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Overview
The Protestant war cry of 'No Surrender!' was first used in 1689 by the Mayor of Londonderry as James II's army laid siege to the city for 105 days, during which half the city's population died. There were many acts of courage, from the heroic death of Captain Browning to the anonymous, apprentice boys who played signal roles in the defence of the city. The book examines how the Jacobites might have achieved success, and the far reaching impact of the siege as a crucial event in the second British civil war. This is a military study of one of the most iconic episodes in Irish history, based on contemporary accounts, official records of the day, and published works on the siege. With an understanding of seventeenth-century warfare, especially siegecraft, the author probes many of the myths that have grown up around the siege and sets it in its proper context. Its ramifications for the consequent history of Ireland cannot be over emphasised.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750980630 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/14/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 11 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Siege of Derry 1689: The Military History
By Richard Doherty
The History Press
Copyright © 2010 Richard DohertyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-8063-0
CHAPTER 1
An Island City and Three Kings
The Oxford Dictionary defines a siege as a '(Period of) surrounding and blockading of fortified place' with the derivation of the word being attributed to the French sege or seat. It is in the nature of siege warfare that both sides spend much time sitting around and thus the entirely appropriate use of the word sege. Siege warfare has a long history, dating back to the first occasion on which people took refuge behind some form of fortification, and it continues even into our own times. During the twentieth century the trench warfare of the Great War was siege warfare in linear form and it required the development of siege-breaking techniques to bring it to an end. The Second World War also had sieges: the siege of Leningrad was the longest in modern history while another Russian city, Stalingrad, was also besieged, with the occupying Sixth German Army surrounded by Soviet forces. For the British forces, perhaps the most famous siege was at Tobruk in Libya, although the entire United Kingdom could be said to have been under siege for much of the war, while the siege of Malta led to the award of the George Cross to the island and its people. Over a decade later the French army suffered the siege of Dien Bien Phu in IndoChina, now Vietnam, while US forces were later also besieged in that country. Irish troops on United Nations duty came under siege in the Congo, at Jadotville, in 1961. Thus sieges, great or small – but usually small – have continued to be part of our history and the word has also come to describe a situation in which criminals or small groups of terrorists hold out against the police or the armed forces. Examples of the latter include the siege of Sidney Street in London in 1911 and, much more recently, the Balcombe Street and Iranian Embassy sieges, also in London.
The evolution of warfare has brought with it a further evolution in the conduct of sieges, from both sides of the fortifications. While the conduct of a siege several centuries after the demise of the Roman Empire might still have been familiar to a Roman general, the introduction of gunpowder seemed to herald the end of siege warfare but, instead, brought only an adaptation of that warfare. By the late-seventeenth century a system of 'siegecraft' had been developed with its own rules and protocols – one might almost say 'etiquette' – and European armies were familiar with the rules for the conduct of a siege and the equipment and manpower needed to lay siege to a fortified town or city. Those fortifications had also changed, the tall thin walls and towers of earlier times giving way to squatter, stouter walls with bastions that allowed enfilading fire on the attackers.
Those rules of 'siegecraft' had developed their own, military, definition of a siege, which would not coincide entirely with that laid down by the Oxford Dictionary. The surrounding of a fortified place, for example, required an army capable of reducing that fortified place, be it town, city or fortress, and this included sufficient artillery to create a breach in the defences, or walls, through which an initial attacking force of about twenty volunteer infantrymen – a 'forlorn hope' – could fight its way to achieve entry for even more infantry. In terms of manpower, Napoleon believed that a besieging force had to be four times the size of the invested force to ensure success; in the seventeenth century, Vauban had advised that the besieging force had to outnumber the garrison by ten to one, with a minimum manpower of 20,000 if lines of circumvallation and contravallation were to be built. As well as artillery, engineers were also needed; their task was to provide gun platforms, or batteries, for the artillery, construct protection for those batteries, and develop other means of creating a breach, by use of mines under the defences and the digging of saps, which were tunnels or trenches, to allow access to where those mines were to be placed. Engineers were also responsible for the equipment needed to scale walls or cross defensive ditches; these included ladders and fascines, bundled branches with which to create a causeway over the ditches. Those engineers who planted mines needed to be expert in explosives. Their very risky profession had prompted Shakespeare to put the phrase 'for 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petar' into Hamlet's mouth. The petar, or petard, was a mine placed under the fortifications, the premature detonation of which would see the miner, or engineer, blown up or 'hoist'.
Judged even by this very basic outline of siegecraft, what happened between April and August 1689, over a period of 105 days, at Londonderry does not appear to justify the term 'siege'. But, by the Oxford Dictionary definition, there was a siege, since the city was surrounded and blockaded during that time. Irrespective of these definitions, there is no doubt that there was considerable military activity at Londonderry during those months. Furthermore, the lack of artillery and engineering stores does not mean that the attacking army did not intend to besiege the city but rather that it lacked the wherewithal to do so effectively. The reasons for that will be discussed in a later chapter. Nor is there any doubt that considerable importance was placed on the city by both sides, nor that the echoes of those days over three centuries ago may still be heard today. So, let us examine those 105 days to see if we can define the truth of what occurred.
In the spring of 1689 the Protestant, or Williamite, population of Ireland considered itself to be facing dire threat. Most of Ireland was under Jacobite, largely Catholic, control, and Ulster and north-east Connaught were about to be attacked by Jacobite forces. Before long, the Williamite forces would be drawing back to Sligo, in Connaught, and Enniskillen and Londonderry, in Ulster, as they waited for relieving troops to arrive from Britain. Although Sligo would change hands, neither Enniskillen nor Londonderry were to fall to the Jacobites and it was their failure to take the latter that prevented the Jacobites pursuing the strategy of using the city as a stepping-off point to cross to Scotland, link up with Jacobite forces there and march south into England to restore James II to his kingdoms. Had that happened, the course of Irish, British and European history might have been very different. The Jacobite failure to take the city was a pivotal point in this second British civil war of the seventeenth century. But why was Londonderry important? That is the central question that this study of the siege will try to answer.
The seventeenth-century city of Londonderry sat on a site with a history that already stretched back more than a millennium. Although the popular belief is that the city was founded by a Donegal monk, Colmcille, and named Doire Cholmcille in his honour, the origins of the settlement predate his era and it is quite possible that Colmcille never visited the place. There was an even older tradition that named the settlement as Doire Calgach and this tradition seems to date back to the first century AD. Calgach, it is believed, was a Celtic warrior and may even be the Galgacus mentioned by Tacitus as leading the Celts against Agricola's Romans at the battle of Mons Graupius, in modern-day Scotland, in AD 89; this was the belief of Dr John Keys O'Doherty, Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry from 1889 to 1907, who was an antiquarian writer. As was so often the case, it may well be that the Christian church replaced the name of Calgach, which means 'sharp' or 'fierce', with that of Colmcille, the 'dove of the church', to rename the little settlement that sat on an island in the river Foyle.
As far as the name Doire is concerned, the received wisdom is that it means an oak grove. However, the word can also mean a small hill, as evidenced by the many small hills throughout Ireland that include the anglicized 'Derry' in their names; more than a thousand townland names include 'derry'. In the case of Doire Calgach, or Doire Cholmcille, this alternative translation as a small hill is more logical than oak grove, since it conveys the sense of an island rising from the waters of the river. Brian Lacy notes that the word frequently indicated an island that was totally or partly surrounded by peat bog and this would apply especially to Doire Calgach or Doire Cholmcille. The Foyle once flowed around the island of Doire thereby making that feature of high and dry ground an attractive location for settlers who sought some degree of security, which the river would have provided. Even when the Foyle's westerly branch silted up, it reduced the surrounding ground to marsh or bog – and hence the term 'bogside' – which continued to provide some security from the west. In the late-seventeenth century, at the time of the siege, the marshy ground to the west was still a major obstacle to the besieging Jacobite army. One of the best descriptions of the city's location is provided by Avril Thomas:
The site is visually striking – a clearly defined, oval-shaped hill of about 80 hectares in area and almost 40 m in height, with slopes that are steep at its broader northern end and more gradual as it narrows to the south in a wedge-like form. It is bounded on the east by the broad, deep and fast-flowing River Foyle, which is tidal at this point, and on the west by a former course of this river. Beyond these the ground rises to over 70 m rapidly on the east and less so on the west.
The Foyle is formed at Strabane by the confluence of the Mourne and Finn rivers whence it wends its way northwards to flow into Lough Foyle at Culmore, some eighteen miles to the north-east as the crow flies but a few miles longer by boat due to the river's meanderings. Just south of the city the Foyle turns more sharply north-eastwards at the beginning of an arc around the one-time island before turning almost directly north whence it flows into Ross's Bay. From there the river enters a narrow section, some two miles in length, across which the Jacobite army sited its boom in 1689, before flowing into the lough. From Culmore Point to the city's quay in 1689 was a distance of a little more than four miles. Lough Foyle lies between County Londonderry, which forms its southern and eastern shores, and Inishowen in County Donegal, which forms its western shore. Strictly speaking, in 1689 all the waters of the lough were considered to be in County Londonderry, the western boundary of which was along the high-water mark on the Inishowen shore. From Culmore to the mouth of the lough is over eighteen miles, while the maximum distance across the lough is some ten and a half miles. The mouth of the lough, from Magilligan Point in County Londonderry to Greencastle in Inishowen, is about a mile in width.
We do not know when the settlement at Doire began to attain importance. It was a monastic settlement, with the first monastery, known as the Dub Regles, or Black Church, in the area of the present Saint Augustine's church inside the city walls, but the base of local military and political power was then at the settlement on Grianan hill, with its circular drystone fort, or cashel, which was the seat of the northern Uí Néill, some five miles to the north-west in the modern County Donegal and overlooking the neck of the Inishowen peninsula. This ancient fortification, in ruins by the seventeenth century, was to oversee part of the stage on which the drama that was the siege was played out.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, determined efforts were made to bring the province of Ulster under English control, and by the end of that long reign this had largely been achieved. Part of the process of subduing the Ulster clans had been to build a military base at Doire, in 1566, 'to check the increasing boldness of' Hugh O'Neill. This was seen as a sound operational centre, with a good strategic location, and the new military establishment, under Edward Randolph, included a hospital. Randolph, who bore the title 'commander of the forces, and provost marshal of and within the province of Ulster', commanded a force of seven companies of foot and a troop of horse, about a thousand infantrymen and fifty cavalry, and made his camp on the monastery site, expelling the occupants. Defence works were built of earth, the first Derry walls, and the nearby Tempull Mór, the great church or cathedral – from which the modern parish of Templemore takes its name – was taken over to store the force's gunpowder, ammunition and provisions. Following a victory against the O'Neills some five miles from the city, the garrison appeared to be well established.
However, Randolph was killed in another action against the O'Neills in November 1566 and was buried in Derry; he was succeeded as commander by Colonel Edward St Low. Although plagued by illness, which reduced its numbers, the garrison continued mounting expeditions against the local clans until its strength fell to such a point that a proposal was made that it should leave Derry and move to the area of Strangford lough. Before this plan could be executed, however, a fire broke out in the camp and spread to engulf all the buildings. Tongues of flame leapt to the great church which held the powder and 'the church and town (such as it was) were blown up, the provisions were destroyed, and many lives lost; in consequence of which the place was considered untenable'. The garrison was evacuated, the infantry sailing from the Foyle for Dublin and the cavalry travelling across country through Tyrconnell and Connaught. But the lesson of the value of a military base at Doire had not been lost.
It was not long before a further expedition arrived at Doire. A new base was established which was intended to be permanent and it is to this establishment that the modern city owes its origins. At the time of the plantation of Ulster, in the reign of King James I, settlers were brought into the area and the new town of Doire, anglicized to Derry, or Derrie, was surrounded by a defensive wall. Before long, in 1604, the town became a city when James awarded it a royal charter; thus it was the first city in the province of Ulster. Life was never secure for the people of the plantation who, it was said, lived with one hand on the plough handle and the other on the sword. And so it proved in May 1608 when Sir Cahir O'Doherty, lord of Inishowen, led his clansmen against the garrison and people of Derry and sacked the town. Having slaughtered the garrison of Culmore fort, Sir Cahir and his men 'hastened to Derry on the same night, surprised the garrison, slaughtered Paulett [the governor of the city], with his Lieutenant, Cosbie, and put every man to the sword; plundered the town and reduced it to ashes'. Sir Cahir was hunted down into Donegal where he lost his life in battle at Kilmacrenan. His pickled head was taken to Dublin to be displayed on a spike as a lesson to any who might be inclined to follow his example.
This time the settlement was not abandoned. It had been recognized as an important military base, pivotal to the control of north-west Ulster, and O'Doherty's rebellion emphasized that value. Sitting on what was still almost an island, Derry separated the major clans of the region – the O'Cahans, or O'Kanes, to the east of the Foyle in what had been the county of Coleraine, their neighbours in Tyrone, the O'Neills, and the O'Donnells to the west in Tyrconnell, with their allies, the O'Dohertys of Inishowen. And so it was decided that the city would be rebuilt but with much better defences than hitherto. The help of the City of London Guilds, or companies, was sought to provide investment capital for the project. Most of the guilds made contributions, albeit unwillingly in many cases, and a special investment body was created to oversee the work; this was to become the Honourable The Irish Society.
To mark the role played by the London companies a new charter was granted to the city, combining the ancient name of the settlement with the name of London: London-Derrie. Paradoxically, in the light of recent clamour by republicans and nationalists to change the name of Londonderry to Derry, the London prefix has a Celtic origin, and derives from two words meaning the 'fort of the ships'. The equivalent Gaelic words – dun, or fort, and long, or ship, are recognizable and, to add to the paradox, some five miles south of the city, beside the Foyle in County Tyrone, is the townland of Dunalong, 'dún na long', the 'fort of the ships', where, it is believed, Norse raiders came ashore from their longships and set up camp, giving the locality its name. A new coat of arms was granted to the new city; as with the name, this combined the arms of Derry with those of London, although an Irish harp was added to the cross of St George on the latter.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Siege of Derry 1689: The Military History by Richard Doherty. Copyright © 2010 Richard Doherty. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
By the same author,List of Maps,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
An Island City and Three Kings,
The Closing of the Gates,
Disaster in Ulster,
No Surrender!,
Guarding Derry's Walls,
Give Signal to The Fight,
Expectation in The Air,
Knocking on the Gates of Derry,
Bombs and Great Bombs,
The Mountjoy Knew Her Own Way Home,
The Fruits of Victory?,
Epilogue,
Appendix One,
Appendix Two,
Appendix Three,
Appendix Four,
Appendix Five,
Appendix Six,
Appendix Seven,
Bibliography,