The Irish grow stronger.
Ranelagh showed no energy, but he was in bad health and in want of money and supplies. He said Earnley’s men were rogues and gaol-birds, and that he longed for a commission to raise men of his own country. In the meantime he neglected to requisition the provisions available in the neighbourhood, and the soldiers died of want and neglect. Coote provided ten days’ bread, and pressed him to do something while a few men were left alive, whereupon he ordered an attack on Ballagh, which was not taken without loss, and which Earnley says was quite useless. Afterwards he joined his forces to those of Coote at Roscommon, and Sir James Dillon attacked Athlone in his absence with 1500 men, but was beaten off by the remnant left behind. A considerable Irish force under O’Connor Roe and others assembled after some skirmishing at Ballintober, where they were routed with a loss of six hundred men. Coote and Earnley were not allowed to follow up the victory, and Ranelagh refused to feed the latter’s men any longer. They were therefore dispersed among the garrisons which Coote commanded. Ranelagh made no further attempt to keep the field, and in October he made a truce for three months with the Irish. Clanricarde approved of this, and would have been glad to have its operation extended, for vengeance ‘need not be so sharp here, as where blood doth call for deserved punishment.’ But the Lords Justices were all for war to the knife, though they had not the means to wage it successfully, while Lord Forbes and Captain Willoughby did their best to prevent peace. The English Parliament were too busy at home to do much, while arms and ammunition from the Continent poured in through Wexford and the Ulster ports, with ‘most of the colonels, officers, and engineers that have served beyond seas for many years past ... which furnish all parts of the kingdom but those few that adhere to me for his Majesty’s service.’[9]
The rebellion in Clare, 1641-2.
Defence of Ballyallia, Feb.-Sept. 1642.
Strafford’s proposed settlement of Clare was never carried out, but the Earls of Thomond were Protestants, and encouraged English tenants, so that a considerable colony had in fact been established. Inchiquin, who had agreed to the abortive plantation, threw his influence in the same direction; but the great mass of O’Briens, Macnamaras, and others favoured the insurgents. The outbreak in the north and the attempt on Dublin were known at the fair of Clare on November 1, but it was not till the end of the month that certain news came of the insurrection having spread to the part of Tipperary near the Shannon. Barnabas Earl of Thomond, who had an English wife, tried to keep the peace, and adopted a trimming policy, but soon lost all control over the country, though he held Bunratty and some other places. Robberies of the Protestants’ cattle soon began, and by Christmas the owners were generally on their guard in castles, of which thirty-one were in friendly hands. Three weeks later the troops raised by Thomond were siding openly with the rebels. Ballyallia Castle, on a lake near Ennis, belonged to Sir Valentine Blake, of Galway, who was a noted member of the Catholic confederacy, but was leased to a merchant named Maurice Cuffe, and became a place of refuge for at least a hundred Protestants. Others from the neighbourhood escaped to England in a Dutch vessel. About a thousand of the Irish encamped near the castle and built cabins, but without coming to close quarters. They captured Abraham Baker, an English carpenter apparently, and with his aid constructed a ‘sow,’ such as was frequently used during the war. It was a house 35 feet by 9 feet, built of beams upon four wheels, strengthened with iron and covered by a sharp ridge roof, and was moved by levers worked from inside. The whole was kept together by huge spike-nails, which cost 5l., ‘being intended for a house of correction which should have been built at Ennis.’ Captain Henry O’Grady summoned the castle, pretending to have his Majesty’s commission to banish all Protestants out of Ireland. Whereupon ‘a bullet was sent to examine his commission, which went through his thigh, but he made a shift to rumbel [sic] to the bushes and there fell down, but only lay by it sixteen weeks, in which time unhappily it was cured.’ A girl who fell into the hands of the besiegers was tortured until she confessed that the shot was fired by the Rev. Andrew Chaplin. The Irish had no artillery, but devised a cannon made of half-tanned leather with a three-pound charge. The breech was blown out at the first fire, and the ball remained inside. The sow was soon taken and those within killed. A kind of loose blockade lasted from the beginning of February until near midsummer. The besieged often suffered much from want of water, but sometimes they ventured to skirmish in the open, joining with the garrison of Clare Castle and capturing cattle. Baker, who was taken in the sow, joined his captors, whereupon ‘the Irish immediately hewed in pieces his son, Thomas Baker, a proper young man, who was with them in their camp.’ After the fall of Limerick Castle one piece of artillery was brought against Ballyallia, but the gunner was at once shot, and little was done. After this the siege was much closer, famine and sickness reducing the garrison by one half. They got horseflesh at times, but were driven to eat salted hides, dried sheepskins and cats, all fried in tallow. At last they were forced to capitulate, and the terms were ill-kept, but in the end the survivors escaped to Bunratty, nearly all ill and stripped of everything.[10]
Cork and St. Leger, 1642.
Youghal, Lismore and Bandon.
Cromwell is reported to have said that if there had been an Earl of Cork in every county the Irish could never have raised a rebellion. All his resources were expended in resisting it, and St. Leger, though he co-operated with him, could not but feel bitterly the inferiority of his own position. The Lords Justices never communicated with him, and though they allowed him to levy forces, sent no money to pay them; and indeed they had none to send. Earnest applications for cannon, ‘six drakes and two curtoes,’ were made in vain, and to take the field without guns was impossible. ‘If they have not wholly deserted me,’ he wrote to Ormonde, ‘and bestowed the government on my Lord of Cork, persuade them to disburden themselves of so much artillery as they cannot themselves employ.’ He died a few weeks later, leaving the presidential authority in Inchiquin’s hands. In the meantime Cork himself had held Youghal, securing a landing-place for all succours from England. His son Broghill defended Lismore, and Kinalmeaky was governor of Bandon, which his father had walled and supplied with artillery. Clonakilty was an open place, and the Protestant settlers there and in the country round about escaped to Bandon, where the townsmen made them pay well for their quarters. ‘They were compelled,’ said Cork, ‘to give more rent for their chamber or corner than my tenants paid me for the whole house.’ After Kinalmeaky’s death at Liscarrol Sir Charles Vavasour became governor, and the town was never taken; the Bandonians making frequent sallies, like the Enniskilleners in a later age. Lord Cork, who had enjoyed a rental of 50l. a day, lost it all for the time, and was often in difficulties, but he saved the English interest in Munster from total destruction.[11]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Carte’s Ormonde, with the letters in vol. iii. of November 8, 13, 16, 18 and 22, and December 11. Lismore Papers, 2nd series, vol. iv. St. Leger’s letters of November 7, 10, and 28, and December 2 and 17. Bellings says ‘some innocent labourers and husbandmen suffered by martial law for the transgression of others,’ and Carte gives instances. St. Leger’s letters from November 1 to December 11 in Egmont Papers, i. 142-154.