Battle of Rathmines - The Battle

The Battle

In July 1649, Ormonde marched his coalition forces of 11,000 men to the outskirts of Dublin, to take the city from its Parliamentary garrison, which had landed there in 1647. Ormonde took Rathfarnham Castle and camped at Palmerston Park in Rathgar, about 4 km south of the city. The area from Ormonde’s camp to the city of Dublin is now a heavily urbanised area, but in 1649, it was open countryside. Ormonde began inching his forces closer to Dublin by taking the villages around its perimeter and to this end, sent a detachment of troops to occupy Baggotrath Castle, on the site of present-day Baggot Street bridge.

However, Ormonde was not expecting Michael Jones, the Parliamentary commander, to take the initiative and had not drawn up his troops for battle. Unfortunately for the Royalists, this is exactly what Jones did, launching a surprise attack on 2 August from the direction of Irishtown with 5,000 men and sending Ormonde’s men at Baggotsrath reeling backwards towards their camp in confusion.

Too late, Ormonde and his commanders realised what was going on and sent units into action piecemeal to try to hold up the Parliamentarian advance, so that they could form their army into battle formation. However, Jones’ cavalry simply outflanked each force sent against them, sending them too fleeing back south through the townland of Rathmines. The battle became a rout as scores of fleeing Royalist and Confederate soldiers were cut down by the pursuing Roundheads. The fighting finally ended when the English Royalist troops under Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin mounted a disciplined rearguard action, allowing the rest to get away. Ormonde claimed he had lost less than a thousand men. Jones claimed to have killed around 4000 Royalist or Confederate soldiers and taken 2517 prisoners, while losing only a handful himself. Modern historians tend to believe Jones, because in contemporary warfare, if an army was put to flight and pursued, it very often took huge casualties, while the pursuers took very few. Ormonde also lost his entire artillery train and all his baggage and supplies.

In the aftermath of the battle, Ormonde withdrew his remaining troops from around Dublin, allowing Oliver Cromwell to land in the city (at Ringsend) with 15,000 veteran troops on 15 August. Cromwell called the battle "an astonishing mercy", taking it as a sign that God had approved of his conquest of Ireland. Without Jones' victory at Rathmines, the New Model Army would have had no port to land at in Ireland and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland would have been much more difficult. Ormonde's incompetent generalship at Rathmines (and subsequently) disillusioned many Irish Confederates with their alliance with the English Royalists and Ormonde was ousted as commander of the Irish forces in the following year.