Background
While much of the Protestant population of east Ulster supported the claim of William III to thrones of Ireland, England and Scotland, the rest of Ireland, including the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell and the army, supported James II. As a result, war broke out in Ireland after James was deposed in the Glorious Revolution. At the start of the conflict, the Jacobites were left in control of two fortified positions at Carrickfergus and Charlemont in territory which was predominantly Williamite in sympathy. The local Williamites raised a militia and met in a council at Hillsborough. They made an ineffective assault on Carrickfergus. However, this was easily beaten off and a local Catholic cleric named O'Hegarty reported that the Williamite were badly armed and trained.
Richard Hamilton, the Jacobite commander, was dispatched from Drogheda on March 8 with 2,000 men, in order to pacify the north east of Ireland. Hamilton sent a Presbyterian clergyman, Alexander Osbourne to offer the Hillsborough council a pardon in return for their surrender. However the council, reportedly with Osbourne's encouragement, refused. Hamilton therefore marched north to subdue the Williamites by force.
Read more about this topic: Break Of Dromore
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