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Updated: May 13, 2025
The French officers, eager to return home, made no attempt to stem the course of events; and, on the evening of the day after the battle on the Clare side, the drums of the besieged beat a parley, and Generals Sarsfield and Waughup went out and had a conference with Ginckle.
As the British poured regiment after regiment to the attack, Saint Ruth moved some bodies of horse and foot, from his left, to the support of his right wing. This movement had been foreseen by Ginckle, who now gave orders for several battalions of infantry to cross the bog, and attack the Irish centre.
He himself was by no means sanguine as to his position. The Irish army was still as numerous as the British, and they were not discouraged by their defeat at Aughrim, where they considered, and rightly, that victory had only been snatched from their grasp by an accident. Ginckle relied rather upon concession than force.
Ginckle pushed on his works with great vigour, and the duty in the trenches was so severe, that the cavalry were compelled to take their turn with the infantry; but, notwithstanding that the siege artillery was much more powerful than that which William had at his disposal, but little progress was made.
Their force outside the town gate was but a small one; it was certain that the English could not push across the bridge; and, as Ginckle had taken the best part of his army across, Sarsfield could have issued out with his whole force on the Limerick side, crushed the British force remaining there, and captured the camp and all its stores in which case Ginckle's position would have been desperate.
The destruction of the temporary bridge filled Ginckle and his officers with consternation, and the manner in which their design had been baffled showed the spirit of the defenders, and the magnitude of the task which they had undertaken. But it was resolved, at another council which was called, to attempt one more effort before abandoning the enterprise. A finished platform was constructed.
The Guards marched up to the critical spot, and in a body wheeled to the colors of France, barely seven men turning to the English side! Ginckle, we are told, was greatly agitated as he witnessed the proceeding. But the bulk of the Irish army defiled under fleur-de-lys of King Louis, only one thousand and forty-six, out of nearly fourteen thousand men, preferring the service of England."
The country people had fled, from the cruelty and spoliation of Ginckle's foreign soldiery, carrying with them all their effects; and the Irish light troops and armed peasantry hovered round the camp, laid the country waste, and intercepted their supplies and communications with Dublin. Ginckle held a council of war, to consider what was to be done.
Had Ginckle at once pushed forward, he would have captured almost the whole of the Irish officials and civilians on the Clare side of the river; but, fearing an ambuscade, he halted his troops before advancing to the Irish camp, and this gave time for most of them to escape.
The Irish were divided into two parties, one of which earnestly desired peace, if they could obtain fair terms, while the other insisted that the British could not be trusted to keep any terms they might make. Sarsfield was at the head of the war party, and succeeded, for the present, in preventing any arrangement. Ginckle advanced slowly, for he had to march through a waste and desolate country.
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