Battles Posts

Artificial Intelligence rendering of the Battle Of Farsetmore Likely more than a 1,000 men lay dead on the shores, or in the tidal waters of the river Swilly near Letterkenny in Donegal. The encounter at the ford of Farsetmore (Fearsaid Súileach), …

19th century etching of the Battle of Kilrush On April 15th 1642,  on the road between Athy and Dublin, two opposing armies faced off at Kilrush, Kildare. The ensuing battle between Irish Catholic Rebel Confederates and Protestant Royalist forces l…

Battle of Tallaght from the London Illustrated News On March 5th 1867, a planned uprising by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, also known as the Fenians, resulted in a brief skirmish near Dublin. The Fenians, aiming to overthrow British rule in Ir…

1798 Print Depicting the Position of the English and French armies at Ballinamuck Prior to Surrender The last major military land engagement of the 1798 Rebellion took place on September 8, 1798 at Ballinamuck in Longford. A combined force of Frenc…

During the 1640s and 1650s, a brutal war was waged across Ireland between Irish Catholics, British Royalists, British Parliamentarians, and Scottish Covenanters. This time of conflict was marked by extraordinary brutality and shifting alliances whic…

Cloughleagh Castle More than a decade of war raged across Ireland from 1641 - 1653. The Irish historian, Padraig Lenihan, estimates that 20% of the Irish population perished in this conflict - some 200 thousand of the 1 million estimated to inhabi…

Some 4,000 United Irishman gathered at the Hill of Tara in County Meath in late May of 1798. They camped on the hilltop with the intention of controlling the main Ulster to Dublin road and also likely occupied the site due to its cultural significan…

The Battle of Clontibret, part of the Nine Years' War began on May 25, 1595. It would prove to be a two-day rolling engagement between the Irish forces of Hugh O'Neill (1550 - 1616) and the English troops of Henry Bagenal (1556 - 1598) Bagenal an…

On February 21, 1760, 600 troops under the leadership of François Thurot (1727 - 1760) landed in Antrim and captured Carrickfergus Castle from a small garrison. This minor military engagement was part of a broader global military conflict between Br…

Battle of Aughrim 1691 by John Mulvany (1839 - 1906) I often remark that Irish people can successfully play a game of two degrees of separation. Frequently, when Irish people meet for the first time, they engage unknowingly in this game as they try…

Battle of Aughgrim   Attributed to Jan Wyck- Details Most Irish people can name a number of significant battles fought in Ireland. Clontarf in 1014, Kinsale in 1602 and the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, to name a few. Less commonly mentioned is the …

Vinegar Hill illustration by William Sadler (1782-1839) During our recent episode with Damien Shiels we got to talking about his two track career which is split between battlefield archaeology and historical research focused on the Irish in the Ame…