Talk:Battle of Aughrim

Untitled
Should this article not be put under Battles of Ireland, considering it happened in Ireland, rather than under Battles of England?

Its is the category of battles of the williamite war, which is a sub category of battles of Ireland.

On another subject, who is assessing these articles? This one has been awarded "start class" meaning "not useless" but still very poor. I find this difficult to understand as I think this article gives a pretty full account of the battle of Aughrim in the space provided, a summary of its strategic importance and is illustrated. What more does it need?

Jdorney 19:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I share your puzzlement. The treatment given to the battle is reasonably comprehensive, and considerably better than many others I have come across in these pages. Rcpaterson 02:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The Ruin of the Gaelic Nation
The defeat of the Jacobites at Aughrim was, very much, an Irish battle, in that it spelt the defeat of the Gaelic nation--one of the reasons why it was so fondly remembered by Orangemen. The events at Limerick were mere consequences of this defeat! With Sarsfield gone, and many of his remaining followers also exiled, the Gaelic society and Gaelic culture collapsed. The Irish language became the language of a downtrodden peasantry. The English Williamite victors introduced the Penal Laws--probably, with the exception of laws passed to persecute the Jews--the most savage body of repressive legislation enacted in Europe. Their objective was to reduce the Catholic Irish to abject misery. Indeed, the repeal of the last of the Penal Laws only occured when the Catholic Kerry barrister, Daniel O' Connell, took his seat in the English House of Commons in 1829.

I realize that Wikipedia cannot be responsible for what is written on other sites, but I would like to place on record that I have objected strongly to the concluding sentence on the BBC's History site Williamite Wars: Battle of Aughrim, which states "a century of peace ensued in Ireland" http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/aughrim.shtml. It ensued simply because the Native Irish were at the mercy of a system of viciously repressive legislation.

It is to Wikipedia's credit that an Irish poet is quoted in the main article here. The poet, himself guardian of a hereditary function, acted, amongst other things, as genealogist, cementing the Gaelic princely social structures. Yeats was to take two lines of one of the last, but one of the greatest Irish poets, Aogán Ó Rathaille, and express them in English: And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride His fathers served their fathers before Christ was crucified.(1)

From henceforth, the Irish poet would be a farm laborer, like the wild Eoin Ruadh Ó Súilleabhán, or to invoke another Yeatsian phrase, a beggar singing to beggars, like Antaine Ó Raifteirí (Yeats's Blind Raftery). O'Connell, himself, has been called "King of the Beggars." For the Catholic Irish were often less prosperous than beggars and it can be argued that the Penal Laws, although repealed, had given rise to social conditions that were one of the causes of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840's.

(1)Yeats, W. B. "The Curse of Cromwell" in The Poems, Revised. New York: Macmillan Publihing Company, 1989, p.304.--PeadarMaguidhir 19:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd like to object strongly to your usage of the phrase "Native Irish". Also, if the purpose of the Penal Laws was to "reduce the Catholic Irish to abject misery", why then did the laws affect Presbyterians (who spoke Gaelic) so badly - their marraiges were not recognised even at a time when sufferage in that sense was given to Roman Catholics.


 * The fact is that the battles in Ireland were part of a much larger European bid for supremacy by the Roman Catholic French king. The Penal Laws were introduced specifically to reduce the possibility of another uprising which might pave the way for a backdoor invasion by the French. Of course, the history and politics.. and the consequences.. were much more complex than that. --Mal 13:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that you are overstating your case. No one denies that there was oppressive legislation aimed at Protestants who were not members of the Established Church, the Church of England. That is one of the primary reasons why many Presbyterians emigrated to the American colonies, where, be it noted, they identified themselves as Scotch-Irish. But there can be no comparison between the legislation aimed at this group of Protestants and the Penal Laws, the objective of which was to reduce the Catholic Irish to such a state of misery that the process was effectively an effort at a long and agonizing genocide. (The Great Famine--even though it occurred after the repeal of these laws--was caused, to a large extent, by the effects of the Penal Laws on Catholic Irish society. Consequently, the process of genocide was almost successful.) I have no difficulty in agreeing that laws aimed at Presbyterians were unjust. But whereas (to quote your own example) Presbyterian marriages were not recognized, the very existence of Catholics was not recognized.

Also, we all agree that this battle can also be seen in a European context, with power struggles allied to religious issues, as was the case with so many European wars. (Great powers, since history was first recorded, liked to settle their differences, whenever possible, by battles on someone else's territory.) However what you describe as "a much larger European bid for supremacy by the Roman Catholic French king" is again overstating the case.

Finally, by the "Native Irish," I mean those who lived in Ireland prior to the Plantations, as well as their descendants. I believe that this is a precise term, rather than an offensive term.PeadarMaguidhir 14:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

12th July 2009
A prayer for them all, freind, family and foe. Fergananim (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Date issues
This article suffers from the same calendric inaccuracies as does Battle of the Boyne. See Talk:Battle of the Boyne for more commentary. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   03:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It was fought between the Jacobites and the forces of William III on 12 July 1691 (old style, equivalent to 23 July new style), ...
 * Simply NOT so. 12 July 1691 (os) was equivalent to 22 July (ns), because the difference in the calendars at that time was 10 days, not 11 days.  It did not increase to 11 days until March 1700.
 * Since it marked the end of the Irish Catholic Jacobite resistance, Aughrim was the focus of Loyalist (particularly Orange Order) celebrations in Ireland on 12 July up until the early 19th century. Thereafter, it was superseded by the Battle of the Boyne in commemorations on "the Twelfth" due to the switch to the Gregorian calendar (in which 1 July OS became 12 July NS and 12 July OS became 23 July NS).
 * Again, wrong. For events that occurred between 1582 and 1700, 1 July (os) became 11 July (ns), and 12 July (os) became 22 July (ns), because the calendars were only 10 days apart.  The statement as it stands is true only for events that occurred between March 1700 and March 1800, when the difference was 11 days. The Battle of Aughrim did not take place between 1700 and 1800, so this 11-day difference does not apply to it.


 * I don't know anything about the calendar calculations but the dating is fairly standard, eg Padraig Lenihan, The Battle of the Boyne, p258-259, "The 18th century anniverseries of the Boyne and Aughrim served as the focus of more plebian comemmorations that included bonfires and parading. In this context, the 'twelfth' was the most symbolically important battle comemmoration but it referred to Aughrim. Until Britain belatedly adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, 1 July was the anniversary of the Boyne and 12 July the anniversary of Aughrim."


 * Before modifying the articles in question we would need to see some more sources.
 * Jdorney (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Echo aforementioned
The points made above by J of O are correct. There are ten days difference. Once again, this is clear from the header of the letters written by Godard van R (the commanding officer of W & M's forces at land & sea in Ireland) to his father. There were ten days difference in the New Style and Old Style calanders. Events in continental western Europe are usually reported in English language histories as happening under the Gregorian calendar. For example the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However confusion occurs when an event affects both. For example William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar, or Old Style, OS), after setting sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar, or New Style, NS). In addition to the modification of mean length of the calendar year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days, the Gregorian calendar was required to deal with the fact that the error due to the difference between these lengths (10.8 minutes) had been accumulating steadily. Due mostly to this discrepancy, between AD 325 (when the Roman Catholic Church thought the First Council of Nicaea had fixed the vernal equinox on 21 March), and the time of Gregory's edict in 1582, the vernal equinox had moved backward in the calendar, until it was occurring on about 11 March, 10 days early. The Gregorian calendar therefore began by dropping 10 calendar days, to synchronise the calendar and seasons again. This has been mentioned above by other commentators in the past, so it is indeed odd to notice that it was switched back once more by s.o. to 11 days... someone who decided not to leave a post explaining their preference for opting to believe this(for themselves) but also one who makes attempts to convince others of their delusion -- the 'real' attempt of which is to misplace the date in the Julian calendar, or Old Style OS, upon which the skirmish along the Boyne river took place, onto the date which is properly associated with the all-deciding Battle of Aughrim. Barentsz (talk) 10:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Which Scots
Which areas/clans would the Scots (mentioned in article) who participated in the Williamite side have been of? Linking the term with more details on that would be great - was this formal participation by areas/regiments/clans, as written without extra detail it brings to mind a "national" participation which would be a modernism. Was this just individual highlander/lowlander mercinary participation, were they in a regiment organized by nationality or just merged into other? Maybe I've got to do some more digging on that, but again would be nice if that was linked. If I find an answer I will do that link. - CM

Map with the mentioned places, please
A suggestion: it would help if the article had a map showing showing not only the location of Aughrim but also of the main provinces, places, and rivers mentioned in the text. --Frans Fowler (talk) 04:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

M6
Unhelpfully, the paragraph about the M6 raises the spectre that the motorway plans would adversely affect the heritage value of the battlefield site, but fails to mention whether the plans were changed as a result, or what the final impact is considered to be. A further sentence is required. Deipnosophista (talk) 08:59, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Bloodiest Battle ? Compared with Towton ?
The article seems to give an upper estimate of 7000 killed. Yet the wikipedia page for the Battle of Towton gives a lowest estimate of 9000 killed. So how is Aughrim "possibly the bloodiest ever fought in the British Isles" or is there a chance we think that those ranges for those killed may be incorrect. 82.11.163.59 (talk) 18:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Towton is likely to be exaggerated, partly as the heralds often made their estimates by extrapolation from the numbers of nobles killed. Indeed one modern author (Sutherland) has suggested casualties at Towton were possibly in the c.3000 range, comparable to other battles in the Wars of the Roses.


 * While figures for Aughrim aren't very exact - the most exact we have is 4,638 dead counted next day by the Huguenot captain du Teny, though this explicitly did not include Jacobites cut down in the pursuit- it seems clear that the Jacobites in particular took unusually high casualties (although it's also apparent that large numbers simply deserted in the final rout). The reasons for this are noted in the article: Saint-Ruhe had chosen a deployment that obliged his army to stand and fight, rather than keeping open a withdrawal.Svejk74 (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * this is really interesting thanks Svejk74, I want to reread and think on your comments when I have more time (and read more on Towton maybe) - I guess when you say exaggerated though maybe thats what I wondered when I queried if the lower limits for fatality estimates (in the Towton page) were incorrect if there is a case for 3000 total. Maybe they need correcting but it'd be an issue for the Towton page though - thanks again 82.11.163.59 (talk) 09:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Belligerents
I see the 'flag salad' is starting to creep into this article too, but other than William (as King of England and, nominally, Ireland), James and the French, would anyone else actually count as belligerents? The Huguenots were all in foreign service, they weren't actually a 'belligerent'.Svejk74 (talk) 13:26, 11 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The Dutch contributed the 2 leading generals, 3 battalions and 17 squadrons to the battle. They played an important role in the battle which is not yet covered. They are absolutely a belligerent. DavidDijkgraaf (talk) 13:44, 11 May 2023 (UTC)