The Battle of Kilrush was a minor engagement at the start of the Irish
Confederate Wars. It was fought in April 1642 between an English army under the Earl of Ormonde, and
Richard Butler, 3rd Viscount Mountgarret, who led an untrained
horde of Irish troops raised during the Irish
Rebellion of 1641. Ormonde led a punitive raid into rebel held territory, burning the lands of landowners who had joined
the rebellion. His troops marched from Dublin to Portlaoise,
re-supplying the English garrison there before returning to Dublin. On their return march, the government troops were intercepted
by Mountgarret’s rebel militia at Kilrush, near Athy in
County Kildare. The Irish troops were badly equipped and completely untrained, and after
a short fire fight, many of them fled. Most of the Irish reached the safety of a nearby bog, where the English horse could not
follow, but some of them were overtaken and killed. Irish sources claim their casualties were very light, while Ormonde claimed
that over 500 of them had been killed. It is probable that losses on both sides were low. Ormonde afterwards successfully
returned to Dublin.
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