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CHAPTER XXVII.

IRETON'S CAMPAIGN THE SIEGE OF LIMERICK-TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF THE CITIZENS TREASON OF FENNEL, &c.

IRETON, having now made all provisions for an early campaign, and received some reinforcements from England, resolved to begin by besieging Limerick. Sir Charles Coote was directed to advance towards Sligo, in order to pierce into Connaught, that Limerick might be invested on all sides.1 The Irish were preparing to relieve the city, when Coote, drawing off his men, passed suddenly over the Curlew mountains, and invested Athlone. Clanrikarde was unable to make head against Coote, who took Athlone, and marched against Galway. The Earl of Castlehaven was called to the assistance of Galway, and he had marched but a few miles, at the head of four thousand men, when a party he had left to defend the pass over the Shannon, suffered themselves to be overpowered by the enemy, and fled precipitately-but we anticipate events.

O'Neil was now appointed Governor of Limerick, and he did his duty with a courage and true nobility of soul which brooked no compromise. Sir Geoffrey Galway, the son of him who had been persecuted in the days of Queen Elizabeth; Geoffry Barron, whom French calls an ornament to his country; Alderman Dominick Fanning, Alderman Thomas Stritch, Dr. Higgins, and many others of the citizens, held counsel within, and would listen to no overture that came from Ireton or his partizans. There was no one more prominent than Terence Albert O'Brien, Bishop of Emly, in preparing the citizens and soldiers for the storm, and in urging them to leave nothing undone to conquer Ireton and his merciless myrmidons. They were nobly seconded by the indomitable Dominick Fanning, the zealous Father Wolfe, who had prevented the city accepting Ormond's peace, by General Purcell, and others.

For some months past Ireton had been putting all things in readiness for his army; tents, arms, beds for the soldiers, cannon, ammunition of every sort, were sent up the Shannon by him towards Limerick, by vessels provided for the service. Garrisons had already, since the previous March, been placed in the castles of Castle Connell and at Kilmallock, convenient outposts for strategetic purposes; other places were likewise invested or blockaded. The Parliamentary army was ordered to rendevouz at Cashel, from whence Ireton marched by way of Nenagh, down by the Silver Mines, and across the roads to that part of the Shannon which flows opposite Killaloe. The Earl of Castlehaven, who had been before this time appointed, by Ormond, commander-in-chief of the province of Munster and the county of Clare, now held that office for the whole kingdom, marched with what forces he could draw together, and encamped at Killaloe, to observe Ireton's movements. Ireton was thoroughly aware of the weakness of the confederate forces, feeling assured that they only kept up appearances till Cromwell and King Charles had decided their quarrel. He kept a guard on his side of the river, as Castlehaven did against him.3

⚫ Carte.

Ludlow's Memoirs and Castlehaven's Memoirs.

2 The Unkind Deserter.

The antagonist troops lay in that position together for some time; Castlehaven had 2000 horse and foot disposed along the river, and defended by breastworks, which had been placed there to obstruct Ireton's passage into Connaught. Ormond, who had not yet sailed from Galway, wrote "post haste" to Castlehaven to proceed to him, because Stephen De Henin the abbot of St. Catherine was in the harbour, and in his company many officers, with a quantity of arms, ammunition, and other materials of war, which were sent by the Duke of Lorraine, to whom the city of Limerick was mortgaged, and assigned as a security for £20,000 supplied by him for the King's service. The Duke was to be constituted protector royal of the kingdom of Ireland, with power over all the Confederate forces and places, with that title and dominion, till the war was over and his damages satisfied-a regular agreement having been entered into for that purpose. On Castlehaven's almost immediate return, he found all quiet at Killaloe; treachery had done its work, the pass had been sold. He was not aware of how the dark deed had been done; but he received from Ireton, by a trumpeter, a letter which occupied four sides of paper, closely written in a small hand, the drift of which was to set forth "the. justness" of the Parliament's proceedings; their great power; how short a time he (Castlehaven) would subsist; what bad company he was in; abusing the King most heartily, and after several other sayings, offering Castlehaven, if he would retire and live in England, not only his personal safety and the enjoyment of his estate, but the esteem and favor of the Parliament. Castlehaven showed the letter to Father Peter Walsh, who appears to have been with him at the time; and by his advice, and by the same trumpeter, he answered every point, rejected the proposition, and desired that no more trumpeters should be sent with such errands.

Ireton, soon after this correspondence, by the treachery of Captain Kelly, made himself master of O'Brien's Bridge; and whilst Castlehaven was hastening to oppose him, Colonel Fennel, to whom the pass at Killaloe had been entrusted, treacherously deserted it, and fled into the city of Limerick with his soldiery-he had sold the pass. Just before this event, as if he had intended to divert the course of the river, Ireton had set the soldiers and pioneers at work to take the ground lower on his (Ireton's) side, that the water venting itself into the passage, the river might become fordable. This so alarmed the Confederate forces that the most of them were drawn out to oppose them. The ways were almost impassable from bogs and morasses, hither neither man nor horse could pass without peril, so that they were obliged to lay hurdles and great pieces of timber across, in order to bear the carriages, waggons, &c., of the Parliamentary forces, which they effected under pretence of making a passable road between their camp and Castle Connel, where, as we have seen, provisions had been already laid up for the

1 Charles II. in a letter addressed to the Duke from Paris, and dated Feb. 6th, 1652, thanks him for the supplies sent to the Irish, and promises to send persons to enter into a treaty with him for the promotion of the Catholic interests. In another letter addressed to Clanrickarde, and dated March 23rd, 1652, his Majesty says that he had sent the Earl of Norwich to Brussels, to treat with the Duke, the terms of whose articles with the Irish, he says, Clanrickarde had properly rejected. But he recommends the Irish Commissioners (Lord Taaffe, Sir Nicholas Plunket, and Jeoffry Baron) to the Marquis, and bids him use their advice and service as theretofore. Galway was joined with Limerick in this treaty. The submission to the Pope, suggested by the Bishop of Ferns and the Royal Protectorship, appears to have been the most objectionable condition in the articles in the eyes of Clanrickarde and the King. Clanrickarde had allowed the Duke to advance the £20,000 on the security of Limerick and Galway, leaving the article respecting the Protectorship to be settled at Brussels; but the deputation sent to Brussels, concluding a treaty, against which Clanrickarde protested, the negociation came to an end.

army. Ten days had elapsed before all things necessary had been accomplished; and at the end of that time, Colonel Reeves was commanded to bring three boats which he had, to a place appointed for that purpose by one o'clock in the morning. At the beginning of the night three regiments of foot, with one of horse, and four pieces of cannon, marched silently towards the place where the boats were ordered to lie, and arrived there an hour before day. They found but two boats waiting for them, which, however, served to carry over three files of musqueteers and six troopers, who, having unsaddled their horses, caused them to swim by the boat, and were safely landed on the other side. Two sentinels of the Confederate forces were in the castle, of whom one was killed, and the other made his escape.

Ireton's boats had transported about sixty foot and twenty horse before any opposition was given; but then some Confederate horse coming up skirmished with Ireton's; and in this action a young officer named Howe, who had accompanied General Ludlow, one of Ireton's chief officers, into Ireland, highly distinguished himself. About 1000 of the Confederate foot now advanced; Ireton's horse were ordered to retire; they obeyed with some hesitation; the rapid advance of the Confederates was arrested by the guns of the Parliamentarians, which had been placed on a hill on their side of the river, from which they fired so constantly and so vehemently, that the Confederates were forced to retreat under shelter of a rising ground; and not being able to regain what they had lost, to provide against further detriment by retreating more through the woods into their own quarters. Meantime the Parliamentarian ships, with all things necessary for a siege, had anchored in the river, and only awaited orders to proceed to the desperate enterprise in which they had engaged.

Sir Charles Coote, during these proceedings, was engaged in bloody deeds in Connaught, where he besieged Portumna house, the residence of the Earl of Clanrickarde, and whom as we have seen, the Earl of Ormond had constituted his deputy in that province. Ludlow, from whose memoirs we have drawn some of these details, in his progress from Connaught to Limerick, where his presence in aid of Ireton was essentially demanded, summoned Gurtenshegore, a castle near Gort, belonging to Sir Dermot O'Shaughnessy, who being at the time in Galway, had left his tenants, some soldiers, and Folliot, an Englishman, to command them, in the castle. Here Ludlow was treated, for a time, with utter contempt, the occupants of the castle sounding their bag-pipes in derision, although fire and faggot, iron bars, pickaxes and sledges threatened them. The defenders resisted bravely. A desperate engagement ensued, Folliot acting with determined pertinacity-and it was not until after severe fighting, the castle was surrendered. Ireton's army marched immediately to Limerick. Five hundred head of cattle that had been taken in Burren, Co. Clare, were driven on, and killed to refresh the army, to which Ludlow and his friends now returned, and which had already possessed themselves of a fort that stood in the middle of the river Shannon, on the great Lax weir, where the ruins of the castle are yet to be seen. small battery of two guns had been erected against the castle; one of them was fired into a room, and breaking the leg of a soldier, so terrified the others that betaking themselves to their boats, they abandoned the placewhich the Parliamentarians perceiving, fired so furiously on them, that all in the boats surrendered, notwithstanding which, some of them were put to the sword, by the merciless soldiery, whose hearts were steeled against humanity. They perpetrated a cold-blooded slaughter, which Ireton condemned, and

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demanded that the matter should be referred to a court martial. This was done, and Colonel Tuthill, who commanded, and his captain were cashiered. At length the besieging army reached the gates of Limerick, and sat down before the walls; but aware of the strength of the city, and satisfied that it was well nigh impregnable, Ireton did not trust to the chances of arms, but tried what could be done by further exercise of that treachery, which had compelled Fennel to abandon the pass of Killaloe, and Kelly that of O'Brien's bridge, acts of treachery which gave an easy march to the Parliamentarians within the very shadow of the old walls of Limerick.

From an entry in Dr. Thomas Arthur's diary, 23rd June, 1651,' it is apparent that the Parliamentarians in their attack on this occasion, made good their footing on the King's Island; he states that he professionally attended Dominick FitzDavid Rice, who nobly and strenuously defended the city on the occasion of this invasion of the island by the Parliamentarian army, Mr. Rice having received a severe wound, which demanded amputation of the lower part of the leg. He also saved the life of Doctor Credanus, who was struck by a shell, which lacerated his hands and tendons, and threatened gangrene. He gives the names of several who died of the pestilence which raged through the city, including in the list the names of many distinguished citizens.

An immediate summons sent in by Ireton for the surrender of the city, was promptly rejected, though at the time, famine and pestilence were doing their deadly work with a greater facility, than shot and shell did subsequently. At this eventful period Edmund O'Dwyer, Terence Albert O'Brien and all the good men and true of the time, were congregated within the plague-stricken walls, and with the aid of the Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul who were then in Limerick, caused the citizens to be firm. Again the summons was rejected.

Then came the question of a treaty-this was discussed; and six commissioners were appointed on each side, viz.: for cause of country and faith, Major-General Purcell, Mr. Stackpoole, the Recorder, Colonel Butler, Jeffrey Barron, who had been one of the supreme council, Mr. Baggot, and Alderman Fanning. The commissioners nominated by Ireton were, Major-General Waller, Colonel Cranwell, Major Smith, Adjudant-General Allen, and another.2

They all met in a tent between the city and Ireton's camp, where for several days, they dined together and treated of conditions. But having in the meantime got great expectations of relief, either by the successes of the king in Scotland, or by the cessation of feuds and discords among the confederates at home, who, if they joined in love, when their enemies joined in hate, would be far more able, more numerous and powerful than Ireton's army, insisted upon terms which Ireton's commissioners would not accede to. The result was the conference broke up without result, and preparations for the siege went on more vigorously than before. A fort, which Ireton had been preparing on one side of the city, and called to this day Ireton's fort, being almost finished, and materials being ready for building a bridge to be laid over the Shannon, to preserve the communication between the besieging forces on each side, a resolution was made by them, to reduce a castle which was occupied by the defenders beyond Thomond bridge. To effect this object, a battery was erected, and a breach having been made, Ireton

1 Arthur MSS. p. 78.

2 Ludlow does not give the name.

remembering the vigor of his troops in the action at Sir Dermot O'Shaughnessay's castle, desired that one man should be drawn out of each troop to be an example to the foot who were selected to storm. This was done. Armed with back, breast and head pieces, and furnished with hand grenades-a Mr. Hackett of the guards having been chosen to lead them on-they did not number more than twenty in all-the design succeeded beyond expectation-the men having thrown in their grenades, rushed up to the breach, entered with Hackett at their head, and were followed by those who were ordered to support them. Hackett was successful-the place was evacuated; and the confederate soldiers retired by the bridge into the city. The castle was then searched by Ireton; and four or five barrels of powder were found in a vault ready to be fired by a lighted match which had been left there to blow up the Parliamentarian soldiers. Ireton having so far succeeded, having rewarded Hackett and his men, came to the determination of possessing himself of the king's island, which then as now encompassed by the Abbey river, was a position likely to suit his present purposes, and quicken the result of the siege. Boats were prepared, floats sufficient to transport three hundred men at once were placed in readiness, and orders were given to drop down the river about midnight.

Three regiments of foot and one of horse were detailed for the service; the first three hundred, which were foot, and commanded by Colonel Walker, being landed on the island, rushed up to the breastwork of the defenders of Limerick, where they met an unexpectedly warm reception. Such was the valour with which they were repelled, that but two or three returned alive to Ireton's camp to tell the tale of ruin; the river was strewn with the carcases of the slain, who failed even to make good their footing. Then, the bridge having been finished, Ireton, with most part of the army, marched over to the other side of the river, where he marked out ground for three bodies of men to encamp separately, each to consist of about two thousand, giving orders for the fortification of the camp, assigning to each regiment its proportion and position, quartering the troops by brigades in the most convenient places he could, either to defend themselves, to relieve each other, or to annoy the forces opposed to them. The moment the great fort, on which were all the available men he had at his disposal, was finished, he drew off all his forces from that side of the river they had been, except a thousand foot and about three hundred horse, which he left on the island under the command of Sir Hardress Waller. Nor were the Confederates outside the

Sir Hardress Waller-"Waller of Castletown"-belonged to an ancient Kent family which bore the shield of the Duke of Orleans pendent from their family crest, in memory of their having made that French Prince of the blood prisoner at the battle of Agincourt. To this family Sir William Waller, the distinguished Parliamentary General, and Edmund Waller, the well known poet, belonged. George Waller, father of Sir Hardress, was its chief (as is now Mr. Waller of Castletown), and marrying a daughter of the ancient family of Hardress, who took the opposite side to him in the civil wars, and obtained a Baronetcy from Charles I. in 1642; he was father of Sir Hardress. This gallant soldier was employed at the taking of Bristol; and Cromwell says, in his dispatch to Speaker Lenthall, describing the successful assault on the nobly defended house of Basing, "Sir Hardress Waller, performing his duty with honor and diligence, was shot in the arm." He afterwards proceeded to Ireland, where he had long before acquired the Castletown estate by marriage with Elizabeth, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir John Dowdall, knight of Kilfenny. Here he was made Major-General of the Horse, and was M.P. for the County of Limerick; he also acquired large estates in the county by grant, which included Lickadoon Castle near Roxborough; but being one of the judges at the trial of Charles I. he was tried for it at the Restoration. He pleaded guilty, and had not only the gift of his life, but permission to reside with his family. But all his property was forfeited, and granted with that of the other regicides, to the Duke of York, from whom, when King James II., it was again taken at the Revolution, and sold in lots to the Hollow Sword Blade Company and other persons. Lady

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