Battle of Aughrim

By 1691, the Jacobites had adopted a defensive position. In the previous year they had retreated into Connacht behind the easily defensible line of the Shannon, with strongholds at Sligo, Athlone and Limerick guarding the routes into the province and the western ports. William besieged Limerick in late August 1690 but, suffering heavy casualties and losses to disease, he called off the siege and put his army into winter quarters. However, internal divisions, exacerbated by the departure of James for France after defeat at the Boyne, were increasingly undermining the Jacobite command. The main split was between the "Peace Party", led by James's viceroy Tyrconnell, which proposed negotiating a settlement with William, and the "War Party" of army officers grouped around Patrick Sarsfield, who believed the war could still be won outright. Encouraged by William's failure to take Limerick and looking to break Tyrconnell's influence, Sarsfield's faction decided to appeal directly to Louis XIV of France requesting that Tyrconnell and army commander Berwick be removed from office and that Louis send military aid. The "Peace Party" obtained an offer of settlement from the Williamites in December, upon which Sarsfield demanded that Berwick have Riverston, Denis Daly and other "Peace Party" leaders arrested. Berwick complied, probably with the approval of Tyrconnell, who returned from France to try and preserve his influence by repositioning himself with Sarsfield's faction. Louis sent general Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe to replace Berwick as senior Jacobite commander, with secret instructions to assess whether Louis should send further military aid. By this stage William's forces were led by his subordinates, Dutch officer Godert de Ginkel and second-in-command Württemberg. Ginkel was conscious of the poor military situation facing William in the Netherlands, and seeking a quick end to the war obtained William's permission to offer the Jacobites moderate terms of surrender. By late spring 1691, however, Ginkel became concerned that a French convoy could land further reinforcements at Galway or Limerick, and began planning to enter the field as quickly as possible. During May, both sides began assembling forces for a summer campaign, the Jacobites at Limerick and the Williamites at Mullingar. On 16 June, Ginkel's cavalry reconnoitred from Ballymore towards the Jacobite garrison at Athlone. Saint-Ruhe had been unsure where Ginkel would attempt to cross the Shannon, but by 19 June he realised Athlone was the target and began concentrating his troops west of the town. Ginkel breached the Jacobite lines of defence and took Athlone on 30 June after a bloody siege; Saint-Ruhe was unable to relieve the town and fell back to the west. Athlone was seen as a significant victory and likely to provoke the collapse of the Jacobite army. Unaware of the location of Saint-Ruhe's main army and assuming he was outnumbered, on 10 July Ginkel continued a cautious advance through Ballinasloe down the main Limerick and Galway road. Saint-Ruhe's and Tyrconnell's plan had been to fall back on Limerick and force the Williamites into another year of campaigning, but wishing to redeem his errors at Athlone Saint-Ruhe appears to have instead decided to force a decisive battle. Ginkel found his way blocked by Saint-Ruhe's army at Aughrim on the early morning of 12 July 1691. Deployments At this point of the campaign, both armies were about 20,000 strong. The core of the Jacobite force was formed around James's old Irish Army, which had been reorganised by Tyrconnell from 1686 onwards by dismissing the majority of Protestant officers and men. It had been substantially expanded with newly recruited Irish Catholic regiments, organised in the English military tradition. While it is not now possible to establish with certainty which Jacobite infantry regiments fought at Aughrim, at least 30 have been identified as likely present, including the Foot Guards, Talbot's, Nugent's, Fitzgerald's, Boffin's, Cormack O'Neill's, Saxby's and Iveagh's. The Jacobites also retained around 4,000 cavalry and dragoons, mostly much better trained and equipped than their foot. The composition of Ginkel's army is better documented than that of the Jacobites: in addition to English regiments, it included a large number of Anglo-Irish Protestants as well as Dutch, Danish and French Huguenot contingents. Different contemporary sources give different dispositions for Ginkel's forces at Aughrim, but most agree that the right wing was composed of English, Anglo-Irish and Huguenot cavalry, with Danish and French cavalry on the left. Ginkel positioned the English infantry regiments on the right of his centre, with French, Danish and Dutch foot on their left. To protect his largely inexperienced infantry, Saint-Ruhe deployed most of it in two divisions under Major-Generals John Hamilton and William Dorrington along the crest of a ridge known as Kilcommadan Hill, their positions protected by small hillside enclosures and hedgerows. The centre was further screened by a large bog, impassable to cavalry, through which the Melehan River flowed. The left flank was also bounded by "a large Red Bogg, almost a mile over", According to one participant's account Patrick Sarsfield had quarrelled with Saint-Ruhe and was posted with the cavalry reserve to the left rear, under strict instructions not to move without orders. ==Battle==

After heavy mist all morning, Ginkel's forces moved into position by about two o'clock in the afternoon, and both sides cannonaded each other for the next few hours. Ginkel planned to avoid fully joining battle until the next day; he ordered a probing attack on the Jacobites' weaker right flank led by a captain and sixteen Danish troopers, followed by 200 of Cunningham's Eniskillen dragoons. led the right of the Williamite cavalry at Aughrim. A French Protestant, he had entered William's service in 1690, forfeiting his French estates and title (the Marquis de Rouvigny) as a result. Battle was joined in earnest between five and six o'clock. In the centre, the largely English and Scots regiments under Mackay attempted a frontal assault on Dorrington's infantry on Kilcommadan Hill. The attackers had to contend with waist-deep water and a tenacious Irish defence of the reinforced hedge lines. They withdrew with heavy losses: the Jacobites pursued them downhill, capturing colonels Erle and Herbert. On their left centre, the Williamites advanced across low ground exposed to Jacobite fire and took a great number of casualties. The Williamite assault in this area, led by St John's and Tiffin's regiments and the Huguenot foot, was driven back into the bog by the Irish foot fighting with clubbed (reversed) muskets; many of the attackers were killed or drowned. In the rout, the pursuing Jacobites managed to spike a battery of Williamite guns. The Jacobite regiments of the Guards and Gordon O'Neill were said to have fought particularly strongly. The Jacobite right and centre holding firm, Ginkel tried to force a way across the causeway on the Jacobite left, where any attack would have to pass along a narrow lane covered by Walter Burke's regiment from their positions in Aughrim castle. Four battalions led by Brigadier Kirke secured positions near the castle, following which Compton's Royal Horse Guards got across the causeway at the third attempt. Appearing to believe that the battle could be won, he was heard to shout, "they are running, we will chase them back to the gates of Dublin", before riding across the battlefield to direct the defence against the Williamite cavalry on his left wing. However, as he rode over to rally his cavalry, Saint-Ruhe paused briefly to direct the fire of a battery, and was decapitated by a cannonball; After Saint-Ruhe's death the Jacobite left, devoid of a senior commander, collapsed very quickly: the regiment of Horse Guards left the field almost immediately, followed shortly by the cavalry and dragoon regiments of Luttrell, Sheldon and Galmoy. De Tessé attempted to head a cavalry counter-attack but was seriously wounded shortly afterwards. At around nine o'clock towards nightfall the Jacobite infantry were finally pushed to the top of Killcommadan hill and broke, fleeing towards a bog in the left rear of their position, while their cavalry retreated towards Loughrea. Sarsfield and Galmoy briefly tried to organise a rearguard action but as in many battles of the period, most of the Jacobite casualties occurred in the pursuit, which was ended only by darkness and the onset of mist and rain. The two major-generals commanding the Jacobite centre, Hamilton and Dorrington, were both taken prisoner, Hamilton dying of wounds shortly afterwards. Though the killing of prisoners to prevent rescue was a common practice at the time, Jacobite soldiers were accused of having "cut to pieces" colonel Herbert after his capture. One contemporary Jacobite source (Leslie) alleged that about 2,000 Jacobites were killed "in cold blood" with many, including Lord Galway and colonel Charles Moore, killed after being promised quarter. ==Aftermath==

Estimates of the two armies' losses vary, but they were extremely heavy overall; it is generally agreed that 7,000 men were killed at Aughrim. Aughrim has been described as "quite possibly the bloodiest battle ever fought in the British Isles", but earlier medieval battles, although poorly recorded, may rival this battle in casualty numbers. At the time, the Williamites claimed to have lost only 600 and to have killed some 7,000 Jacobites. Some recent studies put the Williamite losses as high as 3,000, but they are more generally given as between 1-2,000, with 4,000 Jacobites killed. Another 4,000 Jacobites had deserted, while Ginkel recorded 526 prisoners taken of all ranks. While Ginkel had given word to Dorrington that the captives would be treated as prisoners of war, general officers were instead taken to the Tower of London as prisoners of state, while the majority of the rank and file were incarcerated on Lambay Island where many died of disease and starvation. Aughrim was the decisive battle of the conflict: the Jacobites had lost many experienced officers, along with much of the army's equipment and supplies. The remnants of the Jacobite army retreated to the mountains before regrouping under Sarsfield's command at Limerick. Many of their infantry regiments were seriously depleted: on 22 July, Bellew's regiment was listed as having 240 soldiers, having lost all its senior officers and sergeants; Slane's regiment 140 soldiers, and Louth's just 28, although some stragglers arrived later. The city of Galway surrendered without a fight after the battle, on advantageous terms, while Sarsfield and the Jacobites' main army surrendered shortly afterwards at Limerick after a short siege. Cultural impact According to Ó Ciardha, the battle "made a searing impression on the Irish consciousness". Irish tradition came to refer to the battle as "Eachdhroim an áir" – "Aughrim of the slaughter" – after a line in a poem by Irish-language poet Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta, the "Elegy for Sorley MacDonnell". While Ginkel ordered the burial of his own dead, the remaining Jacobites were left unburied, their bones remaining scattered on the battlefield for years afterwards: The Loyalist song The Sash mentions Aughrim. The battle was the subject of a 1728 tragic drama by Robert Ashton, The Battle of Aughrim or the Fall of Monsieur St Ruth, which after initial neglect became enormously popular from 1770 onwards into the 19th century. Though the play was intended to celebrate the Williamite victory and casts Saint-Ruhe firmly in the role of antagonist, it also portrays Sarsfield and his lieutenants as heroic figures and incorporates a "lament for Catholic patriotism", so that "both Catholics and Protestants were attracted to the play for generations". In 1804 it was noted of Ashton's play that "a more popular Production never appeared in Ireland; it is in the hands of every Peasant who can read English; and [...] is committed to memory and occasionally recited". In 1885, artist John Mulvany completed a painting of the battle; it was exhibited in Dublin in 2010. The Battle of Aughrim was also the subject of a long 1968 poem by Richard Murphy, who noted that he had ancestors fighting on both sides. The Aughrim battlefield site became the subject of controversy in Ireland over plans to build the new M6 motorway through the former battlefield. Historians, environmentalists and members of the Orange Order objected to the plans; the motorway opened in 2009. Aughrim Interpretative Centre The Battle of Aughrim Interpretative Centre, in Aughrim village was opened in 1991. It is a collaboration between Aughrim Heritage Committee, Ireland West Tourism and Galway County Council. It houses artefacts found on the battlefield site, as well as three-dimensional displays and a documentary film that explains the course of the battle and its significance in the wider context of the history of Ireland. ==See also==