Battle of Scarrifholis

The Ulster Army was raised by the Irish Confederate Catholics in 1642 to organise the insurgent forces who were operating there since the rebellion of the previous year. Up to 1649, it was commanded by Owen Roe O'Neill, a professional soldier who had served in the Spanish army in Flanders. However, O'Neill died in late 1649 and was replaced by Bishop Heber MacMahon of Clogher. MacMahon had no real military experience, but was elected by the Ulster officers to avoid political infighting among themselves. The army was split between those who supported the Confederate's treaty with the English Royalists, mainly pre-war land-owners such as Phelim O'Neill and the army's professional officers and the Catholic clergy, who did not support a deal with the Royalists that did not guarantee the public exercise of the Catholic religion and the return of confiscated lands to Catholic landowners. In 1648, Owen Roe O'Neill had left the Confederation and briefly fought against the other Confederate armies over the treaty with the Royalists. He had even negotiated with the English Parliamentarian forces in Ulster to try to secure a better deal for Catholic interests. He only re-joined the Confederation after the invasion of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell in August 1649, when it was clear that the English Parliament was the most dangerous enemy faced by Irish Catholics. The local Protestant population fled to the fortified towns in the area, as the war in Ulster had, from its outset, been characterised by indiscriminate atrocities committed against civilians by both sides.

On the other side, the English and Scottish Protestant forces in Ulster had also been split by the events of the English Civil War. Up to 1649, the Protestants were led by the Scottish Covenanters, based in Carrickfergus and a British settler army based around Derry. However, in 1649, following the execution of Charles I by the English Parliament, the Protestants split into Royalist and Parliamentary factions. Most of the English settlers like Charles Coote sided with the Parliament (primarily because they disliked the Royalist's conciliatory attitude to Irish Catholics) and they took control of Derry. They were joined by a Parliamentary army sent to Ulster by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, commanded by Robert Venables and Theophilus Jones. The Covenanters, on the other hand, sided with the Royalists. In 1648, the Royalists in Ulster besieged Coote at Derry, but Coote held out. The following year, the Scots and Royalists in Ulster were routed by Venables at the battle of Lisnagarvey in Antrim. After this point, the Parliamentarians assumed command of the fight against the Confederate Ulster army.

Bishop MacMahon assembled the Ulster army in Loughgall in south Armagh, with 4,000 infantry and 600 cavalry. They were, however short of ammunition and over half of their men carried pikes rather than muskets (whereas the norm at the time was one pike for two muskets). He planned to march through the centre of Ulster and divide Coote's garrison at Derry - in the west of the province - from Venables' command at Carrickfergus in the east. With the Parliamentarian troops engaged by the activities of Irish guerrillas or "Tories", the Ulster army marched on Ballycastle on the northern coast of Ulster, deploying garrisons along the centre of the province. They then marched west, towards Coote's army located at Lifford, near Strabane, County Tyrone. He crossed the River Foyle not far below Lifford,[1] fending off an attack by the English cavalry. Coote withdrew northwards where he was joined by Parliamentarian reinforcements from eastern Ulster, sent by Venables, bringing his forces up to 3,000 men, compared to 4,000 Irish. However, the British force had more ammunition and more cavalry than their enemies. The Irish encamped on the Doonglebe/Tullygay Hill overlooking the pass of Scarrifholis on the River Swilly,[2][3][4] at Castle Sollus (tower house) two miles west of Letterkenny (at present-day Newmills on the R250). MacMahon's officers warned him not to leave their strong defensive position and risk battle, as the Parliamentary army was tactically superior to them. Rather, they should stay put and wait for the enemy to disperse when their supplies ran out, leaving the Irish free to march back to their stronghold along the border with Leinster.

MacMahon refused to listen to military advice and on the morning of 21 June 1650[5][6] ordered his troops down from their mountain camp to give battle to the Parliamentary army although much of his cavalry was engaged in domestic issues in Kilmacrennan.

MacMahon's inexperience was further exposed by how he drew up his troops for battle. He placed a small advance guard in front his army and positioned the rest of his troops in a huge solid mass, which meant that it would be very difficult to manoeuvre and very few units could actually engage the enemy, being stuck within the ranks of their own men. Coote, meanwhile, who had been fighting since 1641 and whose father had been a professional soldier, drew up his men in small flexible units – able to support one another and to move around on the battlefield.

The battle started when Coote sent an infantry detachment to meet the Irish advance party. The two sides exchanged musket volleys at close range and then fought hand to hand with pikes and musket butts. However, Coote steadily reinforced his infantry and eventually drove the Irishmen back into the front of their formation. Because of the deployment method MacMahon adopted, it hemmed in the front ranks of the Ulster army, who were trapped behind their own panicked skirmishers and the pursuing Parliamentarian infantry. Seeing his chance, Coote sent more infantry to attack the flanks of the Irish formation, trapping the whole force between his men and the mountain, the initial position of advantage they had descended from to engage Coote's troops.

The fate of the Ulster Army resembled that of the Roman army that Hannibal destroyed at Cannae in 216 BC. Although they outnumbered their enemies, they were pinned in a dense uncoordinated mass, unable to defend themselves against the troops who had surrounded them. Increasingly, they were a mob of terrified individuals rather than a disciplined military unit. They were also very short of ammunition, which meant that the Parliamentarians could pour volleys into this dense mass without effective reply, cutting down their quarry from a distance. At this point, all was lost, and their leaders and horsemen fled the battlefield, pursued by the Parliamentarian cavalry and by the local Protestant population – seeking revenge for massacres at the hands of the Irish in 1641–42. Nevertheless, the doomed Ulster infantry fought doggedly until they were slaughtered at Meenaroy, Stranabratog and Welchtown after fleeing southward over Cark Mountain into Cloghan. Two-thirds of the Irish dead were found on the battlefield itself rather than along the line of pursuit, which stands as stark testament to the determination of the Ulster troops knowing Coote's reputation as a merciless killer and a breaker of treaties.

• Bagwell, Richard (1909), Ireland under the Stuarts and under the Interregnum, 2, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. - 1642 to 1660
• Coffey, Diarmid (1914), O'Neill and Ormond - A Chapter of Irish History, Dublin: Maunsel & Company
• Murphy, Rev. Denis S.J. (1893), Cromwell in Ireland: a history of Cromwell's Irish campaign, Boston, Massachusetts: The Pilot Publishing Co.
• Ó Siochrú, Micheál (2008), God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the conquest of Ireland, London: Faber & Faber

• Philip McKeiver,"A New History of Cromwell's Irish Campaign", Manchester 2007, pages 18, 166–167 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fE4iAQAAIAAJ
• James Scott Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland, Dublin 1999 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sI5nAAAAMAAJ
• Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War, Cork 2000.