In my opinion, urgent action is required to save one of our
shared historical sites.
On Sunday 12th July 1691 (Old Style) a 20,000 strong Jacobite
army under to command of the Marquis de St Ruth occupied a
defensive position stretching over one and a half miles along
the ridge of Aughrim.
To the north-east across a marsh was a Williamite army of
comparable size.
By nightfall about 7,000 men lay dead or dying on or about
Aughrim Hill. The course of the battle as illustrated by Hayes-McCoy's
Irish Battles may be briefly described: A Willamite attack
on the left of the Jacobite position at Tristaun spearheaded
by Conyngham's dragoons, an Enniskillen unit, was beaten back.
An attack across the bog against the middle of the Jacobite
position was also driven back with heavy loss. Two foot regiments,
one of them an Enniskillen unit, Gustavus Hamilton's regiment,
screened Aughrim Castle 'amongst Showers of Bullets' and let
Williamite horsemen trickle across a narrow causeway. Meanwhile
a cannon shot took off St. Ruth's head and the Jacobite cavalry
at Luttrell's Pass melted away.
This third Willamite attack consolidated a bridgehead, and
the horsemen then veered south to their left and swept along
the ridge riding down the Irish foot soldiers. The heaviest
butchery of the day happened here; an Anglo-Irish chaplain
stepped over piles of Irish bodies to the summit of Aughrim
Hill from where the scattered corpses 'looked like a great
flock of sheep.'
Aughrim ended, at a blow, the Irish Catholic project of regaining
lost land and breaking away from the domination of Westminster
and determined the political order for the next two centuries.
Despite the lack of any institutional defender, the battle
landscape of two ridges facing each other across wet ground
anchored on the north by a nucleated village is, or was until
recently, recognisable at a glance. The all-important physical
context of the battle was intact in a way that is not true
of the Boyne where villages have been obliterated, river levels
changed, canals built and roadways altered.
Galway County Council's Aughrim Settlement Study of 2003
(which forms part of the 2003-2009 development plan) states
that around Aughrim, 'a radius of 500 metres has been selected
as an appropriate boundary for development'. The radius is
cut by the roads and proposed roads to the north and south.
That, in effect, writes off the northern third of the battle
site. But worse is to come. Runaway one-off housing development
has been proceeding apace along Aughrim Hill outside the council's
'radius' of development. I am an historian, not a cartographer,
but I can understand from a map the spreading dark areas of
development (dwellings and gardens) along the two 'boreens'
that run south through the middle and southern portions of
the Irish battle lines.
This is mostly very recent and raw development, though some,
notably the graveyard, is older. Indeed as I write, foundations
trenches and a pile of excavated top soil (no doubt if one
poked around one would find bones, musket balls, and other
debris) can be seen in one field right on what would have
once been the Irish front lines. An auctioneer is offering
another adjacent site for sale, presumably confident of planning
permission. Why wouldn't he be?
There is no protection whatsoever for this battle site.
Yes, you read this correctly.
The manager of Galway County Council was asked last June
by a large number of my fellow scholars and interested parties
to give protection to the site of the battle by immediately
varying the county development plan and declaring it to be
in an area of exceptional historical interest.
His response was that the plan could not be varied in mid-term.
At the present rate of destruction the site will be irreparably
damaged by the time of the next review. I have also more recently
appealed to the Minister for the Environment Dick Roche to
use his statutory powers to protect the site by ministerial
order and have got a holding reply.
If you are, like me, worried about this threat to our shared
historical heritage please write, e-mail, or otherwise lobby
the Minister: [email protected] is the e-mail address.
Dr. Padraig Lenihan,
University of Limerick
for Aughrim Trust
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