Sieges of Limerick

The city of Limerick in south-western Ireland was besieged several times in the 17th century, first during the Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s and’50s again in the Williamite war in Ireland. Limerick was first taken in 1642 by the Irish Confederate Catholics under Garrett Barry. In 1650-51, the Confederate held city was besieged and eventually surrendered to an English Parliamentarian army under Henry Ireton, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. In 1690-91, Limerick was a stronghold for the Irish Jacobites and was besieged first by William of Orange and then by his general Ginkel. The city beat off an assault by the Williamites in 1690, but surrendered on terms to them the following year.

Contents

1 The Confederate Siege 1642

2 The Cromwellian Siege 1650-51

3 The Williamite Sieges 1690-91

4 Sources

5 See also

The Confederate Siege 1642

The Irish Confederate’s taking of Limerick was made far easier than subsequent attempts by the fact that they had the support of most of the city’s population. About 600 English Protestant settlers had fled to the city to escape the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and had fortified themselves in King John's Castle in the centre of Limerick. The city was predominantly Catholic and appealed to the new Confederate Catholic government at Kilkenny to capture this Protestant citadel. As a result, Garret Barry , a Confederate general marched to Limerick with 1500 men to secure it. Since he had no siege artillery, Barry put his men to work digging mines under the walls of the castle, which he intended to collapse by burning their supports. He also positioned snipers in the houses surrounding the castle to harass the defenders, particularly in St. Mary's Cathedral, which overlooked King John’s Castle. Finally, he cut off the defender’s food and water supply. After 4 weeks, when the English Protestants were ravaged by disease, and many were wounded, they surrendered on terms, before Barry collapsed his mines and assaulted the castle. The 400 surviving Protestants were evacuated to Dublin.

The Cromwellian Siege 1650-51

By 1650, The Irish Confederates and their English Royalist allies had been driven out of eastern Ireland by the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. They occupied a defensive position behind the river Shannon, of which Limerick was the southern stronghold. Oliver Cromwell himself had left Ireland in May 1650, delegating his command of the English Parliamentarian forces to Henry Ireton. Ireton moved his forces north from Munster to besiege Limerick in October of that year. However, the weather was increasingly wet and cold and Ireton was forced to abandon the siege before the onset of winter. He returned the following June with 8000 men, 28 siege artillery pieces and 4 mortars. He then summoned Hugh Dubh O'Neill, the Irish commander of Limerick to surrender, but was refused. The siege was on.

Limerick in 1651 was split into two sections, English town and Irish town, which were separated by the river Abbey. English town, which contained the citadel of King John’s Castle, was encircled by water, the Abbey river on three sides and the Shannon on the other, in what was known as King John’s Island. There was only one bridge onto the island – Thomond bridge – which was fortified with bastioned earthworks. Irish town was more vulnerable, but was also more heavily fortified. Its medieval walls had been buttressed by 20 feet (about 6 metres) of earth, making it difficult to knock a breach in them. In addition, Irish town had a series of bastions along its walls, mounted with cannon which covered its approaches. The biggest of these bastions were at St John’s Gate and Mungret gate. The garrison of the city was 2000 strong and composed mainly of veterans from the Confederate’s Ulster army, commanded by Hugh Dubh O'Neill, who had distinguished themselves at the siege of Clonmel the previous year.

Because Limerick was very well fortified, Ireton did not risk an assault on its walls. Instead he secured the approaches to the city, cut off its supplies and built artillery earthworks to bombard the defenders. His troops took the fort at Thomond bridge, but the Irish destroyed the bridge itself, denying the Parliamentarians land access to English town. Ireton then tried an amphibious attack on the city, a storming party attacking the city in small boats. They were initially successful, but O’Neill’s men counter attacked and beat them off. After this attack failed, Ireton resolved to starve the city into submission and built two forts known as Ireton’s fort and Cromwell’s fort on nearby Singland Hill. An Irish attempt to relieve the city from the south was routed at the battle of Knocknaclashy. O’Neill’s only hope was now to hold out until bad weather and hunger forced Ireton to raise the siege. To this end, O’Neill tried to send the town’s old men, women and children out of the city so that his supplies would last a little longer. However, Ireton’s men killed 40 of these civilians and sent the rest back into Limerick.

After this point, O’Neill came under pressure from the town’s mayor and civilian population to surrender. The town’s garrison and civilians suffered terribly from hunger and disease, especially an outbreak of plague. What was more, Ireton found a weak point in the defences of Irish town, and knocked a breach in them, opening the prospect of an all out assault. Eventually in October 1651, six months after the siege had started, part of Limerick’s garrison (English Royalists under Colonel Fennell) mutinied and turned some cannon inwards, threatening to fire on O’Neill’s men unless they surrendered. Hugh Dubh O’Neill surrendered Limerick on the 27th of October. The inhabitants lives and property were respected, but they were warned that they could be evicted in the future. The garrison was allowed to march to Galway, which was still holding out, but had to leave their weapons behind. However, the lives of the civilian and military leaders of Limerick were excepted from the terms of surrender. A Bishop, an Alderman and the English Royalist officer Colonel Fennell (who the Parliamentarians said was "soldier of fortune") were hanged. O’Neill was also sentenced to death, but was reprieved by the Parliamentarian commander Edmund Ludlow and imprisoned instead in London.

Over 2000 English Parliamentary soldiers died at Limerick, mostly from disease. Among them was Henry Ireton, who died a month after the fall of the city. About 700 of the Irish garrison died and an unknown, but probably far greater number of civilians.

The Williamite Sieges 1690-91

Forty years later, after the battle of the Boyne, the Irish Jacobites found themselves in the same position as the Confederates of a generation before – holding an enclave behind the river Shannon, based on the cities of Limerick and Galway. The main Jacobite army had retreated to Limerick after their defeat at the Boyne. Some of their senior commanders, in particular Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, wanted to surrender to the Williamites while they could still get good terms of surrender, but they were over-ruled by Irish officers such as Patrick Sarsfield, who wanted to fight on. The Jacobite’s French commander, Lauzun, also wanted to surrender, expressing his dismay at the state of Limerick’s fortifications, saying that they could be "knocked down by roasted apples". There were 14,500 Jacobite troops in Limerick and another 2500 cavalry in Clare under Sarsfield. Moreover their morale was high, due to the circulation of an ancient Irish prophecy that the Irish would win a great victory over the English outside Limerick and drive them out of Ireland. This may seem bizaare, but such prophecies were an important part of Irish popular culture at the time. Williamites mocked such superstition in songs such as Lillibullero.

William of Orange and his army reached Limerick on August 7, 1690, with 25,000 men and occupied Ireton’s fort and Cromwell’s fort outside the city. However he had with him only his field artillery, as his siege cannon were still making their way from Dublin with a light escort. This siege train was intercepted by Sarsfield’s cavalry at Ballyneety in Tipperary, and destroyed –along with the Williamite’s siege guns and ammunition. This meant that William had to wait another 10 days before he could start bombarding Limerick in earnest, while another siege train was brought up from Waterford. By this time it was late August. Winter was approaching and William wanted to finish the war in Ireland so he could return to the Netherlands and get on with the main business of the War of the Grand Alliance against the French. For this reason, he decided on an all out assault on Limerick.

His siege guns blasted a breach in the walls of Irish town and William launched his assault on the 27th of August. The breach was stormed by Danish grenadiers but the Jacobite’s French officer Boisseleau had built an earthwork or "counterscarp" inside the walls and had erected barricades in the streets, impeding the attackers. The Danish grenadiers, and the eight regiments who followed them into the breach, suffered terribly from musketry and cannon fire at point blank range. Jacobite soldiers without arms and the civilian population (including, famously, the women) lined the walls and threw stones and bottles at the attackers. A regiment of Jacobite dragoons also made a sortie and attacked the Williamites in the breach from the outside. After three and a half hours of fighting, William finally called off the assault. His men had suffered about 3000 casualties, including many of their best Dutch, Danish, German and Huguenot troops. The Jacobites lost only 400 men. Due to the worsening weather, William called off the siege and put his troops into winter quarters, where another 2000 of them died of disease. William himself left Ireland shortly afterwards.

Limerick was besieged for the final time in August-October 1691. By this time, the military situation had changed utterly. The main Jacobite army was smashed at the battle of Aughrim in July 1691, losing 4000 men killed, including their commander St Ruth and thousands more taken prisoner and deserted. Galway had surrendered in July 1691. The Jacobite survivors retreated to Limerick, but in contrast to the previous year, their morale was very low and they were ready to surrender. On the other hand, the defences of Limerick had been considerably strengthened since 1690. The Williamite general Ginkel surrounded the city and bombarded it, tearing a breach in the walls of English town. A surprise Williamite attack drove the Irish defenders from the earthworks defending Thomond bridge, sending its Irish dfenders reeling back towards Limerick. The French defenders of the main gate of the city refused to open it for the fleeing Irish and about 800 of them were cut down or drowned in the river Shannon. After this point, Patrick Sarsfield ousted the French commanders in Limerick and began negotiations to surrender. He and Ginkel concluded a treaty that promised to; respect the civilian population of Limerick, tolerate the Catholic religion in Ireland, guarantee against the confiscation of Catholic owned land and to allow Sarsfield and the Jacobite army to be transported to France. Limerick surrendered under these terms in October 1691. Sarsfield left Ireland with 10,000 soldiers and 4000 women and children to enter the French service. However, the terms of the treaty were subsequently rejected in the Protestant dominated Irish Parliament.

Sources

Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War, Cork 2001
James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland, New York 1999.
Piers Waudchope, Patrick Sarsfield and the Williamite War, Dublin 1992.
J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, London 1969.