The Battle of Aughrim
From “Anna Cosgrave,” an unpublished Novel.
By William Carleton.
Many of our readers will be surprised at what we are about to relate. Nay, what is more, we fear they will not yield us credence, but impute it probably to our own invention; whereas we beg to assure them that it is strictly and literally true. The period of the scene we are about to describe may be placed in the year 1806. At the time neither party feeling nor religious animosity had yet subsided after the ferment of the ’98 insurrection and the division between the Catholic and Protestant population was very strong and bitter. The rebellion, which commenced in its first principles among the northern Presbyterians and other Protestant classes in a spirit of independence and a love of liberty, soon, in consequence of the influence of some bigots, assumed the character of a civil war between the two religions,—the most internecine description of war that ever devastated a country or drenched it in blood.
A usual amusement at the time was to reproduce the “Battle of Aughrim,” in some spacious barn, with a winnowing-cloth for the curtain. This play, bound up with “The Siege of Londonderry,” was one of the reading-books in the hedge schools of that day, and circulated largely among the people of all religions: it had, indeed, a most extraordinary influence among the lower classes. “The Battle of Aughrim,” however, because it was written in heroic verse, became so popular that it was rehearsed at almost every Irish hearth, both Catholic and Protestant, in the north. The spirit it evoked was irresistible. The whole country became dramatic. To repeat it at the fireside in winter nights was nothing: the Orangemen should act it, and show to the whole world how the field of Aughrim was so gloriously won. The consequence was that frequent rehearsals took place. The largest and most spacious barns and kilns were fitted up, the night of representation was given out, and crowds, even to suffocation, as they say, assembled to witness the celebrated “Battle of Aughrim.”
At first, it was true, the Orangemen had it all to themselves. This, however, could not last. The Catholics felt that they were as capable of patronising the drama as the victors of Aughrim. A strong historic spirit awoke among them. They requested of the Orangemen to be allowed the favour of representing the Catholic warriors of the disastrous field, and, somewhat to their surprise, the request was immediately granted. The Orangemen felt that there was something awkward and not unlike political apostasy in acting the part of Catholics in the play, under any circumstances, no matter how dramatic. It was consequently agreed that the Orangemen should represent the officers of the great man on whose name and title their system had been founded, and the Catholics should represent their own generals and officers under the name of St. Ruth, Sarsfield, and Colonel O’Neill. The first representation of this well-known play took place in the town of Au——. During the few weeks before the great night nothing was heard but incessant repetitions and rehearsals of the play.
The fact of this enactment of the play by individuals so strongly opposed to each other both in religion and politics excited not only an unusual degree of curiosity, but some apprehension as to the result, especially when such language as this was heard:—
“We licked them before,” said the Orangemen, “an’ by japers, we’ll lick them again. Jack Tait acts General Jingle, an’ he’s the boy will show them what chance a Papist has against a Prodestan!”
“Well, they bate us at Aughrim,” said the Catholics, “but with Tam Whiskey at our head, we’ll turn the tebles and lick them now.”
Both parties on that night were armed with swords for the battle scene, which represented the result of the engagement. Unfortunately, when the scene came on, instead of the bloodless fiction of the drama they began to slash each other in reality, and had it not been for the interference of the audience there is no doubt that lives would have been lost. After this, swords were interdicted and staves substituted. The consequence, as might have been expected, was that heads were broken on both sides, and a general fight between Protestant and Catholic portions of the actors and the audience ensued.
In the meanwhile the dramatic mania had become an epidemic. Its fascination carried overt opposition before it. A new system was adopted. The Orange party was to be represented by staunch Catholics, all probably Ribbonmen, and the Catholics by the rankest and most violent Orangemen in the parish. This course was resorted to in order to prevent the serious quarrels with which the play generally closed. Such was the state which the dramatic affairs of the parish had reached when the occasion, a summer evening, arrived that had been appointed by the herculean manager, John Tait, for the exhibition of “The Battle of Aughrim,” in a large and roomy barn of a wealthy farmer named Jack Stuart, in the townland of Rark.
His house stood on a little swelling eminence beside which an old road ran, and into which the little green before the door sloped. The road, being somewhat lower, passed close to his outhouses, which faced the road, but in consequence of their positions a loft was necessary to constitute the barn, so that it might be level with the haggard on the elevation. The entrance to the barn was by a door in one of the gables, whilst the stable and cow-house, or byre as it was called, were beneath the loft, and had their door open to the road. This accurate description will be found necessary in order to understand what followed.
In preparing the barn for the entertainment, the principal embarrassment consisted in want of seats.
Necessity, however, is well-known to be the mother of invention; and in this case that fact was established at the expense of honest Jack Stuart. Five or six sacks of barley were stretched length-wise on that side of the wall which faced the road. Now, barley, although the juice of it makes many a head light, is admitted to be the heaviest of all grain. On the opposite side, next the haggard, the seats consisted of chairs and forms, some of them borrowed from the neighbours. The curtain (i.e., the winnowing-cloth) was hung up at the south end, and everything, so far as preparation went, was very well managed. Of course, it was unnecessary to say that the entertainment was free to such as could find room, for which there was many an angry struggle.
We have said that from an apprehension that the heroes on both sides might forget the fiction and resort to reality by actual fighting, it had generally been arranged that the Catholic party should be represented by the Orangemen, and vice versa; and so it was in this instance. The caste of the piece was as follows:—
| Baron de Ginckel (General of the English forces) | Tom Whiskey. |
| (A perfect devil at the cudgels when sober, especially against an Orangeman.) | |
| Marquis de Ruvigny | Denis Shevlin. |
| (Ditto with Tom Whiskey as to fighting.) | |
| General Talmash | Barney Broghan. |
| (A fighting Blacksmith.) | |
| General Mackay | Dandy Delaney. |
| (At present on his keeping—but place of birth unknown.) | |
| Colonels Herbert and Earles | Tom M‘Roarkin, of Springstown, and Paddy Rafferty, of Dernascrobe. |
| (Both awfully bellicose, and never properly at peace unless when in a fight.) | |
| The cast of the Catholic leaders was this:— | |
| Monsieur St. Ruth (General of the Irish Forces) | Jacky Vengeance. |
| (An Orangeman who had lost a brother at the battle of Vinegar Hill, hence the nickname of Vengeance.) | |
| Sarsfield | Big Jack Tait. |
| (Master of an Orange Lodge.) | |
| (We know not how far the belief in Sarsfield’s immense size is true to fact; but be this as it may, we have it from the tradition that he was a man of prodigious stature, and Jack was six feet four in height, and strong in proportion.) | |
| General Dorrington | George Twin. |
| (Of Mallybarry, another man of prowess in party fights, and an Orangeman.) | |
| Colonel Talbot | Lick-Papish Nelson. |
| Colonel Gordon O’Neill | Fighting Grimes. |
| Sir Charles Godfrey (a young English gentleman of fortune, in love with Colonel Talbot’s Daughter, and volunteer in the Irish army) | Jemmy Lynch, the fighting tailor. |
| (He fought for his customers, whether Orange or Green, according as they came in his way.) | |
| Jemima (Colonel Talbot’s daughter) | Grasey (Grace) Stuart. |
| (A bouncing virago, at least twelve stone weight.) | |
| Lucinda (wife of Colonel Herbert) | Dolly Stuart. |
| (Her sister, much of the same proportions.) | |
| Ghost | Cooney Mullowney. |
| (Of the Bohlies, a townland adjoining.) | |
On the chairs and forms, being the seats of honour, were placed the Protestant portion of the audience, because they were the most wealthy and consequently the most respectable, at least in the eyes of the world—by which we mean the parish. On the barley-sacks were deposited the “Papishes,” because they were then the poor and the downtrodden people, so that they and “the Prodestants” sat on opposite sides of the barn. There were no political watch-words, no “three cheers” for either this man or that, owing to the simple reason that no individual present had ever seen a theatre in his life. The only exception was that of an unfortunate flunkey, who had seen a play in Dublin, and shouted “up with the rag,” for which, as it was supposed that he meant to turn the whole thing into ridicule, he was kicked out by the Ghost, who, by the way, was one of the stoutest fellows among them, and would have been allotted to a higher part were it not for the vileness of his memory.
At length the play commenced, and went on with remarkable success. The two batches of heroes were in high feather—King William’s party (to wit, Tom Whiskey and his friends) standing accidentally on that side of the barn which was occupied by the barley-sacks and the Papishes, and the Catholic generals ranged with the Orange audience on the opposite side. It was now the Ghost’s cue to enter from behind the winnowing-cloth, but before the apparition had time to appear, the prompter’s attention was struck by a sudden sinking of the party on the sacks, which seemed rather unaccountable. Yet, as it did not appear to have been felt by the parties themselves, who were too much wrapped up in the play, it excited neither notice nor alarm. At length the Ghost came out, dressed in a white sheet his face rendered quite spectral by flour. Sir Charles Godfrey, alias Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, had just concluded the following words, addressed to the Ghost himself, who in life it appeared had been his father:—
“Oh, I’ll sacrifice
A thousand Romish sowls who, shocked with woe,
Shall, bound in shackles, fill the shades below.”
Ghost.—“Be not so rash, wild youth——”
He had scarcely uttered the words when a noise like the “crack of doom” was heard: one-half of the barn-floor had disappeared! The Ghost made a step to approach Sir Charles, his son, when the last object we saw was his heels—his legs dressed in blue woollen stockings and his sturdy hinder parts cased in strong corduroys, in the act of disappearing in the abyss beneath. Down he and the others went, and were lodged in the cow-house below amid the warm manure.
The consternation, the alarm, the fright and terror among the safe and Protestant side of the audience, could not be described. But the disaster proved to be one of the most harmless for its nature that ever occurred, for it was only destructive to property. Not a single injury was sustained with the exception of that which befell the Ghost, who had his arm dislocated at the elbow. The accident now resumed a religious hue. The Catholics charged the others with the concoction of a Protestant plot, by putting them together on what they called the rotten side of the house. The wrangle became high and abusive, and was fast hastening into polemical theology, when the dramatis personæ offered to settle it in a peaceable way, by fighting out the battle on the green. It was the scene of terrible and strong confusion, so much so that all we can glean from our recollection is the image of a desperate personal conflict between the actors whose orange and green ribbons were soon flung off as false emblems of the principles which they had adopted only for the sake of ending the play in a peaceable manner.