The battle of the Boyne was the turning-point in the war. The Irish army, though defeated, retreated to Dublin in good order, after inflicting, according to the most reliable accounts,1 on the superior forces of William a loss in killed and wounded fully equal to its own. James fled ignominiously. This was not a war for the dynasty alone, so the flight of James did not put an end to it. The plan agreed on by the Irish generals was to concentrate all their forces on the line of the Shannon, from Athlone to Limerick, and there wait William's attack, in the hope of being meanwhile reinforced from France. Lauzun, however, who had command of the French, who were the allies not of the Irish but of James, believing or affecting to believe "that Limerick could be battered down by roasted apples," withdrew to Galway, leaving all the glory of the subsequent defence to the Irish. The first attack made was upon Athlone by Lieut.-Gen. Douglas with twelve thousand men and fourteen pieces of artillery. It was gallantly foiled by the garrison under Colonel Richard Grace. The English, hearing of the approach of Sarsfield, and fearing to be cut off from their main body, retired upon Limerick, and here the final struggle of this year's campaign was entered on. The English forces mustered, according to their own historian's account,2 38,000 fully equipped men; while the Irish had about 20,000 infantry, half of whom only were well armed, and 3500 cavalry, who were posted a few miles from the city, towards Six-Mile-Bridge, in the county of Clare. The first exploit in the conflict was the one which probably decided its fortunes. With this gallant exploit, and the brilliant defence which followed it, the name of Patrick Sarsfield is imperishably wedded in history. Having learned that William's battering train, consisting of six twenty-fourpounders, two eighteen-pounders, and a large supply of 1 Story and Berwick, who were both present, one in each army. Story gives four hundred of the English killed, which, with the wounded, would fully amount to the thousand stated by Berwick in his memoirs as the total loss of the Irish. 2 Griffith's Villare Hibernicum. ammunition and provisions, with ten boats and other necessaries for investing the city on all sides, was being conveyed under escort from Waterford, he determined at once to try and destroy it. Leaving Limerick with five hundred picked horsemen on the night of the 10th of August, he crossed the Shannon at Killaloe, and, under the guidance of O’Hogan, a Rapparee leader, who knew the country well, reached the northern slope of Keeper Hill before daylight, and halted at Silvermines. Here he lay concealed for the day. A traitor named Manus O'Brien, called by Story "a substantial country gentleman," brought word next day to the English camp of Sarsfield's movement across the river, but could not further describe its object or direction. William suspecting it sent out a detachment under Sir John Lanier to meet the convoy, but as he did not leave the camp till two o'clock the following morning, he was forestalled. Sarsfield, resuming his march late in the evening, found his quarry reposing in fancied security only eight or nine miles away from William's army at Ballyneety,1 near Pallas, now a station on the Waterford and Limerick line of railway, and, falling on them early in the morning of the 12th August, cut down all who attempted resistance. Filling the heavy guns with powder, then fixing ⚫ their mouths into the ground, and heaping round them all the ammunition and other materials for the siege, he laid a train of powder on to a safe distance. Then, setting fire to it, he and his brave followers had the satisfaction to see the warsupplies upon which William counted so securely for the destruction of the walls of Limerick, blown to atoms. The terrific explosion shook the earth around, and was heard not only by the advancing English escort, but in the camp and through the city, bringing dismay to the army of William, and raising high the hopes of the Irish. Sarsfield retraced his steps as speedily as possible, and was received by his fellow-countrymen with acclamations that must have been 1 Ballyneety is Irish for White's Town. 2 Consisting of 8 pieces of heavy cannon, 5 mortars, 155 waggons of ammunition, 12 carts of biscuit, 18 tin pontoons, 400 draught horses, and 100 fully accoutred. The Irish probably carried off as many as they could of the horses. heard in William's camp. The garrison and citizens were still further encouraged by the arrival of Baldearg O'Donnell, whose appearance seemed to verify the prophecy that "a red-handed O'Donnell would free Ireland by winning a great battle at Limerick." It is not within the scope of the present work to dwell at any length on this, or the following, siege of Limerick. Those who desire detailed accounts will find them in Lenihan's painstaking and sympathetic History of Limerick. William's army lay entrenched at Singland, around the slope. of land a little north of the city, and not far from that interesting relic, the portion of the Black Battery now standing near St. John's Cathedral. From here he advanced closer and closer, by throwing up earthworks almost to the very walls, and keeping up a continuous cannonade from his field-pieces. Here, again, as at the Boyne, according to Dean Story, who vouches for it as having on both occasions occurred under his own eyes, a well-directed cannon-ball grazed William, who was himself fearlessly directing the operations. Had he been killed on either occasion, there was an end to the war, for some time at least; and English as well as Irish history should have taken a very different turn. The good Dean believed that his hero, the pious William, was under the special protection of Divine Providence. It is no easy matter now to reconcile this with the fact of his relations with Barbara Villiers, and their illegitimate son, raised by him to a foremost place among the English nobility. The guns did their work well, in spite of the constant and well-directed fire from the walls. A breach was effected near the Black Battery, and through this breach, on the morning of the 27th of August, the picked men of William's army stormed the city. Large bodies succeeded in forcing their way through the breach, and then took place the handto-hand fight inside the walls, which has been, and will be to all time, the pride and the glory of the citizens of Limerick. It is beyond question that not only the men, but the women also of the old city by the Shannon, threw themselves, along with the garrison, on the invaders. Every kind of weapon was grasped. Even stones did their work, for Dean Davies, who was an eye-witness, writes that Lord Charlemont and the Earl of Meath came back "bruised with stones." No nation in the world has a nobler record than that furious onslaught by unarmed men and women on the best disciplined forces then in Europe. The lanes and streets poured out their frantic defenders, while the Irish soldiers met the enemy foot to foot and eye to eye. Small arms played on them from the walls, the roofs of the houses, and every point of vantage. Fierce and fanatic and brave, undoubtedly, as these Dutch and Danes, and Brandenburghers and English were, they had to give way before the furious Irish; and, while retreating in confusion through the breach, the havoc made of them was completed by the blowing up of a mine, which Sarsfield had with great foresight prepared for such an event. Those who escaped took refuge in their trenches, and William met and saw with his own eyes such a discomfiture under Limerick's walls as he never experienced elsewhere in his whole warlike and stormy career. With the loss of prestige, as well as of nearly two thousand of his choicest troops, in this one engagement alone, he felt that the hope of capturing Limerick was vain. Calling a council of war, and throwing the blame on the bad weather, it was resolved to abandon the siege. Clare had her share in the glory of this successful defence. From every part of the county supplies poured into the city. The cavalry posted on the Clare side took care that any attempt to cross the river and fully invest the city should be resolutely resisted. The blood of Claremen flowed freely in the defence, and once more, as in 1646, the foreign foe was shaken off. Her hills were ablaze with light, when it was seen that the army of the invader of Irish and Catholic retreat from the walls of the gallant city, part of which stood on her soil. rights was in full 1 Harris. Story. CHAPTER XXIII. FROM 1690 To 1703. Second Siege of Limerick-Butchery on Thomond Bridge-Treaty of Limerick-Flight of the Wild Geese-Clare reduced to a DesertThe Third Great Confiscation Plans for Plunder-Those who secured it-Sums paid for it-Origin of Titles of most of the Present Owners. THE last chapter opened with the tale of the surrender of Limerick to Ireton, and its dire consequences to the people of Clare. This one has for its starting-point the flight from the walls of the rescued city, of a general far abler than Ireton, and a king among the most powerful then in Europe. The position in Clare was once more reversed. The old inhabitants the descendants of a hundred generations of Clare freemen-had fought for and won their national. birthrights. The English intruders and despoilers lay at their mercy. There is no evidence that they resorted to reprisals in the interval between the two sieges of Limerick. The struggle was by no means at an end. It was continued through the rest of Ireland, and it was well known that it would be resumed in Clare at the first opportunity. William, baffled for the time, despatched fresh troops with munitions of war into the country. The garrisons of Cork, Kinsale, and other towns still in the hands of the Irish, surrendered on honourable terms to the overwhelming English forces, and surely and steadily the tide of war during the winter and spring of '90 and '91 turned towards the Irish stronghold-the line of the Shannon. Sarsfield remained in Limerick repairing the fortifications. Tyrconnell, who had gone to France, returned in January with provisions and ammunition, and was followed by St. Ruth, a French general of great ability, who took over supreme command by orders |