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The Battle of the Yellow Ford (Irish: Béal an Átha Buidhe) was fought in southern Armagh, Ulster, in Ireland, near the river Blackwater in August 1598, during the Nine Years War (Ireland). It was fought between the Gaelic native Irish army under Aodh Mór Ó Néill and Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill and an English expeditionary force under Henry Bagenal. The English were attempting to march from Armagh town to relieve a fort on the Blackwater, but fell into a well prepared ambush and were routed with heavy losses.

The opposing sides

Bagenal, who was an English settler from Newry and O'Neill's brother-in-law, commanded 4000 English troops (many of whom were actually Irishmen), along with Irish auxiliaries and several pieces of artillery. O'Neill had the forces raised from the clans of O'Neill, ODonnell and their dependent clans. He also had a substantial number of mercenaries in his pay, many of them from the Highlands of Scotland. The English troops were armed with the standard weapons of the day, pikes and muskets for the infantry, swords and pistols for the cavalry. The Irish carried their traditional arms of swords, axes and javelins but also pikes and muskets, especially calivers, which were a lighter and more portable version of the standard musket. O'Neill had several English and Spanish military advisors in his pay, who trained his troops in the use of modern weaponry. Many Irish horsemen carried their spears over-arm, either thrusting or throwing them at close quarters in the traditional manner.

The battle

The country the English troops had to march over was hilly and wooded and interspersed with bogs, making it ideal for an ambush. O'Neill had also lined their line of march with obstacles such as breastworks across the road trenches which had been built purposely to slow down troops. The trenches were covered in thorns so horses couldn't pass. As soon as they left Armagh, the English were harassed with musket fire and thrown spears from Irish forces concealed in the woods. As a result the different English companies became separated from one another as they paused to deal with the hit and run attacks. This problem for the English was accentuated when one of their artillery pieces became stuck in the mud and part of the column got left behind trying to shift it.

At this point, Henry Bagenal was killed by a shot through the head, further demoralising his troops and to add to the chaos, the English gun-powder store exploded, apparently ignited accidentally by the fuse of a matchlock musket. Seeing their enemy in confusion, the Irish horsemen rushed the head of the column, followed by swordsmen on foot. The English troops in this part of the field (at the "yellow ford" from which the battle gets its name) were cut to pieces. Some sources say the Irish beheaded the wounded English survivors left on the field after the battle. The remnants of the English force had to turn back the way they had come and try to fight their way back to Armagh. They reached it, but were pursued all the way to the town by the Irish, who then surrounded it.

The English lost between 1500 and 2000 killed at the battle, including 18 "captains" or officers, with more wounded. Several hundred soldiers also deserted to the rebels. Either way, out of over 4000 English soldiers who had set out from Armagh, just over 2000 reached the town after the battle. Those who did reach Armagh were virtual prisoners inside. The cavalry broke out and dashed south escaping the Irish. After three days negotiations, it was agreed that the English troops could leave Armagh as long as they left their arms and ammunition behind them. The English were evacuated by sea from Newry to Dublin. O'Neill's force lost about 200 killed and 600 wounded in the battle. In the next two years, O'Neill managed to spread his rebellion all over Ireland, but was eventually defeated at the battle of Kinsale in 1601 and forced to surrender in 1603.

Sources

• G.A. Hayes McCoy, Irish Battles, Belfast 1990.

• John McCavitt, The Flight of the Earls, Dublin 2002.

See also

• Nine Years War (Ireland)
• Tudor re-conquest of Ireland
• Hugh O'Neill
• Hugh Roe O'Donnell
• Irish battles
• Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 31 July 2008, at 23:06.

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