Offaly links in Jacobite War to be explored in lecture

The Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society is to host a lecture later this month on the Irish Jacobite Army.

The lecture will take place on Monday, February 17, at 7.30pm (please note the earlier time) at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore, R35 Y5V0. All lectures are open to the public. A nominal €2 to members and €5 to non-members (or a voluntary contribution) is payable. This includes tea and biscuits. Parking is available.

The lecture will be given by Dr Harman Murtagh.

Dr Harman Murtagh is a former senior lecturer and visiting fellow at the now Technological University of the Shannon. He is a former president of the Military History Society of Ireland / Irish Commission for Military History. He recently published The Irish Jacobite army: anatomy of the force (Four Courts, Dublin, 2024).

Dr Murtagh's lecture will deal with the period from 1689 to 1691 during which Ireland was the theatre of a major war involving multi-national armies led by generals of European repute.

The central issue was the restoration of the deposed King James II, but the war was also part of a wider conflict between King Louis XIV’s France and an alliance of European powers.

For the Irish Catholics who backed James, the war was about the recovery of the wealth, land, influence, religious freedom and public employment, they had lost over the preceding century to the influx of new Protestant immigrants from England and Scotland.

One estimate is that 100,000 people died. The war involved military operations throughout the island of Ireland, including sieges and major pitched battles at the Boyne and Aughrim. It was also accompanied by significant partisan warfare.

Offaly soldiers were well represented in the army, and Oxburgh's regiment was raised in the county. Offaly was for a time was on the frontier between the two armies, when it was the scene of considerable military activity, especially by the partisans. The Irish army was not a rabble but a properly organised force which by 1691 had 20,000 men in the field and a further 10,000 in garrison. It depended heavily on France for military leadership, arms and materiel. The leading Irish officer was Patrick Sarsfield. The army was the foundation of the eighteenth-century Irish brigades in France and Spain.