Battle of Saintfield | |||||||
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Part of the Irish Rebellion | |||||||
Plaque commemorating the battle. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Irishmen | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Richard Frazer McKinstry (KIA) | Colonel Hon. Granville Anson Chetwynd-Stapylton | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1,000 at least | 350, two six-pounder guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
30–40 killed | 58 killed ~10 captured |
The Battle of Saintfield was a short but bloody clash in County Down, Northern Ireland. The battle was the first major conflict of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Down. The battle took place on Saturday, 9 June 1798.
A rebel force, over a thousand strong, converged on a large house owned by the McKee family. The McKees were a family of loyalists, who were unpopular in the region: one year before, they had provided information to the authorities leading to the arrest of the radical Presbyterian minister and United Irishman Thomas Ledlie Birch and some members of his congregation.
The McKees knew that they were unpopular and were thus armed to the teeth. As the house was surrounded, shots were fired from the fortified house, hitting some of the attackers. Gunfire held the insurgents back for a short while, until one of them, a fiddler by the name of Orr, managed to sneak around the back of the house with a ladder, and thence set the roof alight. The house was destroyed, and all eight members of the family inside killed. News of this quickly reached the British forces in the area, and a 300 strong force under Colonel Granville Staplyton, consisting of Newtownards Yeomanry cavalry and 270 York Fencibles, as well as two light cannon, marched to the region. [1]
The rebels, however, had anticipated the move and were waiting in ambush. Stapylton saw the road ahead twisting into woods, and ordered a pair of scouts to check for anything suspicious. The men do not seem to have been particularly vigilant, as when they returned they declared that the road ahead was safe.
The redcoats marched into the wooded area, a dense hedge snaking along the road on one side: on the opposite side, the ground steadily rose, with the areas higher up the slope dominated by demesne woods. This provided cover for the Irish. The Irish rebels were mostly armed with pikes and the terrain allowed them to quickly swarm the soldiers on the road below. In the fierce hand-to-hand combat that followed the British forces were overwhelmed. One of the fencibles, a veteran of wars in Europe who managed to survive the attack, later stated that he had never before witnessed such fierce fighting: Every man had to fight his way in the best manner he could in opposition to the charged pike and other weapons, to which he had not been accustomed.
Over fifty men were piked to death before Stapylton managed to order the soldiers; he then brought his cannon into play against the mass of rebels before him, inflicting enough casualties with canister and grapeshot to blunt their attack. In the meantime, Stapylton's force used the situation to march to safety. The following day the York Fencible Regiment of Foot, Stapylton had left to garrison Newtownards repulsed a rebel attack led by David Bailie Warden but then withdrew through Comber to re-join their commander in Belfast. [2]
The battle of Saintfield was largely regarded as a victory of the United Irish rebels. Long after, in the 1950s, two skeletons and a sword and bayonet of the York fencibles were found in the area.
However, the rebellion in Down would prove short lived. The day after the battle, "Pike Sunday", Birch preached to the whole rebel army assembled at Creevy Rocks, a hill outside the town:
Men of Down, we are gathered here today ... to pray and fight for the liberty of this Kingdom of Ireland. We have grasped the pike and musket to fight for the right against might, to drive the bloodhounds of King George the German king beyond the seas. This is Ireland, we are Irish and shall be free. [3] [4]
The assembled north Down army marched south joining the larger rebel command led by Henry Munro. This was routed on 12 June at the Battle of Ballynahinch.[ citation needed ]
Many of the dead from both sides of the battle of Saintfield were placed in a mass grave within the grounds of the nearby Presbyterian church. Although there is a plaque signifying the location of these graves, the area seems largely neglected with what appears to be temporary vehicle access over the belligerents final resting place. In May 2010 a memorial park was finished and opened. The area has been cleared and landscaped, with several new plaques and information boards being erected. The graves have been refurbished and the headstones relaid.[ citation needed ]
Newtownards is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the civil parish of Newtownards and the historic baronies of Ards Lower and Castlereagh Lower. Newtownards is in the Ards and North Down Borough. The population was 29,677 in the 2021 Census.
Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of LondonderryPC (Ire) (1739–1821), was a County Down landowner, Irish Volunteer, and member of the parliament who, exceptionally for an Ulster Scot and Presbyterian, rose within the ranks of Ireland's "Anglican Ascendancy." His success was fuelled by wealth acquired through judicious marriages, and by the advancing political career of his son, Viscount Castlereagh. In 1798 he gained notoriety for refusing to intercede on behalf of James Porter, his local Presbyterian minister, executed outside the Stewart demesne as a rebel.
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican rebellion. Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Irish Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain.
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was a popular insurrection against the British Crown in what was then the separate, but subordinate, Kingdom of Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen. First formed in Belfast by Presbyterians opposed to the landed Anglican establishment, the Society, despairing of reform, sought to secure a republic through a revolutionary union with the country's Catholic majority. The grievances of a rack-rented tenantry drove recruitment.
Saintfield is a village and civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is about halfway between Belfast and Downpatrick on the A7 road. It had a population of 3,588 in the 2021 Census, made up mostly of commuters working in both south and central Belfast, which is about 18 km away. The population of the surrounding countryside is mostly involved in farming.
The Battle of New Ross was a military engagement which took place in New Ross, County Wexford during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It was fought between the Society of United Irishmen rebels and government forces garrisoning the town. The attack on the town of New Ross on the River Barrow, was an attempt by the recently victorious rebels to break out of county Wexford across the river Barrow and to spread the rebellion into county Kilkenny and the outlying province of Munster.
Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the Irish seat of the Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry. Prominently associated with the 2nd Marquess, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Britain's Foreign Secretary at the Congress of Vienna and with the 7th Marquess, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the former Air Minister who at Mount Stewart attempted private diplomacy with Hitler's Germany, the house and its contents reflect the history of the family's leading role in social and political life in Britain and Ireland.
Ballywalter is a village or townland and civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the east coast of the Ards Peninsula between Donaghadee and Ballyhalbert. Ballywalter was formerly known as Whitkirk as far back as the 12th century. It had a population of 2,027 people in the 2011 census.
The Battle of Antrim was fought on 7 June 1798, in County Antrim, Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 between British troops and Irish insurgents led by Henry Joy McCracken. The British won the battle, beating off a rebel attack on Antrim town following the arrival of reinforcements but the county governor, John O'Neill, 1st Viscount O'Neill, was fatally wounded.
James "Jemmy" Hope was a radical democrat in Ireland who organised among tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers for the Society of the United Irishmen. In the Rebellion of 1798 he fought alongside Henry Joy McCracken at the Battle of Antrim. In 1803 he attempted to renew the insurrection against the British Crown in an uprising coordinated by Robert Emmett and the new republican directorate in Dublin. Among United Irishmen, Hope was distinguished by his conviction that "the fundamental question at issue between the rulers and the people" was "the condition of the labouring class".
Events from the year 1798 in Ireland.
Elizabeth "Betsy" Gray, is a folkloric figure in the annals of 1798 Rebellion in Ireland. Ballads, poems and popular histories celebrate her presence in the ranks of the United Irishmen, and her death, on 12 June 1798 at the Battle of Ballynahinch. Contemporary records are unable to confirm the tale that has been told in all its detail, but they do point to the role of women in supporting the insurrection, including as combatants in the field. Contesting ownership of her memory, in 1898 local unionists disrupted Irish nationalist centenary commemorations and destroyed her grave marker.
The battle of Ballynahinch was a military engagement of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 between a force of roughly 4,000 United Irishmen rebels led by Henry Munro and approximately 2,000 government troops under the command of George Nugent. After rebel forces had occupied Newtownards on 9 June, they gathered the next day in the surrounding countryside and elected Munro as their leader, who occupied Ballyhinch on 11 June. Nugent led a column of government troops in 12 June which recaptured the town and bombarded rebel positions. On the next day, the rebels attacked Ballyhinch, but were driven back and defeated.
Henry Munro was a United Irishman born in Lisburn, County Down, who in 1798 commanded rebel forces, the United Army of Down, at the Battle of Ballynahinch.
The Battle of St Matthew's or Battle of Short Strand was a gun battle that took place on the night of 27–28 June 1970 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was fought between the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Ulster loyalists in the area around St Matthew's Roman Catholic church. This lies at the edge of the Short Strand, a Catholic enclave in a mainly-Protestant part of the city. Violence had erupted there, and in other parts of Belfast, following marches by the Orange Order. The battle lasted about five hours and ended at dawn when loyalists withdrew. The British Army and police were deployed nearby but did not intervene. Three people were killed and at least 26 wounded in the fighting, while another three were killed in north Belfast.
Reverend William Sinclair was an Irish Presbyterian minister and, as a radical democrat, a member of the Society of United Irishmen. Forced after the rebellion of 1798 into American exile, he became a leading figure in the Irish immigrant community in Baltimore.
James Dickey was a young barrister from a Presbyterian family in Crumlin in the north of Ireland who was active in the Society of the United Irishmen and was hanged with Henry Joy McCracken for leading rebels at the Battle of Antrim.
Market House is a municipal building in Conway Square, Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a Grade B+ listed building.
Thomas Ledlie Birch (1754–1828) was a Presbyterian minister and radical democrat in the Kingdom of Ireland. Forced into American exile following the suppression of the 1798 rebellion, he wrote A Letter from An Irish Emigrant (1799).
James Porter was an Irish Presbyterian minister and satirist. He was executed in 1798.