Ireland: Military History and Notable Events

Bruce Campaign (All Facts)

• Edward the Bruce was sent to the County Antrim to challenge Anglo-Norman rule in Ireland

1579 - 1583 - Second Desmond Rebellion (All Facts)

• Rebellion of the county of Munster in Ireland against English and Protestant domination and potential Spanish incursion

1593 - 1603 - Nine Years’ War (All Facts)

• War which began when Hugh O’Neill and Ireland rebelled against Queen Elizabeth and England for advancing into Ireland during the Anglo-Spanish War

• War which began due to Hugh O’Neill and the Irish being angered by

  • The introduction of English Protestantism into Catholic Ireland

  • The immigration into Ulster of anti-Catholic Scottish Calvinists

• War in which Hugh O’Neill and the Irish

  • Captured Enniskillen and Monaghan Castles in England

  • Appealed to Philip II of Spain for help

• War in which the English

  • Blocked Hugh O’Neill’s request to Spain and fought him and his forces to a stalemate

• War during which the English opened and founded schools like Trinity College in the hope that education will pacify the Irish

1598 - Battle of the Yellow Ford (All Facts)

• Battle in which Hugh O’Neill and Hugh O’Donnell and their Irish forces defeated the English forces during the Nine Years’ War

• Battle in which the Irish finally scored a decisive victory after years of skirmishes and truces between them and the English soldiers

• Battle which took place on the namesake on the Callan River near Armagh in Ulster in Ireland

• Battle before which the English planned a threefold attack on the Irish rebels from Sligo to Westmeath until all three were repulsed and a truce was arranged

• Battle during which

  • Hugh O’Neill and Hugh O’Donnell led a small garrison on the Blackwater River against the English and set out from Newry with a relief force of 4K troops

  • Hugh O’Neill’s men, armed with muskets, sniped at the English flanks until the English force became too scattered for the leading regiment to be given effective support and was broken up and cut to pieces by the Irish cavalry

  • A rout was avoided, but only 1,500 of the 4K men reached back to the safety of Armagh

• Battle which enraged Queen Elizabeth of England

1607 - Flight of the Earls (All Facts)

• Incident in which both Hugh O’Neill and Rory O’Donnell of Ireland, both Catholic; sought refuge away from England and Ireland in Europe, but in which every place in which they sought refuge refused them including France, Spanish Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy; before finally finding refuge in Rome; where they were received at its gates by seven cardinals and which the Pope there placed a palace at their disposal

• Incident in which they were considered traitors back in Ireland and their lands which King James of England initially restored to them after they had left Ireland due to feudal disputes that arose were seized for settlement by English and Scottish Protestants after they had undertaken the namesake action

1600s - 1610s - Plantation(s) of Ulster (All Facts)

• Organized colonization of the namesake Irish province on confiscated Irish land by English and Scottish during the reign of King James of England and Scotland

• The prior flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell into Rome paved the way for this systematic colonization of the namesake lands by Protestants, in which half a million acres were thrown opened and estates of up to 3,000 acres were granted to English and Scottish immigrants, who had to undertake to build defensible houses

  • Native Irish who remained loyal to the English during the latest rebellion were also eligible for similar grants

• This systematic colonization process was legalized by a Parliament that had assembled within the namesake and the City of London’s livery companies had formed an Irish Society to raise capital for the exploitation of timber and fisheries in Ireland’s County Derry while a new city was to be built called Londonderry

• Process by which London Companies undertook to accept only English and Scots as tenants, with thousands of Irish remaining on their holdings which were not removed from them and also outbid most of their English and Scottish counterparts when it came to paying rent

1639 - 1653 - Wars of the Three Kingdoms (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts between England, Scotland, and Ireland including

  • The English Civil War (the First Civil War and Second Civil War and Third Civil War)

  • The Bishops’ War (the First Bishops’ War and the Second Bishops’ War)

  • The Irish Confederate Wars and 1641 Rebellion

  • Oliver Cromwell and England’s conquest of Ireland

1641 - 1653 - Irish Confederate Wars (All Facts)

• Series of wars in Ireland against England and Scotland in which the rebels who provoked them wanted

  • an end to anti-Catholic discrimination

  • to increase Irish self-governance

  • to drive out the English and Scottish Protestant settlers / colonizers in Ulster

  • to prevent an invasion by anti-Catholic English Roundheads (Parliamentarians / Puritans) and Scottish Covenanters; both of whom were defying King Charles of England

• Series of wars in Ireland against England Scotland in which the rebels claimed loyalty to King Charles of England, however, King Charles rebuffed their claim

• Series of wars that ended when Oliver Cromwell of England crushed the Irish rebels and confiscated their lands to pay back his soldiers

1641 - Irish Rebellion of 1641 (All Facts)

• Rebellion which began the Irish Confederate Wars against Parliament in England

• Rebellion in which Irish rebels massacred 10K+ English colonists in and drove the rest out of Ulster

• Rebellion in which Irish rebels seized the opportunity to rebel given that England was on the brink of Civil War

• Rebellion in which Irish rebels demanded

  • freedom of conscience

  • government by Catholic officials

  • restitution of property seized by England on religious grounds

• Rebellion in which a rebel Parliament known as the Catholic Confederacy was founded and met in Kilkenny

• Rebellion in which rebels affirmed their loyalty to King Charles, preferring him over the militant Protestant Parliament in London

• Rebellion in which rebels were aided by France which provided them arms and money to try to weaken England

1649 - Drogheda Massacre (All Facts)

• Massacre of 1,500 people including English Cavaliers (Royalists), Catholic Priests, and civilians in Ireland

• Massacre organized by Oliver Cromwell

  • He called for the city to surrender to avoid “an effusion of blood” but his call was rejected

  • Two costly assaults were necessary before his Ironsides cavalry broke through and, enraged, he ordered all the enemy to be put to the sword

  • The spectre of Drogheda’s date was such that other terrified garrisons could hardly wait to surrender and avoid Cromwell’s “righteous judgement of God”

  • He did this to strike terror into the hearts of the Irish in order that they would fear him, so he could confiscate their land and pay his soldiers following the English Civil War

1649 - 1653 - Conquest of Ireland (All Facts)

• Military operation conducted by Oliver Cromwell to provide (confiscated) land to pay off all of his soldiers after the English Civil War

1689 - 1691 - Williamite War in Ireland (All Facts)

1689 - Siege of Derry (All Facts)

• Battle in which King William III of England his forces defeated King James II and his Irish-French forces in the namesake city of Ireland after 15 weeks

• Battle after which the Protestants of the namesake city affirmed their allegiance to King William III and Queen Mary II of England

1690 - Battle of the Boyne (All Facts)

• Battle in which King William III of England and his Grand Alliance forces defeated King James II and his English, Scottish, French, and Irish Jacobite forces during the Williamite War in Ireland during the Nine Years’ War

• Battle in which, when King William III and his forces arrived, King James II and his forces were well dug in on rising ground behind the namesake river, the only defensive barrier between Belfast and Dublin

• Battle in which King William III threw in his forces at the beginning, but kept the untried English regiments in reserve and attacked with his German, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, and French Huguenot forces instead

  • By the time hand-to-hand combat struggles developed, the English were brought in and the Jacobites were broken and lost 1,600 men that were either killed, wounded, or imprisoned while King William III barely lost a third of that amount

1690 - Siege of Cork (All Facts)

• Battle in which John Churchill and his forces defeated James II and his forces and captured the namesake city and 5K Jacobites during the Williamite War in Ireland during the Nine Years’ War

1691 - Battle of Aughrim (All Facts)

• Battle in which King William III defeated King James II and his Irish and French Jacobite forces during the Williamite War in Ireland during the Nine Years’ War

1691 - Siege of Limerick (All Facts)

• Battle in which the namesake headquarters of the Jacobites in Ireland surrendered to King William III’s forces after successfully resisting them twice in two prior sieges

1691 - Treaty of Limerick (All Facts)

• Treaty signed between England and Ireland that ended the Williamite War in Ireland during the Nine Years’ War

• Treaty which granted a measure of religious toleration to Catholics

• Treaty in which Jacobite soldiers and civilians that remained in Ireland were granted security of life and property