13 June 1798: The Battle of Ballynahinch/Baile na hInse,
(town of the isle) was fought on this day. This battle occurred in County Down
between the insurgents of the United Irishman under General Henry Munro, who
was actually a linen merchant from Lisburn and the forces of Crown under
General Nugent. The town had been seized some days previously by local
insurgents but on the day before the battle a well-armed force of some 2,000
military under Nugent entered it and set about upending the place. That evening
there was a great deal of skirmishing and much of Ballynahinch was ransacked as
the soldiers and Yeomanry engaged in drinking and revelry. The insurgents had
established themselves on the hills to the south and east of the town and had
in all about 5,000 men under arms. However most were armed only with pikes and
any attempt to meet the Crown Forces in open battle was bound to be a massacre.
The superior firepower along with the discipline and cohesion of the soldiers
was bound to tell against the insurgents if the British Army was to march out
the next morning in line of battle.
Munro’s officers urged him to launch a night attack upon the
town and catch the enemy off guard, as they were audibly not in a coherent
state that night anyway to resist a determined assault. But he hesitated to do
so as he did not have confidence in his men that they could carry off with any
degree of certainty such a risky manoeuvre as a night attack. So the hours of
darkness slipped away and with it a substantial number of the men who had
gathered under the flag of the United Irishmen. Many of them in turn lacked
confidence in Munro’s judgement and his obvious lack of experience. They felt
that defeat was all but inevitable if the Crown Forces gained the initiative.
It was readily apparent that when Nugent marched his men out the next day that
the odds would be stacked against them. Even though the United Irishmen had the
numbers the Crown Forces would be able to use their Combined Arms tactics of
Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery to devastating effect upon them.
An eyewitness reported:
A mixed and motley multitude met the eye. They wore no
uniforms, yet they presented a tolerably decent appearance, being dressed no
doubt in their Sunday clothes, some better and some worse. The only thing in
which they all concurred was the wearing of the green, almost every individual
having a knot of ribbon of that colour, sometimes intermixed with yellow in his
hat.
In their arms there was as great a diversity as in their
dress. By far the majority of them had pikes, which were truly formidable
instruments in close fight, but of no use in distant warfare ... others wore
swords, generally of the least efficient kind, and some had merely pitchforks.
At daylight Munro finally decided to attack and launched his
men against the enemy inside the town. Bloody hand to hand fighting ensued and
the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed amongst the burning buildings of the
place. At one stage it looked like Victory lay within the grasp of the United
Irishmen as the Crown Forces fell back. But they eventually rallied and
counterattacked and broke the back of the pikemens brave charges upon their
positions.
In the meantime Nugent had directed other columns to come round in the rear of the hillside camps of his opponents and turn their positions. A detachment from the garrison in Downpatrick had arrived under Colonel Stapelton and circled the town to attack Montalto, a commanding eminence skirted by a thick wood. This was where Munro had established his HQ some days prior to the battle.
These developments unnerved his men and caught between the
obvious superiority now being gained by the military within the town and the
imminent closing off of any viable avenue of escape. This led to the collapse
of their morale and a precipitate retreat away from Ballynahinch by the
survivors of the battle. Munro attempted to rally his men on Ednavady Hill
outside the town but all he could muster by that stage was a motley force of
about 150 combatants. With the Crown Forces closing in for the kill they
decided to make a break for it and scatter, every man for himself. Munro sought
refuge nearby and evaded capture for a few days.
But he was taken
through betrayal, brought back to Lisburn and tried and executed within a very
short period of time. He was hanged almost within view of his own front door
and his head was placed upon display in the Market Square. The town of
Ballynahinch itself lay in ruins with almost half the houses within it burned
during the engagement and its aftermath.
In the following days and weeks the military spread out
across the Countryside, inflicting many atrocities upon those they suspected of
being active participants or silent supporters of the Rising.
With the passage of time there grew up a legend around this
battle that a young woman of some 20 years or so called Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Grey
was present on the field of battle where she bravely stood with her menfolk &
that the County Down heroine rode into battle riding a white pony and
"carrying a stand of colours". In the aftermath she was brutally cut
down and killed and buried unceremoniously amongst the slain at Ballycreen near
Ballynahinch. It is now not possible to verify what is fact or fiction but
there is no doubt that she is the personage best remembered today in
association with this battle.
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