The Battle of the Boyne was the largest single battle fought in Ireland, and I recently had the opportunity to walk the site with the Military History Society of Ireland on a typically wet Irish summer day. The walk was led by Dr Harman Murtagh, the society President, who played a key role in the development of the Interpretative Centre and the site, and whose commentary added a lot to our enjoyment of the day.
We didn’t get to cover the entire field before rain intervened, but we covered the crucial area around the site of Oldbridge Village. Much of the battlefield came into public ownership when the state took over Oldbridge Estate. The house, almost derelict 15 years ago, now houses the interpretive centre. The house wasn’t designed for this, and the exhibits are tight, but make good use of the space. The walls have lots of full size uniform paintings, and the displays outline the plans, such as they were, of the opposing sides. The laser light show of the battle is impressive, and the short film at the end is presented in an excellent AV room.
Outside the house, the tea room looks out over a walled garden which has been reclaimed from the wild and should be interested when it is restored. There is a nice collection of replica artillery, including one peice which vividly illustrates the lack of elevating screws prior to the Gribeauval system. We were fortunate to be there on a day when there were both musketry and cavalry displays. I got to see a firelock and a flintlock fired; and they do make a loud bang! They are much louder than a modern shotgun, and throw off a fair plume of smoke. We saw three rounds from the flintlock in a minute, which was a neat performance. Having seen the demonstration, I can see how smoke was a problem in battles before smokeless powder. I am pretty sure than most films which depict old battles do not use anywhere near a realistic amount of smoke!
The cavalry display was also good. It is one thing to ready about training cavalry horses, but quite another to see a trained horse worked by a
rider with sword, and see a watermelon hacked off the top of a pole.
After the displays, we headed down to the site of Oldbridge village, near the main gate of the estate. The village was levelled in the 1700s, but a handful of nice face wattle houses have been placed on the site to give an indication of where it stood during the battle. A battalion of Clanrickard’s Regiment was stationed in the village, taking advantage of the cover it offered from the Williamite artillery on the Northern bank of the river. They met the first attack of the day, when Williams Dutch Guards used the cover of King Williams Glen to descend to the river and cross it before storming the village. Clanrickards were forced out and fell back, forming line in the Cornfield before being driven back again.
The main part of the Jacobite army had marched west to Rossnaree, to meet the Williamite flanking march, leaving only about 8,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and the artillery to face the crossings at Oldbridge. The main line of the Jacobite foot were posted south of the Cornfield, away from the worst fire of the Williamite guns. While Rossnaree turned into a pointless standoff over an impassible gorge, at Oldbridge, more and more Williamite troops waded across the river, extending the bridgehead and forming a line eastwards from Oldbridge. They were attacked by jacobite infantry and cavalry in a desperate struggle which only ended when William led his own cavalry across the river at Drybridge and gradually drive the Jacobite horse back.
Rain stoopped play before we covered all of the site; I’ll certainly go back and give it more time. It is only a half an hours drive from Dublin, and close to Bru na Boinne and Mellifont Abbey so there is more than enough to fill a day trip. The battle is covered by various sources, including an Osprey book and a good battlefield guide written by Dr Murtagh. I have some primary text which one of my students digitised, but it isn’t out of copyright so I can’t post it online. I did start marking the site out in Google Maps, which may be interesting
View Boyne Battlefield in a larger map
Leave a Reply