seamus dubhghaill

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

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The Battle of Ballinamuck

The Battle of Ballinamuck takes place at Ballinamuck, County Longford, on September 8, 1798, marking the defeat of the main force of the French incursion during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

The victory of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert at the Battle of Castlebar, despite gaining him around 5,000 extra Irish recruits, did not lead to a renewed outbreak of the rebellion in other areas as hoped. The defeat of the earlier revolt devastated the Irish republican movement to the extent that few are willing to renew the struggle. A massive British force of 26,000 men is assembled under Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and is steadily moving west. Humbert abandons Castlebar and moves toward Ulster, with the apparent intention of igniting an uprising there. He defeats a blocking force of government troops at Collooney in County Sligo. Following reports that rebellions have broken out in County Westmeath and County Longford, he alters course.

Humbert crosses the River Shannon at Ballintra Bridge on September 7, destroying it behind them, and continues to Drumshanbo where they spend the night – halfway between his landing-point and Dublin. News reaches him of the defeat of the Westmeath and Longford rebels at Wilson’s Hospital School at Multyfarmham and Granard from the trickle of rebels who have survived the slaughter and reached his camp. With Cornwallis’ huge force blocking the road to Dublin, facing constant harassment of his rearguard and the pending arrival of General Gerard Lake‘s command, Humbert decides to make a stand the next day at the townland of Ballinamuck on the Longford/Leitrim county border.

Humbert faces over 12,000 Irishmen and English forces. General Lake is close behind with 14,000 men, and Cornwallis is on his right at Carrick-on-Shannon with 15,000. The battle begins with a short artillery duel followed by a dragoon charge on exposed Irish rebels. There is a brief struggle when French lines are breached which only ceases when Humbert signals his intention to surrender and his officers order their men to lay down their muskets. The battle lasts little more than an hour.

While the French surrender is being taken, the 1,000 or so Irish allies of the French under Colonel Bartholomew Teeling, an Irish officer in the French army, hold onto their arms without signaling the intention to surrender or being offered terms. An attack by infantry followed by a dragoon charge breaks and scatters the Irish who are pursued into a bog where they are either bayoneted or drowned.

A total of 96 French officers and 746 men are taken prisoner. British losses are initially reported as 3 killed and 16 wounded or missing, but the number of killed alone is later reported as twelve. Approximately 500 French and Irish lay dead on the field. Two hundred Irish prisoners are taken in the mopping-up operations, almost all of whom are later hanged, including Matthew Tone, brother of Wolfe Tone. The prisoners are moved to the Carrick-on-Shannon Gaol. The French are given prisoner or war status however the Irish are not and some are hanged and buried in St. Johnstown, today known as Ballinalee, where most are executed in a field that is known locally as Bully’s Acre.

Humbert and his men are transported by canal to Dublin and exchanged for British prisoners of war. Government forces subsequently slowly spread out into the rebel-held “Irish Republic,” engaging in numerous skirmishes with rebel holdouts. These sweeps reach their climax on September 23 when Killala is captured by government forces. During these sweeps, suspected rebels are frequently summarily executed while many houses thought to be housing rebels are burned. French prisoners of war are swiftly repatriated, while United Irishmen rebels are executed. Numerous rebels take to the countryside and continue guerrilla operations, which take government forces some months to suppress. The defeat at Ballinamuck leaves a strong imprint on Irish social memory and features strongly in local folklore. Numerous oral traditions are later collected about the battle, principally in the 1930’s by historian Richard Hayes and the Irish Folklore Commission.

(Pictured: Watercolour plan by an I. Hardy of the Battle of Ballinamuck in County Longford on September 8, 1798, showing position of the English & French Armies previous to the surrender of the latter at Balinamuck)


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The Irish Brigade Fights at the Battle of Chiari

On September 1, 1701, the Irish Brigade of France fights at the Battle of Chiari in northern Italy during the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement is part of Prince Eugene of Savoy‘s campaign to seize the Spanish controlled Duchy of Milan in the Italian peninsula, and follows his victory over Marshal Nicolas Catinat at the Battle of Carpi in July. Marshal François de Neufville, 2nd Duke of Villeroy, replaces Catinat as commander of the Franco–Spanish–Savoyard forces in the theatre, carrying with him orders from King Louis XIV to push the Imperialists out of Italy.

Eugene welcomes the prospect of a decisive battle, and waits on the eastern side of the Oglio to be attacked. The Imperial commander has chosen his ground carefully, entrenching his troops and guns in front of the small fortress of Chiari. Streams protect his position on three sides so, as there is not enough room for a cavalry engagement, Eugene can count on a frontal attack by the French infantry. Two battalions and a few pieces of artillery are placed in Chiari itself.

Villeroy ignores Catinat’s warning that Eugene is in a strong position, remarking that the King, “had not sent so many brave men just to look at the enemy through their spy glasses.” On September 1, the Franco-Spanish infantry advances. Deceived by the report of spies that the Imperialists are retiring, Villeroy crosse the Oglio and pushes on to Chiari expecting to attack their rearguard. The attack begins around 2:00 p.m. when three French brigades approach Chiari and overpower the Imperial troops there without much difficulty. However, instead of facing the rearguard, the French commander encounters the whole Imperial army securely entrenched in their positions. As the Bourbons’ army approaches the Imperial positions, Eugene forbids his men to fire. Loading their artillery with canister shot, they only unleash a withering fire when the Bourbon army enters point-blank range. This disorders the attackers and chaos ensues which the French and Spanish commanders cannot suppress. While this is going on, Chiari is recaptured by the Imperials after a fierce struggle. The Bourbons are driven back with heavy casualties in a contest as destructive as any battle during the war in Italy. With only minor losses, the Imperial army inflicts over 3,000 casualties in the ranks, and over 250 officers. This number grows rapidly as fever attacks the wounded.

Villeroy loses personal control during the battle, and Catinat, despite being wounded, has to organise a retreat. The French dig themselves in only a mile or so away from the Austrians on the same side of the Oglio. Here, the two opposing sides remain for the next two months: the French are too much discouraged by their repulse to resume the assault, and Eugene is unwilling to risk the advantages he had gained by attacking the French in their strong defensive position. However, as autumn advances, conditions deteriorate in both camps: fodder is so short that Eugene’s horses are forced to eat fallen leaves. But the French, whose camp is built on marshy ground, suffers most, and they move out first in mid-November, crossing the Oglio before entering winter quarters in the Duchy of Milan.

In Milan, the French presence proves increasingly unpopular: five million French livres for soldiers’ pay and lodgings, and two million for fodder, has soon been imposed on the local population, most of which has to be taken by force. For his winter quarters, Eugene proceeds to reduce the whole Duchy of Mantua, except the capital and Goito, which he closely blockades. Shortly after he occupies Mirandola and Guastalla. Eugene’s relationship with the local population has been good and he has kept a tight control: he has executed 48 of his men for looting, telling the Emperor that he had “imposed more severe discipline than has possibly ever been seen in an army.” Eugene receives little cash from the Emperor, far less than he expects, but he secures a sound footing in northern Italy and, as hoped, his success helps to encourage the Maritime Powers to come to the aid of Leopold I. Since the beginning of the year Count Johann Wenzel Wratislaw von Mitrowitz has been in London as Imperial minister, pressing for assistance. With Eugene’s two victories (Carpi and Chiari), Leopold I has proven he would fight to protect his interests, giving Wratislaw the arguments he needs to push through the alliance with the Maritime Powers. On September 7, 1701, within a week of the battle, England and the Dutch Republic sign the second treaty of the Grand Alliance, backing the Emperor’s claims to the Spanish possessions in Italy.

The French are still in Milan, but their position is weak: morale is poor and desertion is high. Louis XIV writes to Villeroy urging him to work closely with Catinat and “not again to attack the enemy without advantage.” “If you do … the King, my grandson, will lose Italy.” By October, French optimism for the campaign is gone, but Louis XIV hopes to send reinforcements for the next year’s campaign, believing the Emperor will not be able to make a comparable increase in Eugene’s strength. However, the campaign season is not yet over. As Villeroy settles down for the winter, Eugene is preparing to attack him at his headquarters in Cremona.




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The Battle of Glenmalure

The Battle of Glenmalure (Irish: Cath Ghleann Molúra) takes place in Glenmalure, a steep U-shaped glacial valley in County Wicklow that is surrounded by forests and bogs, on August 25, 1580, during the Desmond Rebellions. A Catholic army of united Irish clans from the Wicklow Mountains led by Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne and James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass of the Pale, defeat an English army under Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton, at Clan O’Byrne‘s mountain stronghold of Glenmalure.

Grey had landed in Ireland with reinforcements from England to put down the rebellion. His strategy is to meet O’Byrne’s threat to the English heartland of Dublin and the Pale by attacking through the highlands to the south of the city. Against the advice of veteran commanders, he chooses to lead his army (around 3,000 strong) through lowland Kildare and into the Wicklow Mountains, with the aim of taking the fastness at Balinacor in the Glenmalure Valley.

While climbing the steep slopes of the valley, the inexperienced English soldiers are ambushed by the Irish who were hiding in the woods. The English are sniped at for a long period of time before their discipline collapses and they turn and flee down the valley. It is at this point that most of their casualties occur, as the Irish leave their cover and fall upon the English with swords, spears, and axes. Hundreds of English soldiers are cut down by the pursuing Irish as they try to escape the field. The remaining English have to fight a rearguard action for several miles until they reach the town of Rathdrum.

Irish sources state that around 800 English soldiers are killed, though the English put their losses at 360 dead. Among those killed is Peter Carew, cousin of his namesake colonist who had made claims to, and won, large tracts of land in southern Ireland. The remainder of the English force retreat to lowland Wicklow and from there to Dublin. However, the following year, when offered terms, most of the Irish soldiers, including O’Byrne, come in and surrender. The exception is Baltinglass, who flees to France.

The battle is commemorated in the folk song “Follow Me Up to Carlow.”

(Pictured: “Battle of Glenmalure 1580 Wicklow,” painting by Val Byrne)


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The Battle of Brihuega

File source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendome-and-PhilipV.jpgThe Irish “Hibernia” regiment and other Irish units of Spain fight at the Battle of Brihuega on December 8, 1710 in the War of the Spanish Succession, during the allied retreat from Madrid to Barcelona. The British rearguard under James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, is cut off within the town of Brihuega and overwhelmed by a Franco-Spanish army under Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. Brihuega with other events brings an end to the British participation in the war.

The Duke of Vendôme sets out from Talavera de la Reina with his troops and pursues the retreating British army with a speed perhaps never equalled in such a season and in such a country. The middle-aged Frenchman leads his Franco-Spanish army day and night. In typical Vendôme style, he swims, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded Henares and in a few days overtakes Stanhope, who is at Brihuega with the left wing of the Grand Alliance army.

“Nobody with me,” said the British general, “imagined that they had any foot within some days’ march of us and our misfortune is owing to the incredible diligence which their army made.” Stanhope has barely enough time to send off a messenger to the centre of the army, which is some leagues from Brihuega, before Vendôme is upon him on the evening of December 8. The next morning the town is invested on every side.

Blasting the walls of Brihuega with heavy cannon, a mine is sprung under one of the gates. The British keep up a terrible fire until their powder is spent. They then fight desperately against overwhelming odds as Vendôme’s men storm the city with bayonets fixed and begin to take the town by bloody close quarters fighting, street by street. The British set fire to the buildings which their assailants have taken but in vain. The British general sees that further resistance will produce only a useless carnage. He concludes a capitulation and his army becomes prisoners of war on honourable terms.

Scarcely had Vendôme signed the capitulation, when he learns that General Guido Starhemberg is marching to the relief of Stanhope. On December 10 the two meet in the bloody Battle of Villaviciosa, after which Starhemberg continues the allied retreat.

The British troops do not remain in captivity for very long before they are exchanged and sent home in October 1711.

The defeat helps justify the Harley ministry‘s plan to agree to a compromise peace with France at the Treaty of Utrecht. Opponents of the deal protest on the grounds of “No Peace Without Spain.” Nonetheless Allied forces are withdrawn, with the final action taking place at the Siege of Barcelona in 1714.