how dangerous his coalition is believed to be.

After this battle, O’Neill becomes known in Irish as Brian Chatha an Dúna, meaning “Brian of the Battle of Down.”

After O’Neill’s death, the kingship of the Cenel Owen, and with it Tyrone, is taken by his cousin’s son, Hugh Boy O’Neill, ancestor of the Clandeboye O’Neill’s, who also has the support of the earldom of Ulster. Upon Hugh’s death in 1283 O’Neill’s son Donnell seizes the kingship, which until 1295 is highly contested between him and his second-cousin Niall Culanach O’Neill and Hugh Boy’s son Brian, until he wins outright control by killing his opponents.


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Death of Novelist Shan Fadh Bullock

Novelist Shan Fadh Bullock dies in Sutton, Surrey, on February 27, 1935. His works include fourteen novels set in Ulster and he is admired by James Matthew Barrie and Thomas Hardy.

Bullock is born on May 17, 1865 at Inisherk, County Fermanagh just outside the County Cavan border near Belturbet, in what is now Northern Ireland. His father, Thomas Bullock, is a strict man who has eleven children and drives several to emigration because of his stern demeanour. Thomas Bullock works on the Crom Castle estate which runs along the Cavan/Fermanagh border and has both Catholic and Protestant workers. Protestant workers have the prime jobs and are employed as craftsmen and supervisors while Catholics work in the outer area of the estate at unskilled jobs. Folk memories of the Battle of Newtownbutler in 1689 remain long in the memory in the area where up to 1,500 Jacobite troops are hacked down or drowned in Upper Lough Erne when pursued by the Williamite cavalry. Many of the Williamite army is drawn from the local Protestant population.

Bullock is educated at Crom estate primary school run by the Church of Ireland and Farra School near Bunbrosna, County Westmeath. He fails the entrance exams at the University of Dublin. He tries his hand at farming but finds he is not suited. He moves to London in 1883 and becomes a Civil Service clerk. He takes to journalism to supplement his salary and publishes his first book of stories, The Awkward squads, in 1893. His stories are centered on Irish Catholic and Protestant small farmers and labourers and their struggles and tensions. He marries Emma Mitchell in 1899 and they have a son and daughter.

Bullock is well respected in literary circles but his books are never successful enough for him to become a full time writer. He says that the English are not interested in Irish stories and that there is no reading public in Ireland. He dislikes Orange sectarianism and is ambivalent to Irish nationalism. His novel The Red Leaguers looks at sectarianism conflict and Robert Thorne examines the lives of London clerks which is a popular theme at the time. His last and best novel The Loughsiders is published in 1924 and is the story of a conniving smallholder based on William Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Bullock’s wife dies in 1922. He spends the final years of his life in Sutton, Surrey and dies there on February 27, 1935.

Bullock’s daughter presents his literary papers, including two unpublished novels, two plays, numerous short stories and essays, and some correspondence to the Queen’s University Belfast library in the 1960s. A portrait of Bullock by Dermod O’Brien, RHA, is also at Queen’s University Belfast. His correspondence with Sir Horace Plunkett is in the archives of the Plunkett Foundation, Long Hanborough Business Park, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Enniskillen public library has a collection of cuttings on Bullock, including some photocopied letters.


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Birth of William Dargan, 19th Century Engineer

william-dargan

William Dargan, arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction, is born at Killeshin near Carlow in County Laois (then called Queen’s County) on February 28, 1799. He designs and builds Ireland’s first railway line from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire in 1833. In total he constructs over 1,300 km (800 miles) of railway to important urban centres of Ireland. He is a member of the Royal Dublin Society and also helps establish the National Gallery of Ireland. He is also responsible for the Great Dublin Exhibition held on the lawn of Leinster House in 1853. His achievements are honoured in 1995, when the Dargan Railway Bridge in Belfast is opened, and again in 2004 when the William Dargan Bridge in Dublin, a new cable stayed bridge for Dublin’s Light Railway Luas, are both named after him.

Dargan is the eldest in a large family of tenant farmers on the Earl of Portarlington‘s estate. He attends a local hedge school in Graiguecullen near Carlow, where he excels in mathematics and accounting. He subsequently works on his father’s 101-acre farm before securing a position in a surveyor’s office in Carlow. With the assistance of prominent local people, particularly John Alexander, a prominent Carlow miller, and Henry Parnell MP for County Laois, he begins working with the Scottish engineer Thomas Telford on the Holyhead side of the London-Holyhead road. He works there between 1819 and 1824.

In 1824 Telford asks Dargan to begin work on Howth Road, from Raheny to Sutton in Dublin. He earns the relatively large sum of £300 for his work on this road and this provides the capital for future public works investments. Henry Parnell describes the road as “a model for other roads in the vicinity of Dublin.” Around the same time Dargan contributes roads in Dublin, Carlow and Louth as a surveyor. He also serves as assistant manager for about three years on the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal and the Middlewich Branch, which are two canals in the English midlands.

On October 13, 1828, Dargan marries Jane Arkinstall in the Anglican Church of St. Michael & All Angels, Adbaston, Staffordshire. He and Jane do not produce any offspring.

When Dargan comes back to Ireland, he is occupied by minor construction projects, including rebuilding the main street of Banbridge and the 13 kilometers long Kilbeggan branch of the Grand Canal. After Irish parliament decides to launch a plan for the very first railway, the Dublin & Kingstown Railway in 1825, he becomes increasingly invested in the project. To fight against the skepticism of any railway program in Ireland, he spends a considerable amount of unpaid time promoting this first railway of Ireland, working along with engineer Charles Vignoles to plan the route. After a persistent effort, the Dublin & Kingstown Railway is opened on December 17, 1834, with eight trains running in each direction.

Dargan next constructs the water communication between Lough Erne and Belfast, afterwards known as the Ulster Canal, a signal triumph of engineering and constructive ability.

Other great works follow – the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, the Great Southern and Western Railway and the Midland Great Western Railway. By 1853 Dargan has constructed over six hundred miles of railway, and he has contracts for two hundred more. He pays the highest wages with the greatest punctuality and his credit is unbounded. At one point he is the largest railway projector in Ireland and one of its greatest capitalists.

Dargan has a strong sense of patriotism to Ireland. He is offered a knighthood by the British Viceroy in Ireland, but declines. Following this, Britain’s Queen Victoria visits Dargan at his residence, Dargan Villa, Mount Annville on August 29, 1853. She offers him a baronetcy, but he declines this also. Wishing to encourage the growth of flax, he then takes a tract of land which he devotes to its culture, but owing to some mismanagement the enterprise entails a heavy loss. He also becomes a manufacturer, and sets some mills working in Chapelizod, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, but that business does not prosper.

In his later years Dargan devotes himself chiefly to the working and extension of the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway, of which he is chairman. In 1866 he is seriously injured by a fall from his horse. He dies at 2 Fitzwilliam Square East, Dublin, on February 7, 1867, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. His widow, Jane, is granted a civil list pension of £100 on June 18, 1870.


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Death of Saint Columbanus

saint-columbanus

Columbanus, Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, dies on November 21, 615. He is one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers.

Columbanus is born in 543 in the Kingdom of Meath, now part of Leinster. Well-born, handsome and educated, he is torn between a desire for God and easy access to the pleasures of the world. Acting on advice of a holy anchoress, he decides to withdraw from the world. His family opposes the choice, his mother going so far as to block the door. He leaves home and studies Scripture extensively under Sinell, Abbot of Cluaninis in Lough Erne. He then moves to Bangor Abbey on the coast of Down, where Saint Comgall is serving as the abbot. He stays at Bangor until his fortieth year, when he receives Comgall’s permission to travel to the continent.

In middle age, Columbanus feels a call to missionary life. With twelve companions (Saint Attala, Columbanus the Younger, Cummain, Deicolus, Eogain, Eunan, Saint Gall, Gurgano, Libran, Lua, Sigisbert and Waldoleno) he travels to Scotland, England, and then to France in 585. The area, though nominally Christian, has fallen far from the faith, but are ready for missionaries, and they have some success. They are warmly greeted at the court of King Gontram of Burgundy, and the king invites the band to stay. They choose the half-ruined Roman fortress of Annegray in the Vosges Mountains for their new home with Columbanus as their abbot.

The simple lives and obvious holiness of the group draws disciples to join them and the sick to be healed by their prayers. Columbanus, to find solitude for prayer, often lives for long periods in a cave seven miles from the monastery, using a messenger to stay in touch with his brothers. When the number of new monks over-crowds the old fortress, King Gontram gives them the Gallo-Roman castle called Luxovium in present-day Luxeuil-les-Bains, some eight miles from Annegray, in 590. Soon after, a third house called Ad-fontanas is founded at present-day Fontaine-lès-Luxeuil. Columbanus serves as master of them all, and writes a Rule for them. It incorporates many Celtic practices, is approved by the Council of Mâcon in 627, but is superseded by the Benedictine.

Problems arise early in the 7th century. Many Frankish bishops object to a foreign missionary with so much influence, to the Celtic practices he brought, especially those related to Easter, and his independence from them. In 602 he is summoned to appear before them for judgment. Instead of appearing, he sends a letter advising them to hold more synods and to concern themselves with more important things than which rite he uses to celebrate Easter. The dispute over Easter continues for years, with Columbanus appealing to multiple popes for help. It is only settled when Columbanus abandons the Celtic calender when he moves to Italy.

In addition to his problems with the bishops, Columbanus speaks out against vice and corruption in the royal household and court, which is in the midst of a series of complex power grabs. Brunhilda of Austrasia stirs up the bishops and nobilty against the abbot. Theuderic II orders him to conform to the local ways and shut up. Columbanus refuses and is briefly imprisoned at Besançon, but he escapes and returns to Luxeuil. Theuderic II and Brunhilda send an armed force to force him and his foreign monks back to Ireland. As soon as his ship sets sail, a storm drives them back to shore. The captain takes it as a sign and sets the monks free.

They make their way to King Chlothar II at Soissons, Neustria and then the court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia in 611. Columbanus travels to Metz, France, then Mainz, Germany, where he sails up the Rhine to the lands of the Suebi and Alamanni, and finally Lake Zurich. Their evangelization work there is unsuccessful and the group passes on to Arbon, then Bregenz on Lake Constance. Saint Gall, who knows the local language best, takes the lead in this region. Many are converted to the faith and the group founds a new monastery as their home and base. However, a year later political upheaval causes Columbanus to cross the Alps into Italy, arriving in Milan in 612. The Christian royal family treats him well, and he preaches and writes against Arianism and Nestorianism. In gratitude, King Agilulf, the king of the Lombards, gives him a tract of land called Bobbio between Milan and Genoa in Italy. There he rebuilds a half-ruined church of Saint Peter, and around it he founds an abbey that is to be the source for evangelization throughout northern Italy for centuries to come.

Columbanus always enjoys being in the forests and caves, and as he walks through the woods, birds and squirrels ride on his shoulders. Toward the end of his life comes word that his old enemies are dead and his brothers want him to come back north, but he declines. Knowing that his time is almost done, he retires to his cave on the mountainside overlooking the Trebbia River. Columbanus dies of natural causes at Bobbio, Italy on November 21, 615.

Columbanus’ influence continues for centuries as those he converted hand on the faith, the brothers he taught evangelize untold numbers more, and his brother monks found over one hundred monasteries to protect learning and spread the faith.

(Pictured: Saint Columbanus stained glass window, Bobbio Abbey crypt)


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Birth of Novelist Shan Fadh Bullock

shan-fadh-bullock

Novelist Shan Fadh Bullock is born on May 17, 1865, at Inisherk, County Fermanagh just outside the County Cavan border near Belturbet. His works include fourteen novels set in Ulster and he is admired by James Matthew Barrie and Thomas Hardy.

Bullock’s father, Thomas Bullock, is a strict man who has eleven children and drives several to emigration because of his stern demeanour. Thomas Bullock works on the Crom Castle estate which runs along the Cavan/Fermanagh border and has both Catholic and Protestant workers. Protestant workers have the prime jobs and are employed as craftsmen and supervisors while Catholics work in the outer area of the estate at unskilled jobs. Folk memories of the Battle of Newtownbutler in 1689 remain long in the memory in the area where up to 1,500 Jacobite troops are hacked down or drowned in Upper Lough Erne when pursued by the Williamite cavalry. Many of the Williamite army is drawn from the local Protestant population.

Bullock is educated at Crom estate primary school run by the Church of Ireland and Farra School near Bunbrosna, County Westmeath. He fails the entrance exams at the University of Dublin. He tries his hand at farming but finds he is not suited. He moves to London in 1883 and becomes a Civil Service clerk. He takes to journalism to supplement his salary and publishes his first book of stories, The Awkward squads, in 1893. His stories are centered on Irish Catholic and Protestant small farmers and labourers and their struggles and tensions. He marries Emma Mitchell in 1899 and they have a son and daughter.

Bullock is well respected in literary circles, but his books are never successful enough for him to become a full-time writer. He says that the English are not interested in Irish stories and that there is no reading public in Ireland. He dislikes Orange sectarianism and is ambivalent to Irish nationalism. His novel The Red Leaguers looks at sectarianism conflict and Robert Thorne examines the lives of London clerks which is a popular theme at the time. His last and best novel The Loughsiders is published in 1924 and is the story of a conniving smallholder based on William Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Shan Bullock’s wife dies in 1922. He spends the final years of his life in Sutton, Surrey and dies there on February 27, 1935.