The
Battle of Aughrim
was the decisive battle of the Williamite War in Ireland. It was
fought between the Jacobites and the forces of William III on
12 July
1691
(old style, equivalent to 23 July new style), near the village
of Aughrim in County Galway.
The battle was the
bloodiest ever fought on Irish soil – over 7,000 people were
killed. It meant the effective end of Jacobitism in Ireland,
although the city of Limerick held out until the autumn of 1691.
The Jacobite
position in the summer of 1691 was a defensive one.
In the previous year, they had retreated behind the River
Shannon, which acted as an enormous moat around the province of
Connacht, with strongholds at Sligo, Athlone and Limerick
guarding the routes into Connacht. From this position, the
Jacobites hoped to receive military aid from Louis XIV of France
via the port towns and eventually be in a position to re-take
the rest of Ireland.
Godert de Ginkell,
the Williamite's Dutch general, had breached this line of
defense by crossing the Shannon at Athlone - taking the town
after a bloody siege. The Marquis de St Ruth (General Charles
Chalmont), the French Jacobite general moved too slowly to save
Athlone, as he had to gather his troops from their quarters and
raise new ones from rapparee bands and the levies of Irish
landowners. Ginkel marched through Ballinasloe, on the main road
towards Limerick and Galway, before he found his way blocked by
St Ruth’s army at Aughrim on the 12th of July 1691. Both armies
were about 20,000 men strong. The soldiers of St Ruth’s army
were mostly Irish Catholic, while Ginkel's were English,
Scottish, Danish, Dutch and French Huguenot (members of William
III’s League of Augsburg) and Ulster Protestants.
The Jacobite
position at Aughrim was quite strong. St Ruth had drawn up his
infantry along the crest of a ridge known as Kicommadan Hill.
The hill was lined with small stone walls and hedgerows which
marked the boundaries of farmer’s fields, but which could also
be improved and then used as earthworks for the Jacobite
infantry to shelter behind. The left of the position was bounded
by a bog, through which there was only one causeway, which was
overlooked by Aughrim village and a ruined castle. On the other,
open, flank, St Ruth placed his best infantry and most of his
cavalry under Patrick Sarsfield.
The battle started
with Ginkel trying to assault the open flank of the Jacobite
position with cavalry and infantry. This attack ground to a halt
after determined Jacobite counter-attacks and the Williamites
halted and dug in behind stakes driven into the ground to
protect against cavalry. The French Huguenot forces committed
here found themselves in low ground exposed to Jacobite fire and
took a great number of casualties. Contemporaneous accounts
speak of the grass being slippery with blood. To this day, this
area on the south flank of the battle is known locally as the
"Bloody Hollow". In the centre, the Williamite infantry under
Hugh Mackay tried a frontal assault on the Jacobite infantry on
Kilcommadan Hill. The Williamite troops, mainly English and
Scots, had to take each line of trenches, only to find that the
Irish had fallen back and were firing at them from the next
line. The Williamite infantry attempted three assaults, the
first reached the furthest. Eventually, the final Williamite
assault was driven back with heavy losses by cavalry and pursued
into the bog, where more of them were killed or drowned. In the
rout, the pursuing Jacobites manage to spike a battery of
Williamite guns.
This left Ginkel
with only one option, to try to force a way through the causeway
on the Jacobite left. This should have been an impregnable
position, with the attackers concentrated into a narrow lane and
covered by the defenders of the castle there. However, the Irish
troops there were short on ammunition. Mackay directed this
fourth assault, consisting mainly of cavalry, in two groups -
one along the causeway and one parallel to the south. The
Jacobites stalled this attack with heavy fire from the castle,
but then found that their reserve ammunition, which was British
made, would not fit into the muzzles of their French supplied
muskets. The Williamites then charged again with a reasonably
fresh regiment of Anglo-Dutch cavalry under Henri de Massue,
faced with only weak musket fire they crossed the causeway and
reached Aughrim village with few casualties. A force of Jacobite
cavalry under Henry Luttrell was held in reserve to cover this
flank. However rather than counterattacking at this point, their
commander ordered them to withdraw, following a route now known
locally as "Luttrell's pass". Henry Luttrell was alleged to have
been in the pay of the Williamites and was assassinated in
Dublin after the war.
The General Marquis
de St Ruth after the third infantry rush on the Williamite
position up to their cannons, appeared to believe that the
battle could be won and was heard to shout, "they are running,
we will chase them back to the gates of Dublin". However, as he
tried to rally his cavalry on the left to counter-attack and
drive the Williamite horse back, he was decapitated by a cannon
ball. At this point, the Jacobite position collapsed very
quickly. Their horsemen, demoralized by the death of their
commander, fled the battlefield, leaving the left flank open for
the Williamites to funnel more troops into and envelope the
Jacobite line. The Jacobites on the right, seeing the situation
was hopeless, also began to melt away, although Sarsfield did
try to organize a rearguard action. This left the Jacobite
infantry on Killcommadan Hill completely exposed and surrounded.
They were slaughtered by the Williamite cavalry as they tried to
get away, many of them having thrown away their weapons in order
to run faster. One eyewitness, George Storey, said that bodies
covered the Hill, and looked from a distance like a flock of
sheep.
Estimates of the two
armies' losses vary. It is generally agreed that about 7000 men
were killed at the battle. Some recent studies put the
Williamite dead as high as 3000, with 4000 Jacobites killed.
However the Williamite death toll released by them at the time
was only 600. Many of the Jacobite dead were officers, who were
very difficult to replace. On top of that, another 4000
Jacobites either deserted or were taken prisoner. What was more,
they had lost the better part of their equipment and supplies.
For these reasons, Aughrim was the decisive battle of the
Williamite war in Ireland. The city of Galway surrendered
without a fight after the battle and the Jacobite's main army
surrendered shortly afterwards at Limerick after a short siege.
The battle according to one author, "seared into Irish
consciousness", and became known in the Irish language tradition
as
Eachdhroim an áir
- "Aughrim of the slaughter". The contemporary Gaelic poet
Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta wrote of the Irish dead, "It is at
Aughrim of the slaughter where they are to found, their damp
bones lying uncoffined". Another poet wrote, "Our friends in
vast numbers and languishing forms, left lifeless in the
mountains and corroded by worms".
Since it marked the
end of the Irish Catholic Jacobite resistance, Aughrim was the
focus of Loyalist (particularly Orange Order) celebrations in
Ireland on the 12th of July up until the early 19th century.
Thereafter, it was superseded by the Battle of the Boyne in
commemorations on "the Twelfth" due to the switch to the
Gregorian calendar (in which 1 July OS became 12 July NS and 12
July OS became 23 July NS). It has also been suggestedthat
the Boyne was preferred because the Irish troops there were more
easily presented as cowardly, whereas at Aughrim they generally
fought bravely.
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