Battle of Kilcullen - Old Kilcullen 7 A.m

Old Kilcullen 7 A.m

The outbreak of the rebellion on the night of 23/24 May 1798 led to failed assaults on Ballymore-Eustace, Naas, and Prosperous. As news of the rising spread throughout Kildare, Kilcullen rebels began to mobilise in an old churchyard at a hill on the southern outskirts of the town, near Old Kilcullen. About 200 had gathered by daybreak, including a number of survivors of the attack on Ballymore-Eustace, when they were spotted by local military under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Dundas, Commander of the Army of the Midlands, whose headquarters, Castle Martin, was located only three miles away. Dundas quickly mustered a combined force of about 120 infantry, cavalry and dragoons and marched to disperse the rebel gathering.

The 80 or so cavalry and dragoons raced ahead of the infantry and upon arrival at the base of the hill, charged the rebel gathering. The rebels however, quickly entrenched themselves on three sides by using a ditch and the walls of the ruined church to protect their flanks. The cavalry were driven back by the long pikes of the rebels, losing over thirty of their number and many of their horses in the fighting. Two of their captains lay dead on the field, one of whom, a Captain Erskine, reportedly met his death after the battle, as he lay disabled with a broken leg from a horse fall, when he was discovered by an old woman scavenging the battlefield who stabbed him to death with a rusty knife. The rebels threatened to take advantage of the disarray of the cavalry with their own attack but the eventual arrival of infantry shielded the survivors withdrawal to Kilcullen Bridge where they were reinforced by about 100 local yeomen.