Battle of Knocknaclashy

Part of the Irish Confederate Wars

Date	July 1651
Location	near Banteer, County Cork, southern Ireland
Result	English Parliamentarian victory

Belligerents

Irish Catholic Confederate troops from Munster

English Parliamentarian New Model Army troops

Commanders and leaders

Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry

Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery

Strength

c3000

c.2000

Casualties and losses

c.500

26 dead, 130 wounded

The battle of Knocknaclashy, took place in County Cork in southern Ireland in 1651. In it, an Irish Confederate force led by Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry was defeated by an English Parliamentarian force under Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery. It was the final pitched battle of the Irish Confederate Wars and one of the last of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Most of the province of Munster had fallen to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649-50. Oliver Cromwell had led an assault by the New Model Army from the south-east of Ireland, while Roger Boyle had inspired a mutiny among the English Royalist garrison in Cork, causing them to defect to the Parliamentarians. This had outflanked the defences of Irish Confederates and English Royalists, causing them to retreat behind the river Shannon into Connacht, where the held the fortified cities of Limerick and Galway. Henry Ireton, went on to besiege Limerick. The only organised Irish forces remaining in south Munster were those of Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry, who held out in the mountainous area of west Cork and county Kerry – which was his clan’s native territory. In July 1651, Muskerry set out from Ross Castle in Killarney to try to relieve the besieged defenders of Limerick. He rallied his men by spreading a prophecy that the Irish would win a great battle over the English – such predictions were commonly believed in Irish culture at that time . Muskerry marched in the direction of Mallow with 3000 infantry and some cavalry, hoping to link up with bands of Irish guerrillas or "tories" on the road north. However, Ireton had positioned Boyle in Cork to prevent such a move and Orrerry’s Parliamentarian force intercepted the Irish at Knocknaclashy, near the village of Banteer.

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