Battle of Scarrifholis - The Battle

The Battle

MacMahon’s inexperience was further exposed in how he drew up his troops for battle. He placed a small advance guard in front his army and positioned the rest of his troops in a huge solid mass, which meant that it would be very difficult to manoeuvre and very few units could actually engage the enemy, being stuck within the ranks of their own men. Coote, meanwhile, who had been fighting since 1641 and whose father had been a professional soldier, drew up his men in small flexible units – able to reinforce one another and to move around the battlefield.

The battle started when Coote sent an infantry detachment to meet the Irish advance party. The two sides exchanged musket volleys at close range and then fought hand to hand with pikes and musket butts. However, Coote steadily reinforced his infantry and eventually drove the Irishmen back into the front of their formation. Because of the deployment method MacMahon adopted, it hemmed in the front ranks of the Ulster army, who were trapped behind their own panicked skirmishers and the pursuing Parliamentarian infantry. Seeing his chance, Coote sent more infantry to attack the flanks of the Irish formation, trapping the whole force between his men and the mountain, which was their initial position of advantage which they descended from to engage Coote's troops.

The predicament the Ulster Army found itself in was a similar to the Roman army that Hannibal destroyed at battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Although they still outnumbered their enemies, they were pinned in dense uncoordinated mass, unable to defend themselves against the troops who had surrounded them. Increasingly, they were a mob of terrified individuals rather than a disciplined military unit. The fact they were also very short of ammunition meant that the Parliamentarians were able to pour volleys into this dense mass without effective reply, cutting down their quarry from a distance. At this point, all was lost, and their leaders and horsemen fled the battlefield, pursued by the Parliamentarian cavalry and by the local Protestant population – seeking revenge for massacres at the hands of the Irish in 1641-42. Nevertheless, the doomed Ulster infantry fought doggedly until they were slaughtered at Meenaroy, Stranabratog and Welshtown after fleeing over Cark mountain into Cloghan. Interestingly two thirds of the Irish dead were found on the battlefield itself rather than along the line of pursuit which stands as stark testament to the determination of the Ulster troops knowing Coote's reputation as a merciless killer and breaker of treaties.