Ireland (13 page)

After his victory at the Boyne, William took Dublin. Meanwhile, the Irish and French soldiers retreated west, intending to halt William’s advance across the River Shannon at Limerick and Athlone. In Limerick, one of the Irish commanders was Patrick Sarsfield. He was a brave man, who had fought in the French army, and he was determined that Limerick would not surrender.

William’s army marched west to lay siege to Limerick in August 1690. The city was defended by strong walls, and heavy artillery would be needed to breach them. Over 150 wagons laden with cannon, cannonballs and barrels of gunpowder, and drawn by hundreds of horses, set out from Dublin, bound for the attackers.

Sarsfield learned of this wagon train and realised that if William’s army got the artillery they would be able to breach the walls. The Irish had no choice but to prevent the wagon train from reaching the attackers. At midnight on 11 August, Sarsfield, along with a troop of cavalry, slipped out of the city under the cover of darkness. Their plan was to find the wagon train and blow it up.

The wagon train had stopped overnight at Ballyneety, nor far from Limerick city. But Sarsfield and his men could not ride directly there because William’s army was between them and Ballyneety. They had to take a roundabout route through the dark countryside. Sarsfield was not familiar with the area, and he and his men were guided by a man named ‘Galloping’ Michael Hogan. He was a raparee, a type of highwayman, and was so nicknamed because he usually rode a horse. Stories claim that earlier that day Hogan had stopped to buy apples from an old woman, and she had told him that the password to be used that night by those guarding the wagon train was none other than ‘Sarsfield’.

‘Galloping’ Hogan led Sarsfield and his men through the dark countryside to Ballyneety. When challenged for the password by soldiers guarding the wagon train, Sarsfield shouted out: ‘Sarsfield is the word and Sarsfield is the man’. The soldiers, caught off guard, were quickly overpowered. The cannon, cannonballs and barrels of gunpowder were piled up in a gigantic heap. A fuse was laid and lit by Hogan.

The glare from the massive explosion momentarily turned the night into day. The deafening boom resounded about the countryside and was heard by both the attackers and the defenders. Within the walls, the people cheered, aware that Sarsfield and his men had been successful. However, their good cheer was not to last long as William’s men obtained more artillery from Waterford and the siege began.

The attackers bombarded the walls for weeks, and eventually breached them in places. An attack was ordered, and fierce fighting ensued. The women of Limerick fought alongside their men, pouring boiling water down on the attackers who were eventually driven back with huge losses. William was forced to give up the siege and he returned to England, leaving a Dutchman, General Ginkell, in charge.

By now, Ireland east of the Shannon was under the control of William’s army. Without help from France, it was only a matter of time before Ginkell would also control the country west of the Shannon. Help did eventually come from France in May 1691 when a French general, St Ruth, arrived in Ireland. He decided to try and hold Athlone against Ginkell’s forces.

On 23 June 1691, Ginkell’s artillery began to pound Athlone. It was the heaviest artillery bombardment ever seen in Ireland. After days of bombardment, the bridge across the Shannon was damaged. Ginkell’s troops repaired it with planks and got ready to cross it and take the town. It seemed as if nothing could stop them.

In one of the most courageous episodes in Irish history, a man named Costume asked for volunteers to help him dislodge the planks. Nine men volunteered and, led by Costume, dashed onto the bridge under fierce fire from the besiegers. The ten men succeeded in tearing up some of the planks before all of then were killed in a hail of shot. More volunteers were called for and another ten men rushed onto the bridge. They succeeded in tearing up the remaining planks, but not before eight of them died in the intense fire. Two escaped by jumping into the river and swimming to safety. St Ruth, who was a brave soldier, and who had seen many brave men in battle, claimed that it was the bravest action he had ever seen.

The bravery of the twenty men saved Athlone for the moment. Eventually, the besiegers crossed the river at another point, and took the town on 30 June 1691. St Ruth decided to retreat and fight one last battle against Ginkell’s forces. This battle was fought at Aughrim, near Ballinasloe in County Galway, on 22 July 1691. Though greatly outnumbered, the Irish fought with the same courage shown by the twenty men who tore up the bridge at Athlone. The Irish might have won, except that tragedy struck. During the battle, St Ruth was killed by a cannonball and, on seeing this, the Irish soldiers lost heart. Ginkell pressed on to victory and the Irish were routed. It is claimed that more Irishmen died in the Battle of Aughrim than in any other battle ever fought in Ireland.

After his victory at Aughrim, Ginkell took the city of Galway. Only Limerick still held out and, under the command of Patrick Sarsfield, the city prepared again for a siege. Once more, Ginkell’s forces surrounded the walls, but still could not take the city. It was stalemate, and eventually both sides agreed on a treaty. This treaty, known as the Treaty of Limerick, was signed on the Treaty Stone on 3 October 1691. It granted Catholics the right to practise their religion, along with many other rights. Sarsfield and his soldiers agreed to leave Ireland and go to France or Spain, where they could join the armies there.

Sarsfield, and up to 20,000 Irish soldiers, did go to fight in the armies of France and Spain. Because of their flight from the country, they are known as The Wild Geese. Like the Flight of the Earls nearly 100 years earlier, it was a tragedy for Ireland and its people. Once again, those who might have fought to defend the people sailed away from the country. Once more, Ireland and its people were left helpless and undefended. Sarsfield, and those who left, later distinguished themselves in battle. Sarsfield himself was killed fighting for the French at the Battle of Landan in 1693.

He had left Ireland believing that he had gained freedom and rights for his people. But he had hardly left when the Treaty of Limerick was broken. It is said that it was broken ‘before the ink with which it was writ was dry’. With the breaking of the treaty, Ireland now entered one of the darkest periods in all of her history. In the coming centuries the old Gaelic, Catholic Ireland was utterly destroyed and replaced by a Protestant-dominated Ireland. The Irish parliament, made up of Protestant English and Scottish settlers was determined that the Irish Catholic population would never again threaten their power. Now they passed laws, known as the Penal Laws, which were the most anti-Irish, and anti-Catholic laws ever enacted in Ireland. They ensured that for almost 150 years the Protestants would have complete domination in Ireland, a period that is known as the Protestant Ascendancy.

A
t the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Irish Catholic population was demoralised. By now, Catholics owned only 15 per cent of all the land in Ireland and this caused great hardship as they struggled to survive. But worse was to come when the Protestant parliament passed the Penal Laws. More severe than the Statutes of Kilkenny, they were the harshest laws ever enacted against the native population. There were a great number of these Penal Laws, but the most important were:

Under the severity of these laws, Protestant control of the country became almost complete. But though unable to fight for their freedom, the Irish did not give in. They founded hedge schools where children were taught by travelling teachers, usually in the open air, using a hedge for shelter. Priests, who were hunted like wild animals and murdered if they were caught, said Mass in the open, using a flat rock for an altar. Today, Mass rocks can still be seen dotted about the Irish countryside.

Yet the Irish Catholics remained a subdued population in their own country. English landlords charged high rents, and when a tenant farmer was unable to pay, he and his family were evicted. It was at this time that some Irish Catholics emigrated, a trend that would increase to a veritable flood in the next century, when hundreds of thousands fled the Great Famine of 1845–1847.

Some Catholics founded secret societies and attacked landlords and their agents. The best known of these societies were the Defenders and the Whiteboys. The latter were so named because its members wore white shirts, or smocks, when they went out at night to destroy crops, or maim cattle, or attack people. This society was most active in Munster, and was led by men with fictitious names like Captain Moonlight. The Defenders were most active in Ulster, and here the Protestants formed their own societies to counteract them. The best known of these Protestant societies was the Peep o’ Day Boys.

There was much conflict between these two groups and both were responsible for terrible atrocities. On 21 September 1795, the two groups fought each other near Loughgall, County Armagh, at a place known as The Diamond. It was a small fight, but its aftermath led to a significant moment in Irish history. After the fight, the Peep o’ Day Boys entered Loughgall where James Sloan, Daniel Winter and James Wilson founded the Orange Order. It was to be one of the most important Protestant societies ever founded in Ireland. It encouraged hatred of Catholics and this led to much strife, bloodshed and death in the years to come.

But not all Protestants hated Catholics. A Protestant, Henry Grattan, believed that Irish Catholics were treated harshly and wanted to repeal the Penal Laws. He was partially successful and some Penal Laws, relating to land ownership and inheritance rights, were repealed. Yet Catholics still suffered greatly and seemed without hope until two events, which occurred outside Ireland, gave them fresh optimism. The first was the American War of Independence in which the American people won their independence from Britain. Some Irishmen began to believe that if the Americans could win independence, then the Irish people could do so too.

The second event was a much more important one than the American War of Independence. This was the French Revolution of 1789. At this time, France was ruled by a king, Louis XVI, and his wife, Marie Antoinette. The royal family lived in great luxury in their many palaces. One of these palaces at Versailles, outside Paris, was one of the most magnificent palaces in the whole world.

The French nobles owned large estates, and they, too, lived in magnificent palaces. They were able to do this because they exploited the ordinary French people, who were forced to work for little money and lived in abject poverty. The king needed vast sums of money to pay for all his fine palaces, and his life of luxury, and so was constantly in debt. To obtain more money, he raised taxes until the people could no longer pay. They were so poor that they could not even afford to buy bread, and the poorer families were starving. Marie Antoinette, on being told of this, asked why they didn’t eat cake, which was a luxury then. She was so sheltered in her palaces that she wasn’t aware of the suffering of the ordinary people, and did not know that they couldn’t afford to buy bread.

This suffering led to great unrest among the population and the angry people of Paris stormed the Bastille prison on 14 July 1789. It was the first action in a revolution that sought to gain for the people of France liberty, equality and fraternity. Louis XVI and his young queen, Marie Antoinette, were arrested. When they tried to escape they were recaptured and beheaded. During the revolution, over 40,000 French men and women were executed by being beheaded. At first, an axe or sword was used, but later a Doctor Guillotin invented an instrument of execution, the guillotine, which is named after him.

The revolution ended the monarchy and weakened the power of the French nobles. Now the French people held the power. The revolution frightened other monarchs and noblemen in Europe, who now feared revolution in their own countries. They were terrified that they might not only lose their thrones and palaces and lands, but even their very lives. But though the revolution struck terror in the monarchs and the nobles, it gave hope to ordinary people.

In Ireland, the French Revolution led to the formation of the United Irishmen in 1791. This organisation’s aim was to break the ties between Britain and Ireland. If that were achieved, Ireland could govern itself to the betterment of its entire people, Catholic and Protestant alike.

The most important founder member of the United Irishmen was a Protestant, Theobald Wolfe Tone. He was influenced by the French Revolution and believed that Ireland should be a republic in which all people were equal. Fearful of a revolution, the Irish parliament reluctantly reformed some Penal Laws. But this did not satisfy the United Irishmen. They concluded that there would have to be a revolution in order to achieve their aims.

The authorities reacted by forming Protestant militias to suppress such a revolution. These militias ruthlessly pursued the United Irishmen and their supporters, who were usually identified by their short-cropped hair from which they earned the nickname ‘Croppies’. In France, the nobles as well as the king had worn their hair long, and so long hair was seen as a sign of power and privilege. During the French Revolution the revolutionaries cut their hair short to distinguish themselves from the nobles and the monarchy. The United Irishmen also cut their hair short as a sign of their support for the French revolutionaries.

The United Irishmen, as often happened before in Irish history, were betrayed by an informer. Many of the leaders were arrested, including Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a member of the Norman family of Kildare. He was injured during his arrest and later died in prison from his wounds. Wolfe Tone escaped arrest and fled to America from where he made his way to France. He asked for help from the French revolutionaries to support a revolution in Ireland, and the French agreed to help. On 15 December 1796, a fleet of forty-three ships, one of which carried Wolfe Tone, set sail from France with 15,000 men.