The last conventional battle in Irish history was fought on Sunday July 12 1691 at Aughrim, Co Galway. It was by far the bloodiest. In less than 8 hours approximately 8,000 men were killed. Six thousand of them were Irish Jacobites.
Earlier that day the 20,000-strong Irish Jacobite army under the command of French Lt General Marquis de Saint-Ruhe, occupied a two mile defensive position stretching along a ridge from Aughrim village. Attacking from the Ballinasloe side, over waterlogged fields, was a similar sized, but better equipped army, commanded for King William of Orange, by the Dutch General Godert de Ginkel. His army had fought successfully at the Boyne, and crossed the Shannon, despite fierce resistance at Athlone; and were determined to end the war quickly before the rumoured French reinforcements would arrive.
At the crisis of the battle, late that Sunday evening, immediately following the dramatic death of Saint-Ruhe, the Scottish cavalry general Hugh Mackey managed to lead his men along a narrow causeway around the bog, and charged into the Irish Jacobite army’s left with such force that it reeled and broke up before them. A full scale slaughter followed. Prisoners were killed ‘in cold blood’; and through the night fleeing Jacobites were hunted down and put to the sword.
How was Mackey able to emerge from the causeway when it was guarded by Henry Luttrell in command of four regiments of dragoons easily sufficient to stop an emerging intruder and drive him back. But inexplicably, instead of confrontation, Luttrell turned his horse and led his men off the field.
When the remnants of the army regrouped in Limerick, Luttrell was suspected of treachery. But he argued that he was so heavily outnumbered he had little option but to retreat.
However, later that summer, when Limerick was under siege, a Williamite soldier was allowed access the Irish Jacobite command to treat for prisoners. He was searched. A letter for Luttrell was found in his pocket. Luttrell was immediately placed under arrest, and imprisoned in St John’s Castle.
On hearing of his arrest Ginkel let it be known that if any Jacobite was executed for attempting to change sides he would take revenge on the Irish.
‘A nod to his treachery’
Events, however, quickly outpaced Luttrell’s fate. Sarsfield, now the de facto commander of Limerick and of what remained of the Jacobite army (King James’ deputy Tyrconnell had collapsed and died of heart failure ), negotiated a peace treaty with Ginkel, and was preparing to lead his army into exile. Luttrell was released and was granted a pension by King William of £500 per annum, ostensibly for bringing his cavalry over to the Williamite side, but no doubt as a nod to his treachery at Aughrim. He was also made a major general in the Dutch army.
Furthermore he was awarded his family estate at Luttrellstown, near Dublin, which had been confiscated from his elder brother Simon who had refused to abandon the cause of King James. On Simon’s death in France, seven years after Aughrim, Luttrell refused to pay Simon’s widow her entitlement to the rents on the estate; and persuaded the tenants to pay their rents to him. However, she successfully recovered her rents and jointure.
‘No less detested’
Luttrell remained the subject of much controversy, fuelled no doubt by his reputation as a traitor, and a man of loose morals. As a younger man he spent some time at the French court with Simon, where he gained a reputation as an attractive but dangerous man, and was accused of the death of Lord Permbroke in a duel.
Luttrell had married Elizabeth Jones from Wales and they had two sons. ‘Yet his appearance in the streets of Dublin always occasioned ugly scenes. Street ballads mocked him, as they did his numerous mistresses and illegitimate children.’ *
On the night of October 22 1719 Luttrell was being carried home in his sedan chair. Just outside his house at Stafford Street a man stepped out of the shadows and shot him. He died the next day. Some say the assassin cried: ‘Death to the traitor of Aughrim’, but he could have equally been a jealous husband or a debtor, or a disgruntled relation.
A very generous reward of £1,000 was offered for discovering the perpetrator. No-one was ever found.
His notoriety even survived his death. In 1797 his skull was taken out of his tomb and smashed with a pick-axe by a labourer called Carthy, who was later hanged for his part in a plot to assassinate Luttrell’s grandson Lord Carhampton ‘a character no less detested in the 1790s than his grandfather had been.’
Next week: The aftermath of the battle.
NOTES: * I am obliged to the wonderful sleuthing of documents by Éamonn Ó Ciardha, published in the Dictionary of Irish Biography 2009.
Also recommended 1691 - A Novel by Joe Joyce now available at €15.
