Battle of Rathmines

Battle of Rathmines
Part of the Irish Confederate Wars
The Battle of Rathmines 2 August 1649
Date 2 August 1649 Location Rathmines near Dublin, eastern Ireland Result English Parliamentarian Victory
Belligerents
Irish Confederate Catholics and English Royalists	English Parliamentarains
Commanders and leaders
James Butler, Earl of Ormonde	Michael Jones
Strength
11,000	5,000
Casualties and losses
c.600–1,500 killed 2,500 captured	Low

The Battle of Rathmines was fought in and around what is now the Dublin suburb of Rathmines in August 1649, during the Irish Confederate Wars, the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was fought between an English Parliamentarian army under Michael Jones which held Dublin and an army composed of Irish Confederate and English Royalist troops under the command of the Earl of Ormonde. The battle ended in the rout of the Confederate /Royalist army and facilitated the landing in Ireland of Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army several days later, who in the next four years completed the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

By 1649, Ireland had already been at war for eight years, since the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. During this time, most of Ireland was ruled by the Irish Confederate Catholics, a government of Irish Catholics based in Kilkenny. The Confederates allied themselves with the English Royalists in the English Civil War, against the English Parliament, which was committed to re-conquering Ireland, suppressing the Catholic religion and destroying the Irish Catholic land-owning class. After much internal in-fighting, the Confederates signed a peace treaty with Charles I, who was soon to be executed by the Rump Parliament, agreeing to accept English Royalist troops into Ireland and put their own armies under the command of Royalist officers, in particular James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde. By 1649, the English Parliament held only two small enclaves in Ireland –at Dublin and Derry.

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