Page 223 - Demo

Chapter Seven 223
August of that year, Thomas Preston who had besieged the town of Trim, in county Meath, was himself engaged by Lieutenat-General Jones at Dangan Hill, near Summerhill, in the same county and defeated with the loss of 5,000 men; while in Novenmber, Murrough O’Brien “Murrough of the Burnings” who had under him a large force, equipped and sup- plied by the English Parliament, thoroughly routed the Confederates of the South, led by Gerald Barry, at Knocknanoss, near Mallow, county Cork.
The fortunes of the Confederation were now at their lowest ebb and its military power at its weakest. In 1648 Ormond returned to Ireland as Lord-Lieutenant and the Supreme Council of the Confederation immediately made terms with him; but the terms mattered little, because by then the Royalist cause was on the verge of being lost. Yet, that day still had not arrived, and in Ireland there were still a few more twists and turns to be inserted in this intricate tableaux of intrigue.
In the early part of 1649, ‘Murrough of the Burnings,’ having devastated much of Munster on behalf of the Parliament, switched his loyalities to the King and began prepa- rations to burn out and scatter those of his former supporters who had not followed suit. About the same time,the beginning of 1649, the Confederates, Murrough and the Royalists agreed the terms of an alliance, with Ormond as its leader. Even though Dublin, Derry, Drogheda, Dundalk and a few other strategic places were still in the hands of the forces of the Parliament, and a body of the “Old” Irish, under O’Neill still held aloof from the Royal- ist alliance-they were the exceptions, and with the Confederation dismembered, it dissolved what was left of itself, after which, the authority of Ormond was acknowledged throughout the land.
In England the Cromwellian Interregnum was now in power and time had inally run out for Charles 1, who was executed by the victorious English parliament in January 1649. His heir, Charles 11, was proclaimed King by the Royalists, and though it would be some years before he attained the throne, in Ireland his power was widely acknowledged and sup- port ofered. In a show of force, Ormond and Murrough O Brien went on the ofensive. A large body of the new Irish Royalist army commanded by O’ Brien took Dundalk and Drogheda from the Parliamentary forces, but in July, after laying siege to Dublin, the city he so lately surrendered, Ormond was defeated and routed at the battle since known as ‘The Battle of Rathmines’ by Colonel Michael Jones.
“Our loss of men was little, there not being twenty missing, but many wounded. Of