Rickard de Bermingham - Second Battle of Athenry

Second Battle of Athenry

Sir William Liath de Burgh had been captured at the battle of Connor in 1315 and had been held hostage in Scotland. Sometime in early, the Earl of Ulster obtained his release. De Burgh arrived back in Connacht with new forces and made his way to Athenry to support de Bermingham. Upon hearing of this, King Fedlim broke off a march towards Roscommon, assembled an army estimated as much as eight thousand, and marched towards Athenry, intending to raze it to the ground.

The exact circumstances surrounding the events, and location, of the Second Battle of Athenry are obscure. All that can be said with certainty is that it was fought somewhere very close to the town on 10 August 1316, and the Gaelic-Irish forces were comprehensively defeated. John Clyn states that one thousand five hundred heads were collected from the battlefield and sent to Dublin for bounty. among the dead were King Fedlim and Tadhg Ó Cellaigh, King of Ui Maine. Their heads were afterwards set on pikes on either side of the town gate. This image is still the coat of arms of Athenry.

Due to a falling-out with King Fedlim, Muirchertach O Brian, Prince of Thomond, defected at some point and aided de Bermingham and de Burgh in defending the town. He became undisputed king of Thomond in 1318. In the same year, Rickard's kinsman, John de Bermingham of Offaly, fought and defeated Edward Bruce at Faughart, for which he was made Earl of Louth.

Local tradition holds that a soldier prayed for deliverance at Lady's Well, one mile east of the town, on the day of the battle, and was rewarded with a vision of the Virgin Mary. The soldier may have been Rickard de Bermingham.