IRISH HISTORY

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CHAPTER 8

THE WILLIAMITE WARS

‘After the Treaty of Limerick’, says Edmund Burke, who was an Irishman but an upholder of Anglo-Irish tradition — and sometimes even English tradition, in his Tracts — that is after the Irish had, by the faith and honour of the British Crown, been pledged protection in their lives, liberties, and property, ‘there was not a single right of nature or benefit of society which had not been either totally taken away, or considerably impaired’.

The events leading to the Treaty of Limerick began, when, after the death of Cromwell, a Puritan, the Protestant Charles II, a Stuart, was restored to power. Then, when Charles died, to the throne of England came his brother, the Catholic King James II, in 1685. The Quakers were set free in England, and the Catholics were set free in Ireland. James’s first act was to suspend the first penal laws, known as the Statutes of Kilkenny. These ‘Laws’ had been enforced because the Norman invasion had been such a failure in Ireland in the sense that the country was ‘Irish’ again.

The action of granting Catholics liberation filled the majority of James’s English subjects in Ireland with terror. He went further. The charters of the Corporation, all framed in favour of the English settlers, were called in. He appointed Catholics as judges and magistrates, and placed Catholics on his Council. These acts of justice appeared crimes to the settlers.

The Puritan factions, in England and Ireland, who had originally fought for liberty of conscience for themselves were now determined to deny liberty of conscience to others. They were determined that neither Quakers nor Catholics should be allowed to worship God as they believed themselves bound to do. They turned against James. The king lacked the providence to see him through the perils.

From The Hague a man was watching the unfolding of events in silence. A man connected by birth and marriage with the king; an asthmatic, taciturn man, William of Orange. He was a Dutchman married to the Protestant daughter of Catholic James. He had always flattered himself that he would one day wear the crown of England, and when an heir was born to James he knew that no time was to be lost if he was to have his prize.

William arrived in England on 5 November 1688. He said he had come to see the new heir and to induce the king to join the league, which had been formed against France. He came with an army. When he was joined by English troops, James fled to France. The English rebellion and the usurpation of the throne by William were successful.

When the throne of England was offered to Mary and her Dutch husband William there was still a large party in England who had not declared for William and Mary. Had James been less of a tyrant, especially in his treatment of the Protestant bishops, the battle for the Crown of England would have been fought on English, instead of Irish, soil.

There were three thousand Irish soldiers in England as reinforcement for James’s army. Deserted by their king the Irish soldiers were getting home as best they could.

William knew men. It is said that he offered a tall cavalry officer of Irish birth, then in England, Patrick Sarsfield, a colonelcy in his army, and his favour generally, if he would desert James and act as William’s agent in Ireland. The colonelcy and the favour were repudiated. Sarsfield went to France to King James, whom he later accompanied to Ireland.

James had initiated some half-hearted attempt to restore confiscated lands in Ireland and otherwise to do justice to the oppressed Irish majority. It was for this reason that he looked to Ireland for his deliverance. It became evident that the issue between James and William would now be decided in Ireland. To some of the Irish, complete independence seemed not an impossible hope.

Richard Talbot, the Duke of Tyrconnel, who had been attached to King Charles’s suite since the Restoration (of the monarchy) and had been appointed lieutenant-general of the army by James, at once set about strengthening the Irish army. Within the space of two months fifty thousand Irishmen enlisted themselves. This was only thirty years after Cromwell had reduced the population to around half a million. This was just after the poor wretched inhabitants had been murdered in their hundreds of thousands, a million or more starved, and tens of thousands transported as slaves.

These men, whose fathers had been robbed of all, were not in the best condition, as their oppressors had just allowed them to exist. One of their enemies described their appearance: ‘Some had wisps of hay or straw bands about their heads instead of hats. Others tattered coats or blankets cast over them without any breeches; stockings and shoes were strange things. However they mustered.’

To the unfriendly eye they seemed uncivilised. But there was wonderful oral tradition, resource and clever brains among them in spite of the frightful poverty of their lives, and the grinding cruelty of their oppressors. ‘The finest men one could see’, the Frenchman d’Avaux described them. Tall, strong and capable of enduring great fatigue; but they were poorly armed and poorly equipped. They were the material that, later, drilled and armed, was to form the Irish Brigade in the service of France, and prove the best fighters in Europe.

Tyrconnel invited James to Ireland from France. He came. By a successful war, he expected to recover the crown of England. Ireland was the pawn; England the prize. The landing was at Kinsale. It was March 1689. He was accompanied by his illegitimate son, the Duke of Berwick, a boy of nineteen, and by four hundred French officers and gunners as well as Louis’s agent and ambassador, the Count d’Avaux. A Frenchman, de Rosen was to command the army, a man of fierce temper, with little ability. Another Frenchman, Boisselaux, was to prove his worth later in defending Limerick. Also with James came Patrick Sarsfield.

Five weeks after the landing at Kinsale, James’s army began a siege of Derry. Ulster was mainly peopled by Protestant Presbyterians and had declared for William, with the exceptions of Charlemount and Carrickfergus. Lundy, who was in charge of the defenders in Derry opened negotiations, stipulating that while talks were in progress the Irish army was to remain a distance of six kilometres from the city. De Rosen, advised James to show himself in force, before the walls. Some apprentice boys took it upon themselves to close the gates in the king’s face with shouts of ‘No surrender!’ Disgusted at his reception, the king returned to Dublin.

The siege army was small, badly clad, badly provisioned, with no artillery and no supply lines. The humanity of their leader, General Hamilton, deprived them of their ability to starve out the garrison. He allowed a considerable number of men, women, and children to leave Derry, and this enabled its defenders to hold out longer.

For 105 days, the more numerous and better equipped disloyalists within the strongly walled city remained on the defensive. They made no =sortie and declined all offers of free pardon and full religious and civil rights. It is to the credit of the Derry men, however, that they shared their provisions to the last with their prisoners, even while they were dying themselves of starvation. The arrival of long-delayed supply ships eventually compelled James’s Jacobite army to abandon the siege, perhaps only forty-eight hours before victory. (The volunteer Protestant defenders of Derry later, betrayed by those they served, immigrated en masse to America, where they founded Londonderry, New Hampshire.)

On the very day that the siege of Derry was raised, the royalist army met with a severe setback at Newtownbutler. They were under the command of Lord Mountcashel, who was captured, but later escaped to France. Mountcashel gave the command ‘right face’ but it was repeated ‘right about face’ and the corps was thrown into confusion and routed by the Enniskilleners. The cruelty of the Enniskilleners and their English officer has made their name a byword of reproach in Ireland. Only one man, of five hundred who jumped into Lough Erne to escape their fury, was saved.

In the following month, Fredrick, Duke of Schomberg, (Schomberg, though often described as Dutch, was a German soldier of fortune—a veteran of the Thirty Year's War, and a Marshall of France, until the recent expulsion of the Huguenots.)

   William’s Dutch general landed in the North with 20,000 men. Within three months he had lost half his men and was forced to appeal to William for still more reinforcements. Schomberg’s army was in tatters; the plague broke out; six thousand men died.

‘The moans of the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their companions. Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the morning, might be seen a wretch destined to die before night, cursing, singing loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh [whiskey] to the health of the devil. When the corpses were taken away to be buried, the survivors grumbled. A dead man, they said, was a good screen and a good stool. Why, when there was so abundant a supply of such useful articles of furniture, were people to be exposed to the cold air, and forced to crouch on the moist ground?’ Macaulay’s History of England.

James lost his opportunity. If he had attacked the disparate army of the revolutionary party while the men were suffering from want and disease, and while his own troops were fresh, he might have conquered. James forbade an attack. Then, leaving his soldiers to take care of themselves, he returned to Dublin, where he amused himself with ‘disgraceful amours’. ‘There were two frightfully ugly creatures’, says the Duchess of Orleans, ‘with whom he was on the most intimate terms’.

He thought little of Sarsfield at first, but d’Avaux had another opinion. ‘Sarsfield has valour’, he wrote to Louis’s minister, Lauvois ‘but above all, honour and probity which is proof against any assault’. He had ‘all the trouble in the world to get him made Brigadier’. After he raised an army and held Connacht on his own credit d’Avaux wished to send him to France. ‘He is a man who will always be at the head of his troops’, he wrote to the French minister, ‘and will take great care of them. First class colonels will obey him when they will not obey another.’ He asked the king for Sarsfield. But the Connacht campaign had changed James’s opinion. He grew very angry. He walked three times around the room; he charged d’Avaux with wishing to take his officers away. ‘I bore it all meekly’ said d’Avaux, ‘having a good notion of my own how to get Sarsfield to France’. This was to offer him the chief command of the Irish troops there.

Tyrconnell disliked Sarsfield — and Sarsfield disliked Tyrconnell, but nevertheless, Sarsfield did not wish to go to France. His work, he knew, was in Ireland. De Rosen and d’Avaux were sent back to France by James.

Meanwhile, in spite of asthma and a continual cough, William prepared for his campaign in Ireland. He sent over seven thousand men to the aid of Schomberg. In the same month, March, seven thousand French soldiers under the command of the Duke of Lauxon landed in Kinsale in exchange for five thousand Irishmen who had been sent to France. Lauxon was not a serious threat to anyone except perhaps himself. He did not take the Irish campaign seriously; nor did many of the French officers.

But William made no mistake about its importance. He brought everything to insure a successful issue. Among his arms was the prototype of the machine gun. It had been recently invented; a wheel-engine that discharged 150 musket barrels at once, and on being turned, the same number again. William landed in June to head the reinforcements himself. His union with Schomberg brought the Williamite forces up to approximately 35,000 men, well armed and well equipped. (Some figures are as high as 50,000 but that seems unlikely.)

Along with William’s own Dutch troops, the Williamite forces included eight regiments of German mercenaries, the Danish Royal Guards and some French Huguenots as well as Swedes, Hessians, Prussians and Lowland Scots. William placed his principal reliance on these foreign troops, for he still feared that a reaction might take place in favour of the lawful king. The Williamite army was well supplied, well trained, and above all well commanded. It also included regiments recruited locally from English settlers. The Pope supplied the martial music for William’s Protestant army, with a token force of drummers from the Papal Guard of the Vatican. The alliance of the Pope and William’s Protestant army was due to the Augsburg Alliance of 1686. This was a league of European powers opposed to France and it had some unlikely members: the Protestant powers, England and the Netherlands with Catholic Spain and the Pope. James II was an ally of France.

The Jacobite forces, not more than 25,000 strong, were made up of largely untrained Irish infantry. There were also regiments of horse and dragoons. (Dragoons were mounted infantry. They used their small horses to carry them to where they were needed, but they fought on foot.) Moreover they were, for all practical purposes, broke and leaderless. The fair-minded Irish remember the two opposing leaders for what they were. William was a fair, brave and honourable man who stopped his soldiers plundering and hanged the plunderers. He paid for all he took. He struck with his own cane a soldier who was robbing a woman, and had him afterwards hanged. He was what a prince should be. James, his father-in-law, was a profligate debauched recreant wimp. What kings often are, but should never be. His nickname in Ireland to this day is ‘Seamus the Shit’.

James might have annihilated the enemy at the Pass of Moira. Instead he retreated to the banks of the River Boyne. He first prepared for his own flight. By his order, ships lay waiting at Waterford to carry him to France. He commanded Sarsfield to hold a body of horse in the rear. Should the day go against him, he could gallop back to Dublin. The command kept Sarsfield in enforced inaction during the day.

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on Tuesday, 1 July 1690.  (It was the 1^st of July in the Old Style calendar, however, when 11 days were added in the new calendar it became the 12^th of July, which is the date it is celebrated today.) The River Boyne was the only military obstacle in William’s march from his bulkhead in the North of Ireland to Dublin the capital city, and theoretically it was a good place to make a stand. If the Irish army made a stand, it would be impossible for William to avoid making a battle if he was to retain his reputation.

In practice it was not a suitable location to offer resistance as the River Boyne flowing east to the Irish Sea, bends to the north below Rosnaree and flows in a northerly direction for four kilometres before turning east again at Oldbridge. The configuration of the river is that of a huge ‘S’. The largest portion of James’s force was within the top loop of the ‘S’ at Oldbridge, and could therefore be surrounded if the enemy flanked them.

Though he was warned by his Irish officers that the enemy would probably make flanking movement to cross the Boyne at Slane, James did not heed the warning. At sunrise Schomberg’s men were seen along the height making in that direction. James gave a hasty order. His whole wing, part of the centre, and his six remaining guns were sent to meet the flanking division. It was too late; the enemy had crossed. Other remaining fords were hotly contested. It was low water; the fords at Oldbridge, which was held by a battalion of infantry, were attempted by William’s men. Records the Duke of Berwick in his Memoirs: ‘For half a mile the Boyne was filled with thousands of armed men struggling to gain the opposite bank. Schomberg remained opposite to us, he attacked and took Oldbridge in spite of the resistance of the regiment there. Seven battalions went down to the help of the infantry. Two battalions of Irish Guards scattered them; but their cavalry managed to pass at another ford, and proceeded to fall upon our infantry. I brought up our cavalry, and thus enabled our battalions to retire.’ Berwick and his Horse had a very unequal combat, as the ground was broken and they were outnumbered. ‘Nevertheless we charged again and again ten different times’, he says, ‘and at length the enemy, confounded by our boldness, halted, and we reformed before them, and marched at a slow pace to rejoin the king’.

King James’s son, the Duke of Berwick, later to be Marshal of France, was indeed a brave young man. With what a writer who was present at the battle calls ‘unspeakable bravery’, Berwick was thrown from his horse and trampled, but he fought until he had only sixteen unwounded men left out of his 200 Life Guards.

Schomberg, the brave eighty-two-year-old German, was killed when he dashed into the river with the impetuosity of an eighteen-year-old. His humanity and courtesy are remembered in Ireland for the time the Governor of Charlemont, Teigue O’Regan, surrendered due to starvation, and Schomberg desired that each of his starving men receive a loaf of bread at Armagh.

The battle raged all day. The miserable James began to look towards his bodyguard. At five in the evening he left the field. By the end of the day the Irish were forced to retire; doing so in good order. The Battle of the Boyne was not a victory for the Prince of Orange; it was in reality little more than the realisation by the Jacobite forces that James had chosen a poor location, in fact a stupid location in a bend on the river, where they could have been surrounded and annihilated, to make their stand.  

The battle was described by a contemporary French chronicler as ‘a mere cavalry skirmish’. The Irish infantrymen, most of whom were in their first battle, were overcome by overwhelming force where they were left to defend the river at Oldbridge. They must have wondered, as they were forced to flee or be slaughtered, what had happened to their seven thousand French allies who failed to strike any blow at all, and why with such experienced troops in the field they had been left to face the main attack of the enemy. Although the gallantry of the Irish cavalry excited the admiration of their opponents, James’s preoccupation with his own safety and his consequent withdrawal of some of his best regiments and all but six small pieces of artillery, to protect his own person, gave the decision to William. England received a new governor and a national debt; Ireland, unparalleled oppression.

The great phenomenon to posterity is, not that the Battle of the Boyne should have been lost by the Irish, but that they should have fought for the English king at all. Nothing but the inherent loyalty of the Irish, which neither treachery nor pusillanimity could destroy, could have prevented them from rushing over to William’s side of the battle. Losses to the Irish were around 1,000 dead; to the Williamite army the same.

The King rode helter-skelter to Dublin, escorted by Patrick Sarsfield’s regiment of Horse and by some of the dragoons. Lady Tyrconnell met him at the Castle-gate. He is reported to have said; ‘Those dirty Irish they ran away’. To which she replied: ‘I see your Majesty won the race’. Dublin expected to see but the remnants of a broken army pouring into the city. ‘It was greatly surprised when, an hour or two after, we heard the whole body of the Irish Horse coming in, in very good order, with Kettledrums, hautboys and trumpets; and early the next morning the French and a great body of the Irish Foot. These being rested a little, marched out again to meet the enemy, which was supposed to draw near.’

The Battle of the Boyne was fought because James had resolved ‘not to be walked out of Ireland without having at least one blow for it’. He then advised the Irish to submit to the Prince of Orange, after which he hurried to France. The army he had deserted marched west, discomfited but not subdued. Deeper hopes than the restoration of the Stuarts now stirred many of the soldiers’ hearts. Let James go. He was no king, no leader! The generals conferred. James’s cause was lost, Lauzun said; the French troops must return to France; favourable terms might be made with William. Tyrconnell, old and weary (he was sixty-five-years-old and in ill health), agreed with Lauzun. Sarsfield stood firm; all was not lost; Limerick, Galway, Athlone, the passes to the Shannon could and must be defended. 

The two armies were to meet again at Limerick on the Shannon River. A council was held as William’s army was advancing on the city. Make terms with the Prince of Orange, Lauzun and Tyrconnell said. Sarsfield, resolved, answered, ‘No terms!’ He was supported by the Irish officers. Lauzun laughed at them. ‘Why should the English bring cannon against fortifications that could be battered down by roasted apples?’ he said.

Sarsfield and his supporters won. A day or two later, the Irish officers, backed by the Irish army, declared that Sarsfield should command in chief next to Tyrconnell. Disapproving of the appointment, Tyrconnell sent Sarsfield off with a handful of men to watch the enemy. He returned, on William’s approach, to find that Tyrconnell and Lauzun had been making every effort to persuade the officers to agree to a capitulation. Some, who had estates to lose had been won over. The majority stood by Sarsfield, however. Lauzun withdrew to Galway. He took his French soldiers, eight guns and a quantity of ammunition.

On 9 August William was close to Limerick. Three regiments guarded the fords. Without consulting his generals, Tyrconnell drew them off, and taking them with him, also retired to Galway. The Duke of Berwick (James’s son), Sarsfield, Dorrington and three Brigadiers had command of the army. The brave Frenchman Boisseleaux was appointed Governor of Limerick.

Lauzun was correct in his taunt. Limerick had no fortifications worth regarding. There was a wall without ramparts, and ‘some miserable little towers’ without ditches. A covered way was built before the great gate, horn-shaped and palisaded. Time was required to strengthen the defenses. William was within a few kilometres of the city.

The prince expected little resistance. He looked for an early capitulation. He knew Tyrconnell’s vacillating mind and that Lauzun was eager to get back to France. There was Sarsfield, unbuyable; but a man of sense would not defend a lost cause. He would offer fair terms; the Irish might practice their religion; to those who joined him he would give rewards.

So, confident, he drew near. He had left his heavy battering train at Cashel. Within three kilometres of Limerick he was attacked by Irish skirmishers. Retreating from one strong position to another, they drew his men close to the city walls. Then the Irish guns opened fire, and the skirmishers re-entered the city.

A trumpeter rode forward. He summoned the town: ‘Open your gates! Let the King of England in!’ ‘Limerick will not open her gates; will not surrender!’ Boisseleaux answered. William laid out his camp. The city guns were trained on it and were so well aimed that he had to withdraw both his camp and his light artillery.

Messengers rode to Cashel with the message: send up the battering train! A deserter from the camp stole into Limerick. He brought word of its approach; heavy guns, mortars; 150 wagons of ammunition for the artillery; tin boats to cross the Shannon; provisions; 500 draught horses.

Sarsfield acted at once. He rode out of Limerick and galloped to the cavalry camp on the Clare side. A swift order and six hundred men stood to their horses. A guide was found: Galloping Hogan, Rapparee, famous rider and scout, who knew every track and pass.

They rode inland, then wheeled and kept in line with the river. A Williamite force held Killaloe Bridge. A ford, unknown to the English, lay below Lough Derg. It was a bright night. They crossed the river then headed for the Keeper Mountains, and lay that night in a fold of its shoulder. The day came. The convoy trailed out from the southern mountains and along its plain. That night it encamped in Ballyneety. Down from the Keeper rode Sarsfield and his troopers: scouts had brought them the convoy’s password — ‘Sarsfield!’ A good omen thought Sarsfield.

Under the cloak of the clouds the Irish advanced. A sentry challenged: ‘Give the word!’ ‘Sarsfield is the word and Sarsfield is the man!’ And the Irish horse dashed on the convoy. The startled guards ran to their picketed horses; were caught in their flight and cut down; the camp was captured. Each gun was loaded to the muzzle, its head sunk in the ground; the tin boats were smashed; stores, ammunition were heaped together, powder placed around, and a train laid. The Irish galloped away; and the roar of the explosion echoed across the Golden Valley to Limerick and William’s camp.

The capture of the guns had been of the first importance. William’s siege had to be delayed till a new battering train arrived. This gave Limerick a week in which to strengthen herself. 

They made the best of the time. When William’s guns were trained on the city, Limerick met and bore the shock. By the second week, however, her wharves were on fire, many houses burnt, parts of her walls levelled. On Tuesday, 26 August, his trenches were within four metres of her counterscarp, and her palisades had been beaten down. All through the night the enemy poured in a discharge of shells and red hot balls, and the breach lay ten metres wide. But behind that breach a battery of guns had been planted, while others were so placed as to take the stormers on both flanks.

Butchers armed themselves with their cleavers; the blacksmiths with their hammers; the women seized bottles and stones, and followed the men. They were prepared to die rather than yield.

At two o’clock on that hot August day the guns ceased, and the city was again summoned. For an hour there was a pause after the confident demand and the resolute answer. Then three guns were fired from the enemy’s camp — a signal! Immediately the attacking column, ten thousand strong, moved forward to the assault. The English Grenadiers, in their piebald uniform of red and yellow, leapt out of their trenches, sprang upon the counterscarp, firing and throwing their grenades.[1] Driving the defenders before them they pressed on, reached the breach, and poured into the city. The masked battery opened upon them, mowed a wide path through their lines; and, cut off from their supports, they were overpowered. Few escaped back to their trenches.

The fury of the fight raged at the breach. For three hours the Irish infantry stood there, filling up repeatedly their bloody gaps, as regiment after regiment of the foe was brought up and hurtled against them. Slowly, the line was pushed back, and the stormers again entered the city. A fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued in the streets. Those who had been driven from the breach rallied. The citizens, women as well as men, rushed again to the attack. The enemy was dislodged and forced back on the gap.

There a deadly struggle followed. William sent forward his reserves. The Irish met and held them in check; an order was sent to the Irish Horse to take the foe in the rear. They had been inactive till then. Now their turn had come.

Galloping across Ball’s Bridge, they swept through the streets, into the covered way that led to the breach. Two regiments of Danish Horse stood in their path as they emerged. The Irish charged; rode through them, cut them down, swept on. Galloping up to the breach, they took the stormers in the rear, made a path through their ranks, and rode across with exultant cheers.

As the suddenness and dash staggered the foe, the mine laid by the defenders in the Black Battery blew up and a number of men of William’s Brandenberg regiment were killed. The Irish infantry rushed upon his reserves, forced them from the breach, drove them across the counterscarp, back to the trenches, and followed them to their camp.

The assault had failed; Limerick was saved!

William drew off his army, having suffered the loss of 2,000 men, and returned to England. A French fleet carried Lauzun back to France. Lauzun reported the king’s cause lost. Tyrconnell, encouraged by the defense of Limerick, said that there was a chance of success and asked for money and men. In January of the following year he returned from France with money but no men.

The Irish army was divided into two parties; those who wished to carry on the war; and those men with estates who wished to make peace. Tyrconnell was of the second party. The campaign of 1690 ended with the taking of Cork and Kinsale by an English fleet. Sarsfield kept the passes to the Shannon. Little was done from the closing of the campaign till the opening of the next one with the arrival of the French general, the Marquis de St Ruth, in the following year. Only the indomitable Rapparees kept up unceasing guerrilla warfare. They harassed the Dutch general, Ginckel, destroyed his forage, watched for his patrols, and captured numbers of horses.

St Ruth landed in May. He replaced Berwick — who had left for France. He brought arms, ammunition, clothing and provisions, but no troops. The man was a real soldier; no jester like Lauzun, but, it is said, of a haughty and jealous nature. He knew what Irish troops could do. In the Piedmont campaign he had seen enough of Irish valour to know that Irish soldiers were the best missile force in the world. He let Tyrconnell see that he, St Ruth, alone was in command of the army. With him came two French officers d’Usson and de Tesse.

The Irish held Athlone. William’s generals, Ginckel and Mackay, with a large and well‑armed army, marched upon it. The small body of Irish troops who defended the bridge were forced back to the Irish town on the Connaught side. While retiring, they rendered the bridge impassable by breaking some of the arches. Ginckel cannonaded the Irish town at short range for six days. According to their own historian, Story, they fired 12,000 cannon balls and 600 bombs, and used ‘nigh fifty tons of powder’. The town was reduced to ruins, and the English attempted to cross the Shannon in a bridge of boats but were repulsed. They determined to cross by repairing the bridge. Ginckel spanned the broken arches with beams. Every bit of his work was hotly contested. The siege was nine days old when the bridge was nearly ready. One link remained for completion.

Custume Barracks, Athlone, keeps in our memory the name of a brave man, whose heroism cost him his life. Other brave men died with him. In remembering him we remember them all. Custume, a sergeant of Dragoons boldly called for ten volunteers to break the bridge with him. With breast and back pieces on, the eleven rushed upon the bridge, drove back the carpenters, and began pulling up the planks and throwing them into the stream below. Fire from the English side wiped them out with the job only half done. A lieutenant and twenty men sprang upon the bridge. Hatchet and axe were plied like fury. The last beam floated down the Shannon; two men returned alive. This action — one of the finest in any military history — deserved a better sequel. St Ruth was over confident; Ginckel had been repulsed; surely he would withdraw.

Athlone was taken, by the best soldiers in Ginckel’s army — English, Danish, Dutch and Huguenots — when two of the newly enlisted regiments left to defend the town had no bayonets and but a round or two of ammunition. The river that ‘had never been known so shallow in the memory of man’ was crossed only waist deep. The attack was a surprise, and an urgent message was sent to St Ruth, who was about to go out shooting; he made light of it. The town was captured easily after a stout defense.

St Ruth, regretting what had happened at Athlone, wished to stand and fight. Tyrconnell and Sarsfield favoured the infantry retiring to Limerick and the cavalry being sent into Leinster to harass Ginckel’s line of communication with Dublin. The wishes of St Ruth prevailed.

The cardinal battle of the war was now to be fought on the side of Kilcommodan Hill, near the village of Aughrim. That battle decided Ireland’s fate. The position was admirably chosen. The Irish army consisted of around 14,000 men, and in addition 2,500 horse and 3,500 dragoons. The formation resembled the horns of a buffalo with the long skull piece in the middle, laid out from north to south. There were but two points by which Ginckel could advance — the Pass of Aughrim and that of Urrachee. These were the tips of the horns, around three kilometres apart. The latter ran to the right of the Irish camp, facing east; the former from Aughrim Castle, already a ruin at that time, to a piece of firm ground bordered by two bogs. At the base of the hill, to the east, a small stream flowed through boggy ground. Thus, the middle was protected by bogland and a small river. It was almost impenetrable. Story says that St Ruth’s ‘showed a great deal of dexterity in making choice of such a piece of ground as nature itself could not furnish him with a better’.

On the eleventh day of July, Ginckel reached the hills opposite Kilcommodan. His force was larger and better equipped than the Irish. But seeing the strength of St Ruth’s position, he hesitated to give battle. He cautiously advanced on the following morning. By noon a dense fog lifted, and Ginckel saw the Irish massed in strong positions awaiting his advance. The Pass of Urrachee was the weakest point in their front. At three o’clock Ginckel held a council of war. Should he attack or not? For himself, he hesitated. Mackay urged him to accept battle. His advice prevailed.

It was near five o’clock. Mackay took command of the division that was to force the Pass of Aughrim. Ginckel was to direct the movement on the Pass of Urrachee; the Duke of Wortemberg the centre. Ginckel made a feint attack on St Ruth’s right. He hoped he would draw off some regiments from his left to support the threatened wing. The battle commenced with this advance. A Danish regiment spread out as if to out-flank the Irish right. A body of Huguenots advanced on the troops beyond the Pass, attacking the Irish through the hedges. The Irish Horse charged them. After a fierce fight the foe was driven back to the bog. The attack on this point was renewed again. Mackay hoped that St Ruth would draw off troops from his right wing to support his left. Then the real attack would be made on Aughrim. St Ruth did as he wished. Protected by the batteries, the men reached the base of the hill. When within a few yards of the hedge, the Irish opened fire. Their orders were to draw the enemy up the hill. This they did, then stood their ground, and the Irish cavalry swept down upon both flanks of the enemy and threw them into disorder. It is greatly to St Ruth’s credit that he allowed the Irish infantry to fight as they wanted to fight. The Irish crouched so low behind their ditches that their attackers doubted if they were there at all. But as soon as the enemy showed themselves a furious fire was opened on them. Each time the Irish prevailed.

While this was happening Mackay’s second division was getting through the bog. At the first ditch the Irish met them, and Mackay’s van was broken. His other regiments were hurried up, but the Irish held their ground. Mackay sent to the officer who was to force the Pass of Aughrim, ordering him to come to his help and not attack the castle. But before the order could be obeyed Mackay’s men were forced back to the bog. This was the second repulse of the enemy at Aughrim.

Since Mackay could not break his centre, St Ruth was now certain of victory. ‘I shall beat them back to the gates of Dublin!’ he cried. It was no boast. His troops had successfully resisted every attack. At all points, save one, Ginckel’s army had been repulsed.

That point was the Pass of Aughrim. The Pass was an old broken road, narrow, boggy, six metres in length. Not more than two horsemen could ride on it abreast. It was commanded by the castle, a crumbling building. Two regiments of foot, under Colonel Burke, were stationed there. Two guns commanded the way. ‘A Light to the Blind’ explains that the men were armed with French fire-locks. There were four barrels of gunpowder and ammunition chests in the castle. When the chests were opened it was found that the bullets were cast for English muskets and were too big for the French guns. The soldiers tore the buttons from their coats and chopped their ramrods into bullets. The enemy came up the Pass protected by their own guns. The Irish fired their pellets with little effect. Their guns had no bayonets. The Irish Horse posted on the other side of the castle, rode round to the left to check the advance. They found their way blocked, though St Ruth had ordered it to be kept open. They had to swing round and make a detour before they could charge. A sharp fight followed; the enemy was driven back to the bog.

St Ruth had watched the attack on the Pass. Not knowing that Burke’s men had no ammunition, he had been astonished that the enemy had got up that far. He sent an aide-camp to the cavalry under Sarsfield. They were stationed out of sight of the battle. He ordered that half of the men were to advance. Sarsfield was not to command it. He was to remain with the other half.

St Ruth was a great general and a brave man. But the flaw in his nature was such that he could not share any of the glory of victory with another man. It is said that none of his officers knew his battle strategy. He was, it has been claimed, particularly jealous of Sarsfield. It may have cost the battle of Aughrim. It may also be that Sarsfield, who has been described as being ‘very punctual’ in obeying St Ruth, was deliberately kept out of the battle by the great general until the time came when he needed his best man.

The detachment came, reformed before St Ruth, and he placed himself at its head. He rode slowly down the hill, his brilliant uniform glittering in the evening light. ‘The day is ours boys!’ he cried. ‘They are broken! Let us beat them to some purpose!’

Then a missile (most likely two cannon balls tied together with chain) sped through the air from the enemy’s camp, struck him and carried his head away. The dead man’s horse swung round, the body upright in the saddle for a pace or two before it fell to the ground. The body was covered with a shroud, and carried away. A paralysis seized his officers. The battle was as good as won; this charge would have completed the victory. Yet his second in command, de Tesse, a Frenchman, did not advance. Without his general, he was unable to comprehend the overall picture. Instead of making the charge for victory, he began to retire. Ginckel’s almost beaten army saw the movement, and pressed forward. The Irish held their ground till they were caught between Ginckel’s and Mackay’s men.

Three hours after the death of the French general, there was not a man of the Irish army left on the field. Some of the infantry who had taken refuge in a nearby bog were massacred, unarmed and in cold blood. The loss on both sides was immense and many of the dead remained unburied. Their bones were bleached by the summer sun and the storms of winter. There is a story that in some small way captures the sadness of the whole affair — the death of so many brave men and the death of Irish freedom: An Irish officer, who had been slain, was followed by his faithful dog. The poor animal lay beside his master’s body day and night; and though he fed upon other corpses with the rest of the dogs, he would not permit them to touch the treasured remains of his master. He continued his watch until January, when he flew at a soldier, who he feared was about to remove the bones, which were all that reminded him of the man by whom he had been caressed and fed. The soldier in his fright unslung his piece and fired, and the faithful wolf-dog lay down and died by his master.

Sarsfield, who took no part in the battle because he was ordered to await orders, kept his head, and organised the retreat in so masterly a fashion that a document in the French annals says, ‘He performed miracles, and if he was not killed or taken, it was from no fault of his own.’ He led his soldiers to Limerick.

Ginckel went first to Galway then to Limerick. William wanted the war ended; he empowered Ginckel to give favourable terms. A free pardon was offered to all; the Catholic gentry would be restored to their estates. The offer at once created a peace party within the city. It was opposed by Sarsfield. French aid might come; the army could defend Limerick again. He won. Ginckel’s offer was refused. Sixty guns then opened upon the city; an English fleet bombarded it from the river. But Limerick remained untaken. Unable to take the town by assault, Ginckel turned the siege into a blockade. Again Ginckel offered his terms. 

The peace party said it was folly to refuse. Sarsfield feared they would hand the city over to Ginckel if he continued to refuse.

Limerick made one more fight. It was 23 September. From dawn the struggle lasted. Then a parley was held; firing ceased; hostages were exchanged. A three days’ truce was arranged. Ginckel offered his terms. At last Sarsfield accepted them. When the soldiers and citizens heard that the defense had ended they uttered loud cries of anger; many ran to the ramparts and broke their weapons there.

The terms were to be signed in the presence of the Lords Justice. Sarsfield demanded that. They came from Dublin and put their signatures on the treaty. The contracting parties were Sir Charles Porter and Thomas Coningsby, Lords Justices, with Baron de Ginckel as Commander-in-Chief, on behalf of William and Mary. Sarsfield and others (Tyrconnel had died) signed on behalf of the Irish nation. The articles were fifty-two in number and ran to considerable length.

Irish Catholics were to have the right to exercise their religion; to have the rights of citizens; the privilege of sitting in parliament; freedom of trade; to be preserved from all disturbances. By the military articles, the garrison was to march out with guns and arms, baggage, colours flying, drums beating. Officers and men who wished to expatriate themselves were free to do so, and might depart in companies or parties. If plundered on the way, William’s Government was to make good the loss. Fifty ships were to be provided for their transportation, if they so wished; two men-of-war for the officers.

Ginckel did not want this fine war material to leave Ireland and fight for France instead of England. On the fifth day of October they were to make their choice. The royal standards of England and France were set up in a field. To one standard or the other each regiment was to turn. Sarsfield, Ginckel and their staff watched the scene. Would the Irish regiments join France or William? The Irish Foot Guards came first, the finest of the regiments. They marched to the standards. Then, without a pause, the splendid column wheeled to the side of France. That day, of the fourteen thousand men, only one thousand and forty-six men turned to William’s standard.

A French fleet came up the river. It brought 3,000 soldiers and 200 officers, money, arms, ammunition, stores and clothing. Stunned, Sarsfield remained silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘Too late, the treaty is signed. Ireland and our honour are pledged. Though one hundred thousand Frenchmen promised to aid us now, we must keep our word!’

In his quarters Ginckel heard that the fleet had come. He was alarmed. Would Sarsfield tear up the treaty? Would the French troops land? Would the Irish regiments listed for France, men with their arms, renew the fight? The cautious Dutchman, an honest brave man himself, feared.

Sarsfield, the man of honour, had forbidden the French to land. Instead, their ships were to transport the Irish regiments to France.

They never saw Ireland again.

This was the Treaty of Limerick, signed on 3 October 1691, over three hundred years ago, but still affecting Ireland today, a treaty that was confirmed by William and Mary, who pledged ‘the honour of England that it would be kept inviolably, saying; ‘We do, for us, our heirs and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause, matter and thing therein contained’.

Within two months an English historian was writing: ‘The justices of the peace, sheriffs, and other magistrates...dispossessed several of their Majesties’ Catholic subjects, not only of their goods and chattels, but also of their lands and tenements. These complaints were so widespread, that the Lords Justices issued a proclamation on the subject, in which they stated that they had ‘received complaints from all parts of Ireland of the ill-treatment of the Irish who had submitted; and that they were so extremely terrified with apprehensions of the continuance of the usage, that some of those who had quitted the Irish army and went home, with the resolution not to go to France, were then come back again, and pressed earnestly to go tither, rather than stay in Ireland, where contrary to the public faith, as well as law and justice, they were robbed in their persons and abused in their substance’.

The Treaty was never ratified by the British Parliament. It was eventually confirmed by legislature six years later in 1697. It was, however, in such an altered form as to be more of a measure to buttress the grip of the colonists on Ireland. In its place the people were given the Latter Penal Laws — described by Edmund Burke as ‘an elaborate contrivance for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people and the debasement in them of human nature itself’ — which were to stay in omnipotence for more than a century, until 1830. In 1720, a further Act known as the Sixth of George I gave the English Parliament the right to pass legislation binding on Ireland without the agreement of the Irish Parliament.

The English parliament and in particular the Tories were unhappy with the warlike and costly Calvinist Dutchman, William of Orange. They were determined to subvert his rule. He had exercised his royal prerogative by disposing of the estates forfeited by those who fought for James. One of his favorites, Mrs. Villiers, obtained property worth £25,000 per annum. In 1799 the Commons voted that ‘the advising and passing of the said grants was highly reflecting upon the King’s honour’. He must have wondered about another time in which his honour had been pledged and he had been obliged to sacrifice it to the wishes of these very men. His last days were embittered and his death occurred soon after.

During the reign of Anne (1702—14) the Tories were happier, for she was a Stuart and an Anglican; but her reign was short and she died childless. The Parliament gave the throne to the German Lutheran Georges. George I was unpopular amongst his British subjects as he spoke no English and there was a short-lived rebellion in 1715 in an attempt to return the Stuarts to the throne. James, the Catholic brother of Anne, was outlawed and a reward of £50,000 was offered for his capture. The Pretender, as he was called by those who had no recourse but to deny his legitimacy (he was the son of James II), failed in his rebellion, which was confined entirely to Scotland. His son, the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, led a Scottish rising in 1745 but was defeated at Culloden the following year. The British committed unspeakable atrocities in the wake of their victory, but that is another story. The rest of Charlie’s life was an embarrassing descent into drunkenness and debauchery, and the embittered and unhappy man died in his birth place, Rome, in 1788. That was the destiny of the unfortunate Stuarts, who were admired more from sympathy with their miseries, than from admiration of their virtues.

The Williamite wars are remembered by the Protestant Orange Order of Ulster for their ‘great victory’ against the Popish forces at the Battle of the Boyne. Ignoring that, not only was it not a great victory, the Pope and William of Orange were allies.[2] Every anniversary, for the past three hundred years, the Order has lambasted the Catholic citizens of Northern Ireland by marching with drums beating until their fingers bleed in commemoration of this holiest of days.

To the rest of Ireland the Williamite wars are worth remembering for the sake of a brave soldier, and above all an honourable man. Unfortunately, under the British system, there was no room for honourable men.

When he lay on the battlefield in France after leading his Irish Brigade to a great victory against the Williamite forces at Landen, the last words on the lips of the dying Patrick Sarsfield were: ‘O God, that this was for Ireland’.

The French War Office figures show that no less than 405,000 Irishmen died for France in the half-century between the fall of Limerick and the year of the Battle of Fontenoy (1745). Another half-million shed their blood for her during the half-century that followed. The five-and-a-half thousand fighting men that had been sent to France before King Louis would consent to dispatch a single soldier to Ireland, had been almost wiped out in the famous campaign against the Vaudois.

On the whole, France took her obligation to Ireland lightly enough. If we were to seek a fitting recognition of what the Irish soldiers did for France, we must turn to a rather surprising quarter: ‘A letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Sutton, for Disbanding the Irish Regiments in the Service of France and Spain,’ written by the Whig pamphleteer Forman, from Amsterdam in 1727. He speaks of the Irish regiments:

as seasoned to dangers, and so perfected in the art of war, that not only the Sergeants and Corporals, but even the private men can make very good officers. In what part of the army soever they have been placed, they have always met with success, and upon several occasions, won honour, where the French themselves, warlike as they are, have received an affront. To their valour, in a great measure, France owes not only most of what trophies she gained in the late war, but even her own preservation. They wrested Cremona out of the hands of Eugene, when by surprise, he had made himself master of all the town, except the Irish quarter, and saw the Marshall, Duke de Villeroy, his prisoner, who was taken by Colonel MacDonnell, an Irishman in the Emperor’s service. By that action, hardly to be paralleled in history, they saved the whole French army on that side of the Alps. At Spireback, Major-General Nugent’s Regiment of Horse, by a brave charge upon two regiments of cuirassiers, brought a complete victory to an army, upon which Fortune was just turning her back. At Ramillies, the Allies lost but one pair of colours, which the Royal Irish in the service of France took from a German regiment. At Toulon, Lieutenant-General Dillon distinguished himself, and chiefly contributed to the preservation of that important place. To the Irish regiments also, under the conduct of that intrepid and experienced officer, Count Medavi himself very generously attributed the victory over the Imperialists in Italy. And the poor Catalans will for ever have reason to remember the name of Mr. Dillon, for the great share he had in the siege of Barcelona, so fateful to their nation. Sir Andrew Lee, Lieutenant-General, showed likewise how consummate a soldier he was, when he defeated Lisle, under the Duc de Bouffers, against those thunderbolts of war, the Prince of Savoy, and our own invincible Duke of Marlborough.

To the trophies won for France by Irish bravery, l’Abbé MacGeoghegan, writing in 1758, had a further long list to add. Having enumerated Neerwinden, (or Landen), Marsaglia, Barcelona, Cremona, Spires, Castiglione, Almanza, Villa, Viciosa as ‘witness of their (the Irishmen’s) immortal valour’, he goes on to recall the most recent glories of Fontenoy (1745), that great day for ever memorable in the annals of France. ‘Let me remind you, of the plains of Fontenoy, so precious to your glory — those plains where in concert with chosen French troops, the valiant Count of Thomond being at your head you charged with so much valour on enemy so formidable. Animated by the presence of the august sovereign who rules over you, you contributed with so much success to the gaining of a victory which to then appeared doubtful.’

Though badly treated by France and by French historians, nevertheless the Irish Brigade still remained on until its dissolution by the revolution on 1791. In 1792 the Count de Provence (Louis XVII) presented the remnants of the Brigade with a farewell banner bearing the device of an Irish Harp embroidered with shamrocks and fleurs-de-lis. The gift was accompanied by the following address:– 

Gentlemen, we acknowledge the inappreciable services that France has received from the Irish brigade, in the course of the last 100 years; service that we shall never forget, though under an impossibility of requiting them. Receive this Standard, as a pledge of our remembrance, a monument of our admiration, and of our respect, and in future, generous Irishmen, this shall be the motto of your spotless flag:–

1692—1792

Semper et ubique Fidelis.

To a lesser extent the Irish served Napoleon and, despite their efforts they received the same ungrateful thanks. In 1798 Napoleon abandoned the Irish cause, and set out on his Egyptian campaign. In St Helena he expressed bitter regret for this act. He intimated that, had he chosen Ireland instead of Egypt, the course of history would have been radically changed.

The course of Irish history was not to change for a long time.  

The events relayed in this chapter were to have far-reaching consequences for the people of Ireland. The North and South, although physically still a singular unit, were divided on secular and ideological grounds. It was the event known as the Ulster Plantations that caused the division, and traumatic as that occurrence was, it like the other similar incidents in the remainder of Ireland, would one day have been forgotten. The wars in Ireland between the two English Kings, that in the end led to the Latter Penal Laws, were to reinforce the old prejudices, and leave a bitterness that is as intensely acid today as it was so many generations ago.