Ireland, Historic and Picturesque

by Charles Johnston

"Aughrim was then a ruined town, and the castle was not much better, situated in a bottom on the north side of the hill, where the Irish army encamped. The direct way from Ballinasloe was close by the castle, but there was another way about, on the south-east side of the hill. The rest of the ground fronting the camp was a marsh, passable only for foot. The army of Ginkell appeared in sight of Aughrim on July 12th. The Irish army, composed of about ten thousand foot, two thousand men-at-arms, and as many light horse, was soon drawn up by Saint Ruth in two lines; the cavalry on both wings flanking the foot; and having placed Chevalier de Tessé on the right wing of the horse, and Sarsfield on the left, and giving their several posts to the rest of the chief commanders, Saint Ruth obliged himself to no certain place, but rode constantly from one side to another to give the necessary orders where he saw occasion. Ginkell being now come up at so near a distance that his guns and other battering engines might do execution, he ordered them to be discharged, and as he had a vast number of them he made them play incessantly on the Irish army, hoping by that means to force them from the hill, which was of great advantage. But the Irish, encouraged by the presence and conduct of Saint Ruth, kept their ground and beat the English as often as they advanced towards them. The fight continued from noon till sunset, the Irish foot having still the better of the enemy; and Saint Ruth, observing the advantage of his side, and that the enemy's foot were much disordered, was resolved, by advancing with the cavalry, to make the victory complete, when an unlucky shot from one of the terrible new engines, hitting him in the head, made an end of his life, and took away the courage of his army. For Ginkell, observing the Irish to be in some disorder, gave a notable conjecture that the general was either killed or wounded, whereupon he commanded his army to advance. The Irish cavalry, discouraged by the death of Saint Ruth, and none of the general officers coming to head them in his place, gave back, and quitted the field. The foot who were engaged with the enemy, knowing nothing of the general's death or the retreat of the cavalry, continued fighting till they were surrounded by the whole English army; so that the most of them were cut off, and no quarter given but to a very few; the rest, by favor of the night then approaching, for Saint Ruth was killed about sunset, made their escape."

To this we may add the testimony of the runaway monarch: "The Irish behaved with great spirit. They convinced the English they had to do with men no less resolute than themselves. Never assault was made with greater fury nor sustained with greater obstinacy. The Irish foot repulsed the enemy several times, particularly in the center. They even looked upon the victory as certain.... The Irish lost four thousand men. The loss of the English was not much inferior."

The army of Ginkell, thus in possession of the key of Connacht, advanced upon its most important city, arriving before Galway a few days after the battle of Aughrim. Galway, however, was full of divided counsels, and speedily surrendered, so that Limerick alone remained. Limerick was greatly weakened, now that Galway, and with Galway the whole of Connacht to which alone Limerick could look for supplies, was in the hands of the enemy. Ginkell turned all his efforts in the direction of Limerick, appearing before the city and pitching his camp there on August 25, 1691. Beginning with the next day, our narrator tells us, "he placed his cannon and other battering engines, which played furiously night and day without intermission, reducing that famous city almost to ashes. No memorable action, however, happened till the night between September 15 and 16, when he made a bridge of boats over the Shannon, which being ready by break of day, he passed over with a considerable body of horse and foot on the Connacht side of the river, without any opposition. This so alarmed Sheldon, who commanded the cavalry at that time, that without staying for orders, he immediately retired to a mountain a good distance from Limerick, and marched with such precipitation and disorder, that if a hundred of the enemy's horse had charged him in the rear, they would in all likelihood have defeated his whole party, though he had near upon four thousand men-at-arms and light horse; for the man, if he was faithful, wanted either courage or conduct, and the party were altogether discouraged to be under his command. But Ginkell did not advance far, and after showing himself on that side of the bridge, returned back into his camp the same day. Yet Sheldon never rested till he came, about midnight, fifteen miles from the Shannon, and encamped in a fallow field where there was not a bit of grass to be had: as if he had designed to harass the horses by day and starve them by night.... Ginkell, understanding that the Irish horse was removed to such a distance, passed the river on the twenty-third day with the greatest part of his cavalry, and a considerable body of foot, and encamped half-way between Limerick and the Irish horse camp, whereby he hindered all communication between them and the town. On the twenty-fourth, the captains within Limerick sent out a trumpet, desiring a parley," and as a result of this parley, a treaty was ultimately signed between the two parties, Limerick was evacuated, and the war came to an end. This was early in October, 1691.

The war had, therefore, lasted nearly four years, a sufficient testimony to the military qualities of the Irish, seeing that throughout the whole period they had matched against them greatly superior numbers of the finest troops in Europe, veterans trained in continental wars, and at all points better armed and equipped than their adversaries.

What moves our unbounded admiration, however, is to see the troops displaying these qualities of valor not only without good leadership, but in face of the cowardice of the English king, and of duplicity amounting to treachery on the part of his chief adherents. Foremost among these time-servers was Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, whose name shows him to have sprung from one of the Norman families, and we see here the recurrence of a principle which had worked much harm in the eight years' war of the preceding generation. The Duke of Ormond, sprung from the Norman Butlers, was then the chief representative of the policy of intrigue, and many of the reverses of both these wars are to be attributed to the same race.

It is tragical to find the descendants of the old Norman barons, who at any rate were valiant fighters, descending thus to practices quite unworthy; yet we can easily understand how the fundamental injustice of the feudal principle on which they stood, not less than the boundless abuse of that already bad principle under the first Stuarts, could not fail to undermine their sense of honor and justice, preparing them at length for a policy of mere self-seeking, carried on by methods always doubtful, and often openly treacherous.

The old tribal chieftains lived to fight, and went down fighting into the night of time. Owen Roe O'Neill, last great son of a heroic race, splendidly upheld their high tradition and ideal. No nobler figure, and few more gifted captains, can be found in the annals of those warlike centuries. The valor of Cuculain, the wisdom of Concobar, the chivalry of Fergus--all were his, and with them a gentle and tolerant spirit in all things concerning religion, very admirable in an age when so many men, in other things not lacking in elements of nobility, were full of bitter animosity, and zealous to persecute all those who differed from them concerning things shrouded in mystery.

It may be said, indeed, that Owen Roe is in this only a type of all his countrymen, who, though they suffered centuries of persecution for a religious principle, never persecuted in return. Their conduct throughout the epoch of religious war and persecution was always tolerant and full of the sense of justice, contrasting in this, and contrasting to their honor, with the conduct of nearly every other nation in Christendom.

The history of Ireland, for the half century which followed this war, offers few salient features for description. The Catholics during all this time were under the ban of penal laws. The old tribal chiefs were gone. The Norman lords were also gone. The life of the land hardly went beyond the tilling of the fields and the gathering of the harvests. And even here, men only labored for others to enter into their labor. The right of private taxation, confirmed by law, and now forfeited by the feudal lords, was given as a reward to the adherents of the dominant party in England, and their yearly exactions were enforced by an armed garrison. The more vigorous and restless elements of our race, unable to accept these conditions of life, sailed in great numbers to the continent, and entered the armies of many European powers. It is estimated that, during the half century after the Treaty of Limerick, fully half a million Irishmen fell in the service of France alone.