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Updated: June 17, 2025
The Duke of Berwick lay with a strong detachment of Irish troops before Enniskillen. He had already gained some advantage over the Protestant colonists, and the command reached him from Dublin that he was immediately to attack them. The Irish were five thousand in number; the Enniskilleners under three thousand. An engagement took place at Newton Butler.
He well knew that the Enniskilleners took no prisoners, but killed all who fell into their hands, and he determined to show no signs of returning consciousness. Presently, he heard the sound of a party of horsemen returning, and by the exclamations of disappointment which greeted the news they gave, he learned that some, at least, of his men had made their escape.
In that event we must only remember how sorry George Stephenson was for the cow. The military traditions of the Protestant North are not very alarming. The contribution of the Enniskilleners to the Battle of the Boyne appears to have consisted in running away with great energy and discretion. Nor did they, or their associates, in later years shed any great lustre even on Imperial arms.
As soon, however, as the king reached firm ground, taking his sword in his left hand for his right arm was still stiff with a wound and the bandage round it he led his men to the spot where the fight was the hottest. The Irish horse retired, fighting obstinately. In the midst of the tumult of pistols flashing and swords cutting in all directions, William rode up to the gallant Enniskilleners.
Even by this conveyance letters did not travel very expeditiously: for the couriers went on foot; and, from fear probably of the Enniskilleners, took a circuitous route from military post to military post, May passed away: June arrived; and still Londonderry held out. There had been many sallies and skirmishes with various success: but, on the whole, the advantage had been with the garrison.
The Enniskilleners had never ceased to wage a vigorous partisan war against the native population. Early in May they marched to encounter a large body of troops from Connaught, who had made an inroad into Donegal. The Irish were speedily routed, and fled to Sligo with the loss of a hundred and twenty men killed and sixty taken.
The Enniskilleners were a body of irregular horsemen, of singularly wild and uncouth appearance. They rode together in a confused body, each man being attended by a mounted servant, bearing his baggage. The horsemen were each mounted and accoutred after their own fashion, without any regular dress, or arms, or mode of attack.
"Sure your honour's the one to get out of a scrape and you little more than a boy." "And what are you doing here?" Walter asked, in return. "This seems a wild place to live in." "It's just that," the man said. "We belonged to Kilbally. The Enniskilleners came that way, and burned it to the ground. They murdered my wife and many another one. I was away cutting peat with my wife's brother here.
He had been told by all, except the Duke of Schomberg, that the resistance of the Irish would be contemptible, and the most forward of those who had scoffed at the courage of the Irish had been the Enniskilleners, who had themselves, on the day of battle, shown so unmistakably the white feather.
The Enniskilleners did not await the attack within their fortress. At Lisnaskea, under Berry, they repulsed the advanced guard of the Jacobites under Anthony Hamilton; and the same day the day of the relief of Derry their whole force were brought into action with Mountcashel's at Newtown-Butler. To the cry of "No Popery," Wolseley led them into an action, the most considerable yet fought.
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